CORRIGIN brothers Travis and Kyle Hewett are bringing a positive energy and youthful presence to the family's mixed farming operation at Corrigin, having decided to return home and work alongside their parents John and Jos, who are renowned for breeding quality Merinos.
Merinos have been the breed of choice for the Hewett family since it established the farm in 1911 and that is set to continue with Travis and Kyle having the same passion for sheep as their father John.
Travis, 23, returned to the 4500 hectare property this year at seeding time having completed an electrical apprenticeship, while younger brother Kyle, 20, has been home since he finished high school and is looking at starting an apprenticeship in addition to working on the farm.
Despite many challenging times in the sheep and wool industry over the years, the Hewett family has stuck with the Merino breed due to ease of management and dual income streams it produces.
"They are really easy to manage and are dual-purpose," John said.
"Being that dual-purpose type means you can get a really good income from both their wool and meat.
"We did try breeding crossbred lambs in the past but weren't very successful, so we decided it was better we stuck with what we knew and do it well.
"The crossbred lambs were very hard work and in the end we found just sticking to a pure Merino operation was much easier and less work.
"We know other producers in the area who breed crossbreds and do it well, but it just wasn't for us."
The Hewetts are running 3200 mature Merino ewes which includes 800 ewe hoggets which will join the breeding flock at the end of the year.
When sourcing their rams the Hewetts purchase one ram every two years from the Bolt family's Claypans stud, Corrigin, which they use in their nucleus flock of ewes to breed rams for their own use.
When selecting rams John said he looked for rams that were nicely balanced, have a large frame and a good quality wool.
The rams go in with the ewes in October for six weeks and the ewes start lambing in the second week of April, with the aim of having them weaned in mid to late-July.
John said they find it much better to lamb earlier in the year because it means if things go south they can sell off their wether lambs early in the spring.
To ensure they are keeping up the fertility in their flock and achieving high lambing rates, the Hewetts pregnancy scan all their ewes in February.
This year's lambing saw them just below 98 per cent lambing.
The Hewetts cull any older ewes which are dry, while any younger ewes which are dry are given a second chance to ensure they are maintaining their flock numbers.
"We keep the dry ewes from the two youngest age groups and sell dry ones from the three older lines," John said.
"We'll tag the young ones and give them another chance, but if they're barren the following season then they go."
Annually the Hewetts retain 800 ewes as future breeders and when selecting the ewes to be retained John said he looked for quick maturing, heavy cutting ewes.
Any ewes hoggets (1.5-year-old), usually about 400 head, which are surplus to requirements, are sold in the Corrigin leg of the Nutrien Livestock Corrigin/ Wickepin State Premier Ewe and Lamb Sale in October and they are always in demand.
Last year in the sale the family achieved the sale's second top price, selling a line of 360 1.5-year-old ewes for $220.
When it comes to their wether lambs they are usually weaned and shorn before the Hewetts go through them and select the better ones.
The ones they are not keeping are sold in the Corrigin sale, while the others they run through to the next year and sell in mid-June usually to Fletchers International.
Like many WA sheep producers this year, the Hewetts have taken advantage of the strong demand from Eastern States' producers rebuilding their flocks after several years of droughts.
"We sent some of our dry ewes over there, they were red, black and blue tag age groups," Kyle said.
The Hewetts have been lucky the past couple of years as the high sheep prices have helped them get through some difficult seasons and these are very different to times in the past when sheep were worth basically nothing.
John said that at one point when the sheep industry was struggling he recalled the price for wethers (delivered to Perth) was as low as $20 and one-year-old ewes were $1.
"Those were really tough times but it is really pleasing to see now that the prices have been good for the past few years and that's why we are still in sheep," John said.
Kyle said it was great to see the prices for sheep continuing to increase, giving young farmers such as him encouragement to stick with sheep.
When it comes to the wool side, the Hewetts shear in September and usually produce about 200 bales annually.
"Last year was one of our better years for wool and we produced about 220 bales," John said.
On average the Hewetts mature ewes average 19.7 micron and cut about 6 kilograms a head.
The fall in wool prices in recent months is worrying them and John said the wool prices were a bit disappointing.
"But hopefully, they start lifting again soon, but it's going to be an interesting road for a bit," he said.
The 2019 season presented some challenges due to a lack of rainfall, which resulted in a shortage of feed.
"It was a very average season," Travis said.
"It ended up alright because we had some late rains, but there was a long dry patch and we were hand feeding the sheep for a long period."
Along with their sizeable Merino flock the family annually puts in a 2000ha cropping program which includes wheat, lupins and barley.
The cropping program runs on a year-in, year-out rotation to allow the paddocks to replenish.
"Sometimes we'll seed some clover to help return some nutrients to the soil," John said.
The Hewetts grow all their feed, seeding 400ha with a mix of barley and clover.
"We generally hold enough feed to get us through the year," John said.
Throughout the year the sheep are trail-fed a variety of feed mixes including lupins and barley followed by a lupin and oats mix later in the year, with some oaten hay.
To ensure they have enough feed throughout the year the Hewetts agist some of their ewes on their neighbour's property after harvest.
"We try and get as many ewes onto those stubbles as we can and that allows us to save our paddocks for lambing and that seems to work well," John said.
This year, the Hewetts have had just enough rain for the crops and pasture paddocks to germinate but they need more to fill their dams.
"We haven't had a big rain event yet, it's just been dribs and drabs," John said.
"We have got our own grader and roller so we've been busy maintaining the road catchments which have now got some water running from them and that's worked pretty well."
Going forward, the Hewetts are happy with the size of their operation, but Travis and Kyle would be keen to grow it further should they acquire more land in the coming years.
"If we got a bit more land we would expand it, but at the moment we will probably just keep it as is," Travis said.
"We are about where we want to be."
