CONFIDENT in their farming operation and their sheep enterprise at Jitarning/Kulin is the Tyson family.
The early 1900s established property has been in the Tyson family for two generations and Les Tyson now farms it with wife Christine and son Brenton and family.
Brenton and wife Justine have four children Toby, Sophie, Jack and Emma, who live on the family's second property, 14 kilometres away.
They run a Merino ewe breeding flock of 3000 head along with 1500 wethers and ewe hoggets on 4300 hectares across two properties.
They also run a cropping enterprise, consisting of wheat, canola, lupins and barley and also seed Vetch for sheep feed.
"I am equally as keen on cropping as I am on sheep - it's not one or the other," Les said.
To help, they employ a full-time worker who has been working for them for the past two years.
Though Merinos have always been run on the property, over the years the family has tried various other breeds including Karakuls, Awassis and White Suffolks, but found they always returned to 100 per cent Merinos because Les said they're easier to manage and are more profitable.
Having been in the industry most of his life Les strongly believes the key to running a successful business is to keep it simple.
With this in mind, he tries not to overcomplicate his calendar.
Lambing occurs in May to fit in with their cropping program and Les said if they lambed any later they would miss the markets they wanted to sell into.
He also said if they lambed in June/July they couldn't sell their lambs before summer - and even though they would be lambing onto green feed, it would take more feed to finish them off.
While it is a profit-focused operation, Les said animal welfare was of the utmost importance.
"You don't work with livestock if you don't like them or don't have compassion," he said.
"It doesn't matter how much money an individual sheep is worth, we treat all our animals equally."
In order to keep his sheep as healthy as possible and prevent them from getting lice he dips them twice a year at shearing and crutching.
"We like to have a 70 kilogram ewe but if they get lice they can drop down to 40kg," he said.
When selecting their rams they look for size, body, quick growth and wool quality and have been sourcing their Poll Merino rams from the Lewis family's Lewisdale stud, Wickepin, for nearly 30 years.
"We like free growing longer staple wool as it is less dense and therefore easier to shear," Les said.
At shearing, in early September the Tysons cut an average 7.5-8kg per head (ewes) for a total of 180 bales of wool annually.
Although they concentrate on bulk, Les said they're consistent in maintaining a wool micron of 21.5.
This year the Tysons averaged 100 per cent lambing, up from their average of 90pc.
When it came to selling their sheep Les said they chased the high prices, selling into whichever market was paying the most at the time.
This often means their lambs are sold to processors or to live shipping.
"We keep our sheep in good, healthy condition at all times so we can sell them at any stage," he said.
"We don't sell our sheep because we have to, we sell them when the price is right.
"That's what we aim for, we are not necessarily at the top of the market but we are up there in the top 10pc nearly 99pc of the time."
With sheep prices being high Les said it allowed them to update their infrastructure, including their sheep yards.
"We always need to reinvest into our business and we can only do that through profit," he said.
Les believes the high prices need to continue for farmers to improve and maintain their flocks.
"Obviously these times aren't normal times but it will help raise the average price of sheep over the longer term," he said.
The Tysons are experimenting with Vetch as their main fodder crop, which Les said was beneficial for the crop as well as the sheep because it puts nearly two years of nitrogen back into the soil and it grew better than other pasture varieties during the cooler winter months.
Les said another benefit was it had a similar amount of protein as Lucerne which helped the sheep to grow quicker.
"We like to be efficient and thorough, without overcomplicating things" he said.
The Tysons have had to cart water for the first time since they have been farming due to a lack of rainfall.
During the warmer months, Les said the sheep were supplementary fed a variety of grain mixes including lupins, lupins and barley and a loose mineral mix via lick feeders.
To overcome the lack of rain, they have a desalination plant, have done maintenance on all of their dams and road catchments and repaired water tanks.
"Stock water has been a big issue for us in the last year," he said.
This year they have received just enough rainfall to grow a reasonable crop but not enough to fill their dams.
Les said they needed their dams to be at 60-70pc capacity to have enough water to last until the following winter, but so far this year they are only at 30pc.
"The biggest rain event we have had this year is 36mm over two days," he said.
They are considering confinement feeding to help condition the ewes and to allow the pasture paddocks to get more established before being grazed.
To manage their sheep the Tysons use an app to record all of their data and in the future would like to implement electronic identification tags (EID) to better track their sheep.
At the end of the day, Les said most of all we are just following our motto of "keep it simple stupid."