The 50 year stud celebrations for the Frost family of Hillden Poll Dorsets continue to get better after their inaugural online ram sale on Tuesday hit a personal record stud ram price of $18,000.
Earlier this month Brian, Lorraine and James Frost of Hillden clocked up a third consecutive win of the supreme exhibit title of the NSW Dorset Championships at Cowra.
It was that junior and grand champion ram, Hillden 652-19, who reached the peak of the AuctionsPlus bidding when he was knocked down to Victor Coble, Hidden Valley stud, Binalong.
He was one of 19 rams that sold within the auction time frame of the 25 offered to average $5237.
Hillden 652-19 was described by Cowra judge Brayden Gilmore of Baringa Sheep Studs, Oberon, as the most complete Poll Dorset ram he had been able to oversee.
Sired by the reserve junior champion Australasian ram in Hillden 860-17, he was an August 2019-drop ram out of Hillden 151-17 and weighed 135 kilograms with a 39.27 eye muscle area.
Buyer Victor Coble runs about 60 to 70 ewes and had success using his new ram's sire.
He saw the ram at the Cowra competition and inspected him on-property.
"He will go to all my ewes just because he is a good animal," he said.
"I've been on their genetics for eight years now and I'm pretty happy with the way the sheep are performing so I keep going back.
"I've never really bought a ram, I've always tried to AI before, but I thought this year might be the year."
Vendor James Frost was surprised but very pleased with the result.
The stud would normally sell their rams while exhibiting them at a range of shows. But the cancellation of events due to COVID-19 prompted them to undertake an online sale that had been on their mind for some time.
"We hoped they would sell well," he said.
"It was one of our best lineups we had put together."
The sale attracted registered buyers from Victoria, South Australia, NSW and Western Australia with the largest draft secured by one buyer of four rams.
Hillden 230-19, an April 2019 drop ram by Hillden 295-14 who was first in the pair of rams at Canberra Royal and champion at Taralga show was snapped up for $12,000 while Hillden 484-19, the reserve intermediate champion at Cowra, was not far behind at $11,750.