THE Mollerin Rock Dohne stud has a new home at Cadoux after it was announced recently it had been sold by Ian and Steph Longmuir and family, Koorda.
The stud has been purchased by Anthony and Vickie Applegate and their sons Jayden and Mitchell, Cadoux, who are excited to be running sheep back on their property again after nearly a 10-year absence.
The sale, which was negotiated through Elders, comprised of 600 stud ewes, 300 ram lambs, 300 ewe lambs and a number of stud sires.
Mr Longmuir said the family was sad to see the stud go but they were very happy it had gone to a good home, in the local area.
"It is certainly in good hands and I think the Applegates will do a good job with it in the future," Mr Longmuir said.
"Even though we have sold the stud, I am still going to stay involved and help the Applegates out going forward."
The Applegate family is familiar with running a stud, having been involved in the sheep industry for a number of years, as Anthony's father Ernest (Dick Applegate) ran the Toniwarra Poll Merino stud from the late 1970s through to the early 1990s.
Anthony helped manage this stud from the mid 1980s to late 1990s alongside his father.
Anthony Applegate said the family was excited to purchase the stud and was looking forward to meeting clients in the coming weeks at the field days and the sale.
"Mitch is going to be driving the stud and as he is the one who has encouraged me to get back into running sheep after becoming keen on sheep following two years at the WA College of Agriculture, Cunderdin," Mr Applegate said.
"He did his last two years at Cunderdin Ag and that sparked his interest in running sheep.
"He started in the shearing shed at Cunderdin with Wayne Laird and his passion just grew from there.
"We did have discussions in terms of what we wanted to run if we got back into sheep given, we had run Merinos in the past with a wool focus but in the end the dual-purpose traits of the Dohne were a major factor in us purchasing the stud.
"Being Merinos, they still have a good wool quality but you also get an earlier maturing lamb which can be turned off quicker."
Mr Applegate said purchasing the Mollerin Rock stud had not only given them the opportunity to get back into sheep in a good way, but also spread some risk.
"Our aim will be to run the stud in a similar manner to the Longmuirs and we are grateful Ian has agreed to stay on and mentor Mitch to maintain the integrity in the stud," Mr Applegate said.
Elders stud stock manager Tim Spicer said Elders was sad to see the Longmuirs sell up and he thanked them for the strong relationship and business over many years, wishing them all the best in their future endeavours.
"We are very excited and happy to see the stud move locally to the Applegate family," Mr Spicer said.
"We believe they will serve the Mollerin Rock legacy and clients extremely well into the future."
The stud was founded by the Longmuir family in 2003 on ewes from the Far Valley stud and sires from the Far Valley, Amuri Creek and Koobelup studs and since then it has introduced genetics from other studs Australia-wide.
In the early stages of the stud Mr Longmuir said they concentrated on the dual-purpose traits of the breed but in the past three to four years they had a real focus on the wool side.
"Our aim was to improve both wool quality and quantity and with this in mind we purchased two sires with really good wool attributes from the Koonik stud at the 2016 National sale, which had the wool attributes we were chasing," Mr Longmuir said.
"The impact of these two sires on the wool quality is just starting to show through in our past few drops of lambs and you can really see it in this year's sale team which has some really good wools among them.
"We actually kept a son from one of these Koonik rams from the 2017-drop of lambs and he has the best wool I have ever seen on a Dohne sire, it is a real stylish wool."
This year the Applegates aim to offer about 120 rams in the stud's annual ram sale on their property at Cadoux on Friday, September 13.
The Applegates will display rams prior to the sale at the Dowerin GWN7 Machinery Field Days in the Milne Feeds Marquee on August 28 and 29 and at the Koorda Show on Saturday, September 7.