RUNNING a large-scale prime lamb enterprise is plenty of work for the Webster family, but according to John Webster, it’s enjoyable work.
The family operation, trading as Webster Pastoral Company, includes Mr Webster’s wife Kerri and his parents David and Sue, and runs 11,000 first-cross Border Leicester/Merino ewes across 3300 hectares of country at Reids Flat and Cowra.
Poll Dorset rams are joined to these ewes to produce about 15,000 second-cross prime lambs each year.
The family had traditionally run up to 30,000 Merino wethers on their properties, producing 1200 bales of wool each year, and also traded steers, however Mr Webster returned home to the family enterprise about 15 years ago with an interest in running a breeding operation.
“Running ewes and lambs is a lot more work but you have to do what you enjoy,” said Mr Webster.
Since then the enterprise has changed and now prime lamb production is the sole focus for the family, producing sucker lambs being the main aim.
“We try to turn off as many lambs as suckers as we can,” Mr Websters said.
“We usually get off about 70 per cent as suckers, and then the rest are shorn and grown out.”
With the Websters’ lambing beginning in June, the first of the lambs are generally sold in October and selling of suckers continues through to about Christmas.
Sucker lambs are sold from a live weight of 44 kilograms and heavier, while shorn lambs are kept to heavier weights and sold from weights of 60kg and up.
Lambs that are held back to be grown out are shorn in late December, following shearing of the ewes, and are supplemented with grain to assist them to finish.
Lambs are marketed both over the hooks and through the Cowra Saleyards, depending on prices and the season.
“Our season here is about three weeks later than Cowra, so when their lambs have started to dry off our lambs can still be fresh and we try to capitalise by selling through the saleyards at that time,” Mr Webster said.
Lambs sold over the hooks go to either Southern Meats at Goulburn, Country Fresh at Tamworth or Woolworths, depending on the prices being offered.
The family had previously bred their own first-cross ewes, however for the past three years they have purchased them from producers further west, mainly around Forbes.
“We were finding we couldn’t get the ewes we bred big enough to join that first year and we were losing 12 months production from them,” Mr Webster said.
Because producers further west often lambed earlier in the year than the June lambing that was undertaken by the Websters, the ewes they purchased were usually older and had more time to grow out than the ewes the Websters had bred.
“They do a very good job of breeding ewes out there and we decided that it was easier to let someone else do that for us,” he said.
Poll Dorset rams are used as the terminal sires and are sourced from four studs, including Ridgehaven at Cudal; Springwaters at Boorowa; Badgery at Cowra, and Crown Hill at Bigga, with 30 to 40 rams being purchased each year to refill the sire battery.
Mr Webster said they had been happy with the quality of the rams they purchased from these studs, and looked for traits including a good frame, muscling and good raw data figures.
Ewes are joined in December for a June lambing, with a joining rate of between 1.3pc to 1.5pc being used and the rams run with the ewes for a period of about four months.
Fertility hasn’t proven to be a problem for the family, with excellent lambing percentages being achieved.
“We get about 125pc in our maiden ewes and up to 175pc in the older ewes, and average about 140pc across the board,” he said.
While pregnancy scanning their maiden ewes had seen good results achieved, Mr Webster said they did not scan the older ewes and treated every ewe like it was carrying twins.
“We try to stock conservatively to ensure there is plenty of feed for all the ewes,” he said.
The Webster’s ewes are run on pastures based around clover, microlena and ryegrass, with superphosphate applied on a regular basis to keep pastures performing at their best.
The family also sows about 250ha of oats each year, which is grazed by ewes and lambs prior to being locked up to produce the 900 tonnes of grain oats the family aims to keep on-hand for supplementary feeding.
They also have about 350ha of lucernce sown, with 50ha under a centre pivot irrigator, all of which is used for finishing lambs.
Don’t miss this week’s Prime Lamb Annual liftout in The Land.