SHEEPMASTERS are the shedding sheep breed to look out for as Eneabba producer Ian Elliot begins the rollout of his commercial flock.
Mr Elliot grew up farming, originally coming from a property in Watheroo before purchasing his original "Noingara" farm in 1969 when he was 18-years-old during one of Western Australia's worst droughts.
"When I started on my own I had 3000 sheep, a couple of dogs and a motorbike," Mr Elliot said.
"There are some great opportunities in farming."
The four farms now comprise 5000 hectares, of which 1100ha is dedicated to the SheepMaster flock and cattle enterprise.
The cattle herd consists of 150 Poll Hereford breeders - down from 300 having sold 150 last year - as well as 200 Red Angus breeders.
Mr Elliot runs the farming business alongside son Adin, who runs the Red Angus cattle and also has a flock of 800 SheepMasters of his own.
"The SheepMasters are starting to take over the cattle side of things, but for the most part, they complement each other very well," Mr Elliot said.
In conjunction with the SheepMasters they also have a mob of 4000 Merino ewes.
After more than two decades of research and breeding sheep, SheepMaster founding breeder Neil Garnett registered the SheepMaster breed in 2017 with the aim of introducing a sheep that had good conformation, eliminated the time and cost of shearing and crutching, eliminated flies and external parasites, was fully shedding, had high fertility and a good constitution.
He aimed to ultimately reduce costs and increase dollars per hectare returns.
Mr Elliot began privately purchasing some of Mr Garnett's surplus stud rams at this time.
Mr Elliot's foundation ewes were Damara and Dorset Horn, which have now all been up-bred into commercial SheepMasters.
"We were not breed-specific so we started from three breeds and bred from that," he said.
"The Dorset horn genetics are still around, it is important to have heritage genes to go back to," he said.
By 2018-19 the Elliots were able to breed their own SheepMaster commercial rams and are now running a stud and a commercial flock.
"At the time we didn't have enough rams with the genetics so we had to use the rams three times in a row before they'd get a rest," he said.
Eventually, they ended up with enough genetic material and they now have 50 excellent quality commercial sires.
The maiden ewes are mated at about 40 kilograms body-weight and go on to produce a lamb every eight months.
The Elliots are one of 20 sub-studs in Australia with Neil Garnett and Brian Prater's parent stud, SheepMaster White Dog Lane Stud at Elleker, near Albany.
"We are concentrating more on the commercial side and focusing on building up numbers in the industry," Mr Elliot said.
"More and more breeders are beginning to recognise the advantage of not having wool on meat sheep.
"We are looking to market our next commercial group of F2s in spring this year."
In their current system, the SheepMaster rams are put over Merino ewes with all progeny being sold to the meat industry.
When starting with the SheepMaster breed, Mr Elliot said it can be difficult to get your head around the eight-month mating cycle and those new to the breed should focus on the traditional one lambing per year.
It has been trial and error but they have finally managed to create a simple program over a 241-day cycle with the ewes lambing every eight months.
"It has taken time and it is certainly a busy schedule," he said.
They are up to their third eight-month lambing and as of October 2020, they marked 1210 lambs from 1249 ewes for a base group of more than 1400 SheepMasters.
"It is a rapid turnaround,'' Mr Elliot said.
"They are very different compared to running a normal Merino or crossbred flock."
The flock has since been added to and the ewes are due to lamb down again in November 2021 making the total number of lambs produced from that base group up about 4000 in that short period of time.
"The multiple birth or twinning gene is now up about the 170pc mark in the primary stud," Mr Elliot said.
The rams are in with the ewes until day 40, with the lambs due about day 150 and the lambs are marked on day 197 then the lambs are weaned between day 213-220.
Their ultimate goal is to successfully roll out the SheepMasters and gain some exposure for the breed so that they can be produced on a larger commercial basis.
With the Elliots aiming to commercially roll out the breed this year, pregnancy scanning will be an important part of the process though they have faced some difficulty as the ewes are pregnant out of the typical season.
"It is unusual timing so we have found it hard to get professionals to come and work out of season," he said.
Mr Elliot enjoys running and building up the breed because the sheep are generally placid, easy to handle and are good mothers.
"The ewes are instinctive mothers and look after lambs as a group, which is invaluable," he said.
The Elliots mainly sell their wether lambs to the export market and the cull ewes are air-freighted as mutton.
Mr Elliot said another benefit of the breed was that because they aren't producing wool all of their effort goes into their body condition and that passes onto the lamb.
"It is a huge advantage," he said.
Recently Mr Elliot said that the SheepMasters had become more accepted in the industry and were being accepted by the abattoirs.
"Some of our lines have been sold to abattoirs but I prefer the simplicity of the export market,'' he said.
Mr Elliott said they would like to market their sheep online in the future.
"We indicated we would like to sell via AuctionsPlus well before COVID-19 came along so that should work out well," he said.
The lambs born in October 2020 were sold in the first week of April 2021 and they went onto the truck at an average of $150 per head.
"They were assessed at 43kg liveweight, if we waited for the price rise two months later then the lambs would have been 47-48kg so they would have been getting a bit heavy,'' he said.
"It is not about getting the biggest lamb, it's about getting a rapid turnover."
For the Elliots, it is about getting a good average draft, with 84pc of the latest draft going straight onto the truck and the balance sold later for a 99pc clearance.
Mr Elliot said that AWN agent Greg Wootton had been very helpful since the beginning and classes the commercial mob and will class the stud in future, their Barra SheepMaster stud.
"He believed that we could get to where we wanted to,'' Mr Elliot said.
Of the remaining land, 1400ha is cropped, including to white lupins which are grown for the sheep.
The main pasture variety is couch, which Mr Elliot said had been good in holding down the sandy country and providing plenty of feed for the sheep year-round and had also encouraged the subterranean clovers to grow better.
"The SheepMasters are very responsive to WA white lupins, it helps them put on weight quicker," he said.
They are in a cyclone-prone and high wind area which means the soil is susceptible to blowing and erosion but couch has helped with that, he said.
