It was an absolutely massive day for Rainbows Rest SheepMaster stud, with its first ever stand-alone ram and ewe sale topping at a huge $12,000 at Carnamah.
The stud offered 71 rams and sold 54 under the hammer for an average price of $2441.
The offering also included 49 young Rainbows Rest ewes that sold to a top of $650 and average of $599.
The stud's top sale price increased by $4000 on what it had previously recorded at a multi-vendor fixture, while its second top price of $8600 was up by $600 on the previous sale's highest price.
Elders auctioneer Graeme Curry said it was an excellent result for the stud and for the breed.
"Overall, it was a really good sale," Mr Curry said.
"This was due to the outstanding support from the buying audience.
"The two top rams both had extreme scale and muscling and are true shedders."
Mr Curry said the commercial demand throughout the catalogue only tapered down towards the very end of the rams.
"Demand for the ewe lambs from several buyers saw excellent values reached," he said.
"There was also plenty of interest and bidding via AuctionsPlus and the Eastern States' buyers."
Rainbows Rest studmaster Geoff Crabb said the results were really positive, especially considering the current climate of the markets.
"This year was one of our most even line-ups we have offered to date," Mr Crabb said.
"But it was the Monarch bloodlines that sold the strongest.
"This reflects Monarch's proven genetic performance and demonstrated that commercial clients are chasing the clean animals.
"Buying Monarch has to be the best decision we have ever made."
Mr Crabb said next year they would have more rams from the Monarch bloodline in the catalogue.
"About two thirds of the sale team next year will have Monarch bloodlines and the others will be King David," Mr Crabb said.
Both the $12,000 top-priced and $8600 second top-priced ram were purchased by the Smith family, Baboo Pastoral, Green Range, who took home eight rams for an average of $4613.
Ryan Smith said it was only their second year purchasing from the stud.
"We have not had this bloodline before and we were chasing the Monarch genetics," Mr Smith said.
"These will go straight over SheepMaster and UltraWhite ewes to knock the wool off.
"We looked at the shedding and skin type and liked the weights, eye muscle and growth figures also."
The top-priced ram weighed in at 94.5 kilograms and had raw scans of 40 millimetres for eye muscle depth (EMD) and 6.1mm for fat.
When it came to the second top-priced ram purchased by the Smiths, it weighed 98kg and had scans of 42.0mm EMD and 4.6mm fat.
Both rams were April 2022-drop sons of Monarch.
Taking home 27 sires was once again volume buyer, vertically-integrated food producer and processor PenAgri Farms Pty Ltd, Perth.
It paid to a top of $3000 and an average of $1707.
PenAgri has a three-farm aggregation in the Mid West covering 11,562 hectares and general manager Daniel Hester, Arrowsmith, said they had also purchased another ram post-sale to total of 28.
"We are commercial producers with a 50:50, Merino to cleanskin flock ratio," Mr Hester said.
"We are transferring over to completely clean skins.
"We only started this last year and are now consolidating down to just the SheepMasters."
The 49 ewes offered were put up in five lots, with four lots containing 10 head and one lot nine head.
They sold between $500 and a top of $650 a head to finish at an average of $599 when they were all knocked down to the Rowe family, JH & RT Rowe, Bookara, near Dongara, who also purchased five rams to a top of $2300 and average of $1660.
Ms Rowe said they were chasing the good commercial genetics of the SheepMaster breed and were changing their flock over completely.
New South Wales stud breeder David Harrison, Cobar SheepMaster stud, Janaree, purchased two rams through the AuctionsPlus platform.
