Gulargambone producer Bill Charnley said the move to Australian Whites has made a huge difference to his the livestock enterprise’s bottom line.
After moving their focus from White Dorpers, Mr Charnley is now heading for a full self-replacing Aussie White flock.
“We were originally buying some breeders in, but because the Australian White has been so good for us we have decided to go back to a full self-replacing Australian White flock,” Mr Charnley said.
All 2000 breeding ewes, run over 2800 hectares, are joined to Australian White rams. Eight hundred of those ewes are pure Whites with the aim to ‘clean up’ the remaining Doper portion in two years.
A double joining takes place yearly with ewes lambing down in March/April and September/October.
“On average we lamb about 175 per cent per annum by doing the double lambing,” Mr Charnley said. “That’s on average – the best we have done over the whole year is 215pc.”
He said once they started using the Whites they picked up about two kilos or more, dressed weight, at six months-old than they were with a Dorper.
“That allowed us to turn the lambs off quicker,” he said. “We were doing it before, but the system became so much quicker the second we went to Whites.”
Evening out the cash flow as well as the stocking rate for the year is another two reasons for the double joining.
“If you do one joining and go for one big hit in the year you have got very few sheep on the place for a lot of the year and then a great heap,” he said. “If you happen to lamb at a dry time it doesn't work as well. Whereas if you have two smaller lambings it evens it out.
“It is one of the best drought proofing strategies I have seen.”
He said the opportunity exists, if it is dry, to sell the lambs as stores with the advantage of another lot of lambs coming on a month or two later.
“Your not shooting 12 months of income in the foot, you are only shooting six months,” he said.
Ninety-five per cent of the lambs at “Kindamindi” are sold to Thomas Foods, Tamworth, with lambs turned off from five months of age with all of any drop usually gone by the time they are eight months-old.
The average return is about $130 per head.
This equates to a return of about $225 per ewe, per year.
He said with Aussie Whites they have a five to six-month window they can sell between.
“We have occasionally kept the lambs until they are a bit longer,” Mr Charnley said.
“When you have the feed and the season and market is with you, you can keep them to 10 or 11 months-old and you can get $190 for them.”
