Douwana Dorper ram peaks at $4100

IT was a big day for the Batten family's Douwana Dorper stud, Yuna, when it hosted its first standalone stud sale at the Nanson showgrounds last Monday.

Having previously sold in the Chapman Valley Breeders Ram Sale for 20 years, the Batten family this year decided to go out on its own and it wasn't disappointed with the outcome, achieving a $4100 top price and a 100 per cent clearance.

Despite the change in format, the offering of 100 rams from the stud still attracted plenty of interest from not only local regular buyers, but also new buyers from as far north as Carnarvon, as well as buyers from the Eastern States, who operated strongly on AuctionsPlus.

With a very even and quality line-up of rams from start to finish, the joint Nutrien Livestock and Elders selling team had no trouble finding new homes for the increased 100 ram offering, with all selling under the hammer to 13 different buyers at an average of $1530, which was a reduction of $473 on the stud's sale average recorded at last year's Chapman Valley Ram Sale.

In comparison, at last year's Chapman Valley ram sale Douwana offered and sold 60 rams to a top of $4200 and an average of $2003.

Douwana Dorpers stud co-principal Kim Batten was very enthused with how their first stand alone sale ended.

"We were on our own for the first time this year and the outcome was great," Mr Batten said.

"We have been selling rams in a multi-vendor sale for more than 20 years."

Mr Batten said they decided to host their own sale as they wanted to include their whole sale on AuctionsPlus to get more exposure to buyers.

"We were also double penning for a while there and it wasn't allowing us to present the sheep the way we wanted, so going on our has meant we can present the rams much better," Mr Batten said.

"We have a good following from a variety of areas that Dorpers are really suited to, like out in the eastern Wheatbelt.

"We are now seeing some interest from more pastoral areas and international buyers as well as New South Wales buyers."

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Mr Batten is pleased that the family's rams are headed to the environments that they will thrive in.

"It gives us lots of confidence to see that buyers are producing high quality lambs, even in areas that can be quite difficult to graze Dorpers on," he said.

Topping the sale at $4100 was an upstanding, well-muscled, September 2021-drop ram in pen 60.

After some spirited bidding, the 77 kilogram ram was knocked down to long-term Douwana buyer Jeremy Wasley, JC Wasley, Mingenew.

The single-born ram is by Douwana 180410 and has Australian Sheep Breeding Values (ASBVs) of -0.43 birthweight (BWT), 5.0 weaning weight (WWT), 8.2 post weaning weight (PWWT), -0.2 post weaning fat (PFAT), 1.2 post weaning eye muscle depth (PEMD), 1.1 lean meat yield (LMY), -0.8 intramuscular fat (IMF) and 1.3 shear force (SF5), as well as indexes of 128.6 for the MCP index and 122.9 for the TCP index.

Along with purchasing the top-priced ram Mr Wasley also secured another 14 rams to finish with a team of 15 at an average of $1760.

Mr Wasley said the Batten family always produced excellent rams.

"We have been buying from the stud since 2005 and have been running Dorpers since 2001," Mr Wasley said.

"Their rams have excellent genetics and they are breeding the type of sheep that we need here in the northern Wheatbelt."

Mr Wasley believes the rams have been performing well for the family for years.

"We have a purebred Dorper flock and join the Dorper sires to 3000 ewes," he said.

"Some of the rams we purchased today will go over this year's drop of lambs - I mate our ewe lambs at about six months of age.

"The surplus rams will be put over some of our older age group ewes, depending on the numbers we need."

The second top price was $4000 bid by a buyer operating on AuctionsPlus from Cobar, New South Wales.

This buyer bid this value for a deep, thick, square 101kg ram in lot 21.

The May 2021-drop ram by Douwana 170337 has ASBVs of -0.47 BWT, 4.3 WWT, 6.7 PWWT, -0.3 PFAT, 1.4 PEMD, 1.4 LMY, -0.9 IMF and 2.5 SF5, as well as indexes of 130.3 for the MCP index and 118 for the TCP index.

All up this buyer purchased 20 rams at an average of $1885, making them the volume buyer of the sale.

The team headed to NSW also included two rams at $3700 which had TCP indexes of 118.9 and 121.1 as well as MCP indexes of 128.6 and 126.

The second biggest buyer taking home a team of 16 rams to a top of $3300 and an average of $1413 was return buyer LE & M Farina, Mukinbudin.

The Farina family went to $3300 for a 98kg sire with index values of 128.9 for the MCP and 117.1 for the TCP.

Also taking home a double figure team of rams was Banyanda Farms, Walkaway.

The Walkway-based enterprise purchased 14 rams at an average of $1086 and to a top of $1500.

Other influential buyers included RE Fenny, averaging $1000 across a team of nine, while return buyer Kilkerran Agriculture Pty Ltd, Mingenew, purchased six sires to a top of $3400 and an average of $2517 and an Elders account secured seven rams to a high of $1400 and an average of $1129.

Not only was the Batten family happy with the final sale result, so too were Nutrien Livestock, Geraldton representative Murray Paterson and Elders, Geraldton representative Thomas Page.

Mr Paterson said it was a very good sale from start to finish with buyers strong in their bidding.

"The vendors were very happy with the outcome and clearance of the sale," Mr Paterson said.

"The 100 rams we offered, all sold, which was pleasing to see and they went to regular, volume bidders as well as new buying interest from Carnarvon and across to the Eastern States.

"We used the AuctionsPlus platform for the sale and it was well supported with 22 rams selling through the system, with 20 of them heading to the Eastern States."

Mr Page said the 100 per cent clearance in the sale was a very positive result for the stud.

"It was great to see both new and returning buyers' confidence in the sale offering as there is definitely some interest in the shedding breeds currently," Mr Page said.

"The Battens have been breeding rams for a long time now and their buyers have confidence in their rams because they have been satisfied with their rams in the past and the performance they have been achieving and that certainly showed in the results of the sale."