FEEDLOTS in some of WA’s driest Wheatbelt areas have not only saved livestock businesses, but also assisted their owners to take top placings in WAMMCO’s first Producer of the Month contest for 2019.
Prominent Lake Grace Prime SAMM pioneer and stud breeder Ross Taylor and his family team at Tiarri returned to the WAMMCO monthly winners circle with a line of 261 pure Prime SAMM lambs processed at Katanning on January 30.
These lambs averaged 23.46kg and returned $155.87 with 98.08 per cent of the draft in WAMMCO’s sweet spot.
Ross, wife Pauline, daughter Kelly-Anne and her son Dale and daughter Mia battled dry dams and scarce pastures from just 230mm of rainfall for the season, to win the title with a draft of woolly, pure Prime SAMM lambs finished on a feedlot ration consisting of grain, mineral/vitamin supplements and mainly barley straw from a neighbour, after their own hay crop failed.
The family is in the process of expanding their major feedlot on Tiarri to underwrite both their Prime SAMM stud and commercial lamb operations.
“The two past tough seasons have further confirmed our faith in Prime SAMM genetics and their ability to thrive in this environment, both for ourselves and our stud clients,” Ross said.
“Lotfeeding our stud ewes, stud ram and ewe lambs, and to finish our commercial lambs can be expensive, and success depends entirely on the ability of your stock to perform.”
The Taylor family originally moved from Dumbleyung in the 1970s to east of Lake Grace in a quest for more acreage and were quick to see the opportunities being created by WAMMCO for breeding prime lamb in early 2000.
Their Tiarri stud was established in 2005 on Prime SAMM genetics from Rockdale at Dumbleyung and the later purchase of 500 stud ewes from Kindelka stud, Newdegate.
A further boost came three years ago with the purchase of the Uralla stud.
Tiarra and its clients have won a range of annual and monthly WAMMCO competitions since the stud was founded.
As manager of genetics for Tiarri, daughter Kelly-Anne has concentrated on improving wool quality and production over the past few years, and is now refocussing her attention to increasing the fertility and weight gain capacity of their Prime SAMMs.
The family was happy to average just over 100pc in their Prime SAMMs over the past two tough seasons, having seen higher lambing scores can also mean extra survival problems.
Kelly-Anne is keen to access data from the new DEXA system to be installed at Katanning this year and to capitalise on utilising electronic tags in the year ahead.
Tiarri sold 180 Prime SAMM rams to clients on an expanding range of properties between Esperance and Geraldton in 2018.