Kenny family continues Merino tradition at Badgingarra

The family first started farming at Rubicon, Badgingarra, in 1959.

Now third-generation farmer Todd Kenny is keen to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather Mike and father Andrew and run a Merino breeding flock on the property.

Mr Kenny returned to the family farm full-time in 2018 to work with his grandfather and father after completing his schooling as a boarder at Aquinas College.

"My grandfather and father have always run a Merino flock and I am going to continue down the same path, as they work well in our operation," Mr Kenny said.

"We like them as they are relatively easy to run, and are a good dual-purpose animal for both the meat and wool market."

All up the Kennys run 5500 Merino breeding ewes across their three properties totalling 4400 hectares, with 4000 main line ewes joined to Merino rams.

The remaining 1500 head, which have been classed out of the main line for their wool type, are mated to terminal sire breeds including White Suffolks and Poll Dorsets.

Since having to destock and sell some black tag ewes in 2017 due to a feed shortage, the Kennys kept their cull ewes to maintain numbers, but this year Mr Kenny said they were hoping to be able to sell them at the end of the year now that they had their numbers back-up.

"Last year for the first time we used White Suffolk rams over our cull maiden ewes," Mr Kenny said.

"The White Suffolks did really well last year so we are pretty keen to keep using them.

"By mating the cull ewes to the terminal sires has allowed us to keep up the number of lambs we were breeding and turning off without impacting the quality of our main breeding flock.

"It has allowed us to produce a prime lamb which we can turn-off quickly and can make a good return on, especially with the strong market price in the past four to five years.

"We have liked doing it and we will probably continue mating a portion of the ewes going forward to White Suffolks as it allows us to be a bit more flexible and diversified.

"It also helps to mitigate a bit against downturns in the wool market."

The Kennys join their ewes at the start of February so that they begin lambing in July when there is plenty of green feed available.

The later lambing means that they don't have to worry about lambs dropping when they are seeding.

"It also allows the pastures to get away before lambing," Mr Kenny said.

When it comes to lambing, the Kennys aim for a lambing rate between 105 and 110 per cent and they usually achieve it with plenty of twins.

When it comes to Merino rams, the Kennys have always sourced them from the Wilkinson family's Challara stud at Dandaragan and on average they purchase 10 replacement rams each year.

As for the White Suffolks, they are sourced from a local farmer Michael Collard, Warringah.

"We got five off him last year, we might get 10 this year - it will just depend on what happens with the wool market," Mr Kenny said.

"We are moving away from Poll Dorsets and transitioning to more White Suffoks, due to the ease of lambing on the ewe with the White Suffolk's smaller head."

The Kennys pregnancy scan their ewes each year, not only to find dry ewes but also so they can separate their twin and single-bearing ewes so they can be managed separately.

"We had Bec Martin come out this year for the first time to do our scanning and she was very good," Mr Kenny said.

When it comes to managing pregnant ewes, the twin-bearing animals will have increased feed rates and will be the first to go onto pastures, while the singles will be run a little harder and will go onto crop grazing when the time is right.

"Since 2017 we have had a mob of 500 singles lambing onto crops, generally barley, which works really well if done right," he said.

"By crop grazing it allows us to delay putting the sheep on our pastures which means they get away before being stocked.

"A lot of paddocks have young Serradella plants at the moment, so to be able to let them get away for another month makes a big difference."

In the past six months Mr Kenny has been learning how to shear and he has really been enjoying it and is going to continue shearing with local contractor Mike Henderson for the remainder of the year.

"I am passionate about wool," he said.

"There are some periods of the year when it is a bit quieter on the farm, so I am going to be looking to go off-farm and do some shearing."

Last year the Kennys found a lack of shearers meant that they had to push shearing lambs back a month to the end of November and it was when Mr Kenny learnt the trade.

Their main shearing is in the first week of April and Mr Kenny had a stand for the entirety of the main shearing, something he hopes will continue through the coming years at Rubicon.

At shearing this year, their mature ewes cut on average 6.5-7 kilograms a head which according to Mr Kenny's grandfather was one of their best years, so they were pretty happy with it.

The hoggets are shorn in July while the lambs are shorn in November-December.

In terms of marketing their wethers and crossbred lambs, the Kennys sell them as stores while any dry ewes are also sold after pregnancy scanning.

Mr Kenny said they didn't like to hold onto their lambs or dry ewes for too long otherwise it cut into their feed supplies.

"If we have a good season and the market is right, we might hold onto the lambs for a bit longer," he said.

"But at the end of the day it just comes down to how much feed is available."

When it comes to the market outlook, Mr Kenny said sheep prices were strong in the past couple of years and he hoped they would continue at these levels.

"In terms of the wool market, despite it being slightly more volatile in recent years, it is slowly showing signs that it is on its way back up," Mr Kenny said.

"The wool market is certainly better than it used to be even though it did drop over the past 12 months due to the pandemic.

"But it has shown positive movements in the past couple of months, so we really can't complain."

Seasonal conditions have varied over the past couple of years and feed has been a challenge for the Kennys due to below average rainfall, particularly during the growing season.

Mr Kenny said 2019 was a very average season for them.

"It was one of the worst seasons both dad and granddad had seen, mainly because of the lack of feed we had," Mr Kenny said.

Due to the low amount of rainfall the property received that year, the Kennys were still feeding sheep in July and then again started feeding in September on and off.

Last year was also a tough season on the sheep side of things, with pastures struggling to establish due to cut worm.

As a result of these tougher seasons they have been looking at how they can improve their pastures and they have discovered that using a neighbour's bullet disc seeder bar has meant they can sow extra pasture and not disturb the varieties that were already there to increase the feed on offer.

"Last year we put in 400ha of barley as pasture just trying to fill in the gap to make sure the sheep have plenty to eat," Mr Kenny said.

In addition to their sheep operation, the Kennys also run a sizeable cropping program which sees them plant 2500ha of canola, lupins, wheat and barley.

Extra barley and oats are also sown along with 15ha for hay for sheep feed and the responsibility of sheep feeding usually falls with Mr Kenny's grandfather (Mike) who does most of it and also most of the moving of the sheep.

When comparing the sheep operation against their cropping enterprise Mr Kenny said the sheep were a necessity for the business, as much of the soil on the property is not suitable for cropping, and perennial grasses are having a real benefit in these soils.

"Even when the season isn't great we can still get an income from the sheep in terms of both wool and meat," he said.

Going forward Mr Kenny is keen to continue the tradition of running Merinos on the family property started by his grandfather and father as he believes there is money to be made in Merinos due to their dual-purpose attributes.