Burrawang's big sale - Records broken in the largest and highest value sale held yet for the Dorper sheep breed
This is branded content for Burrawang Dorpers.
With an unmatched line-up of 210 Dorper and White Dorper rams, the consistency of the quality on offer was evident to the buyers on-farm and online.
Buyers were keen to invest in this bloodline which has a long-standing reputation for delivering breed excellence, providing high returns for their customer base of both stud and commercial breeders.
Top price buyers at this sale were ex abattoir operators James and Luke Hardwick, whose family previously ran the Keyneton abattoir just north of Melbourne.
The Hardwick family ran this business for 43 years and saw first-hand the Dorper carcase unrivalled in the abattoir for meat yield and carcase quality.
Guided by the experience of having slaughtered over 34 thousand lambs per week, their decision to invest in the Dorper breed was well informed and based on qualitative and quantitative data collected during their time as abattoir operators.
Armed with this knowledge and in the early stages of establishing their Dorper stud, Deep Dale Dorpers based at Tooday in Western Australia, Luke and James Hardwick purchased Burrawang White Dorper ram Trump 191472 for a world record of $62,000, smashing the previous world record price by $12,000.
Deep Dale Dorpers also secured Burrawang Dorper Cowboy 191253 for $42,000, and Burrawang Dorper Marksman 191354 for $26,000.
Long-standing customer Dust N Rain Dorpers based at Pooncarie, who were the losing bidders on Trump but secured white Dorper 210884 for $18,000, which was a son of Trump. They also purchased Burrawang white Dorper Fosters 190525 for $31,000.
Dust N Rain Dorpers recognised the value of Burrawang genetics and has since realised a significant return on their investment, obtaining the second-highest sale average, second only to Burrawang.
Overall, the 19th on-farm ram sale saw 100 per cent clearance and produced an average of $5,751, but Burrawang Stud principal Graham Pickles said the sale catered for all buyers.
"While the average of $5751 was high, this was because there was a lot of high-value genetics on offer which was mainly bought by studs which pushed up the average. There were also quality rams available from $2750 to $4000 which enabled our commercial buyers to fill their volume needs," Mr Pickles said.
"The line-up of 210 high-quality rams of such high consistency is a credit to our stud master Wicus Cronje, who has produced the best line up of rams we have ever presented," he said.
Wicus has produced a video on the history of the Dorper breed which can be found on Burrawang Dorpers website www.burrawangdorpers.com.au. People looking to find out more about shedding meat sheep will find this video very educational.
