IT'S a family affair for sisters Amanda Smith and Sam King and their sheep enterprises at Perenjori.
They grew up in Trayning where their family had a farming operation which included sheep, meaning they had a taste of the farming lifestyle early on.
"Our grandfather Neil Purdy made a point of leaving lots of the sheep work until the school holidays, so we could help out," Sam said.
Sam first moved to the Perenjori area after meeting her now-husband Jason King in 2007, while Amanda followed not long after in 2008 after meeting neighbour Clinton Smith, when visiting Sam.
Amanda described it as a fairytale story the way they came to be farming next to each other.
Clint and Jason have lived next door to each other their whole lives and have always been close friends.
The proximity meant they could bounce ideas about sheep off each other.
"We still have a lot to learn but it's great to be able to do it together," Sam said.
Sam and Jason have three children, while Amanda and Clint have three children with a fourth on the way.
"It's great because the kids can all be involved and they help out with the sheep as well," they said.
When it comes to the sheep on the two farms, Amanda and Sam love to be involved, particularly during the busier times of the year, while Jason and Clint work hard on the cropping side of the businesses.
Sam said it was great that the sisters were entrusted to be so involved in their individual sheep operations.
"The farm encompasses so much of how we live our lives so to be involved is important," Sam said.
"It gives us something to do and get our teeth into."
When it comes to their individual flocks, the Smiths run 1100 breeding Merino ewes which they join to Dohnes as well as Merino rams on their 4650 hectare property.
The Kings run 1600 purebred Merinos, but are likely to reduce their numbers slightly so they are a more manageable size on their 8000ha farm.
Amanda said Merinos came out tops in terms of wool.
"They also make good mums," Amanda said.
"We have added the Dohne into the mix because of the ability to mix the wool of the two breeds and with the aim of producing a quicker growing meat lamb."
The sisters said their respective father-in-laws had always been Merino people.
"They have always liked the breed because they are reliable and tough," Sam said.
"We have considered other breeds, but Jason always comes back to Merinos."
The sisters are always trying to learn more about the industry and are willing to ask the questions that other farmers possibly wouldn't.
"We are not embarrassed to ask, we want to learn as much as we can and we probably don't feel pressured to ask what might seem like a dumb question to some of the blokes," Sam said.
Someone they are not afraid to probe for information is Les Sutherland, Arra-dale stud, Perenjori, who they buy their rams from.
Amanda said Mr Sutherland was helpful when it came to ram selection.
"He was a great help to us and gave us a quick crash course on what to look for," Amanda said.
"Les explained why our enterprise has predominantly preferred the waxier wool in their selection over the years because out here under the dryer conditions it protects the wool," Sam said
To further educate themselves the sisters joined a livestock group which provides producers from all across WA with a platform to share their farming ideas and practices.
"It's good to see what everyone else is doing," Amanda said.
They also have a livestock adviser Ed Riggall, who works with farmers from Northampton to Esperance.
The sisters said they relied on these avenues to ensure they were running their businesses to the highest standard possible.
When it comes to marketing their stock, especially their wethers, Amanda said it was very much dependent on the season and prices at the time.
On the wool side the two operations have a different approach to harvesting their wool - the Smiths shear every eight to 10 months, while the Kings shear once a year in September.
Amanda said shearing every eight to 10 months eliminated crutching and the first six months was the quicker stage of wool growth.
In terms of the fertility of the two flocks they are both striving for 100 per cent lambings.
The King's flock has achieved this for a number of years, except the past two when the season has been against them, but they are hoping to return to that level by changing their lambing time.
They put the rams in on New Year's Day, which means lambing starts in May during seeding, making it busy.
"With the later breaks there isn't much paddock feed around so it means we are trying to seed and also keep the feed up to the ewes, so it is extremely challenging," Sam said.
"So we are looking to move our joining back and put the rams out on Australia Day which will take the pressure off and hopefully they will be lambing onto paddocks with good feed cover."
Amanda said in recent years they had observed a noticeable change in the seasons.
"We are experiencing less rainfall and changing soils and as a result our pastures aren't growing like they used to," she said.
"So that really is the main reason we have had to change the timing of lambing later, as it will hopefully mean the ewes aren't chasing the green feed.
"It is not just us, others are noticing the same and are considering changing things up in the area."
Amanda said 2019 was disappointing on the cropping side, but the sheep were their saving grace and that's why they were looking at all these improvements.
"In the end we had to sell all our wethers earlier than we liked because we were running out of feed," Amanda said.
The 2020 season hasn't been much better for the two operations, with the women saying this season had been average so far.
"Every time it rains we are expecting about 10 millimetres but end up only getting about 5mm, so we are hoping for more in the next few weeks," they said.
"We really don't want it to dry off early like it did last year."
Earlier this year they experienced strong winds that blew quite a lot of their paddocks.
With nothing left in some paddocks they planted barley purely for the sheep.
The storm caused a disruption to the Smith's lambing and some lambs were separated from their mums and orphaned, so Amanda is caring for about 25 lambs.
"My father-in-law said his father used to say that stock owners must be stock losers, so I do try to keep that in mind because it can be pretty heartbreaking sometimes," Amanda said.
In preparation for next year the Smiths are looking into improving their feed situation by having purchased an automatic feeder from DE Engineering.
It is a trough system that is 25 metres long and connects to a silo at one end of the feeder and has a sensor which automatically augers more feed to fill the trough when it's empty.
The feeder has a roof to prevent the feed from getting wet and is double-sided so sheep can feed on both sides.
"With this feeder you only have to fill the silo once or twice a week as it has the ability to connect to a larger silo system," Amanda said.
She said the feeder would mainly be used to finish off their wethers and they would create the rations with Mr Riggall's guidance.
"If it works well we will look at investing in some more and set up more of a feedlot system," Amanda said.
Sam said they were also very interested in this concept but were waiting for Amanda and Clint to trial it.
When it comes to their pastures, both enterprises are looking at increasing the amount they sow annually as it isn't germinating as much on its own.
Sam said this year they had trialled a seed mix from Yarra Yarra and it had grown well.
Amanda said in the coming years they were looking to utilise some of their salt country for their ewes to lamb onto.
"We are going to look at investing in running more water and fencing the areas," Amanda said.
"The other benefit is that it will mean the ewes lamb in confinement so that they don't have to walk as far or work as hard.
"We had a neighbour try it and he had some success, so we are going to try it.
"With sheep becoming more viable it is something worth doing."
They believe that it's important to set up the operation properly infrastructure-wise because it can be difficult to run a sheep enterprise if you don't and with sheep being more profitable in recent years, they are starting to be able to re-invest into their sheep.
"We need to spend a bit more time making this work because it's getting tougher, but sheep are so good price-wise, so it will pay dividends," Sam said.