Petali Poll Merinos $6500 sale topper to Orange

Martin and Cheryl Oppenheimer offered a draft of 70 rams with 59 sold at auction (with some lots sold after the sale) for an average $1961, up on last year’s $1900.

Fourteen rams sold for $3000 or more with bidders on AuctionsPlus adding to the competition, picking up eight rams.

Brendan Ostini, Ravecchia Poll Merino stud, “Springside”, Orange picked up the sale topper, a son of Karbullah 140047 with strong Australian Sheep Breeding Values (ASBVs) for staple length and worm resistance.

The ram had ASBVs of +3.7 kilograms for yearling body weight, +11.6pc for yearling clean fleece weight, -0.9 for yearling fibre diameter, +14.5 millimetres for staple length, and -51 for worm egg count (WEC).

Mr Ostini said he liked the ram’s plain body, deep crimped wool and extra long staple.

The ram had about seven months wool and Tom Henry, Elders’ district wool manager at Walcha, estimated the staple length at 90mm.

Mr Ostini runs about 5000 Poll Merinos including 500 stud ewes.

He was joined by two other successful buyers from the Orange district with a relative, Lindy Crossley, Ostini Partnership, “Glenwirra”, Mullion Creek snapping up two rams for $2000 and $1500.

Paul Nicholls, “Glenlea”, Milthorpe near Orange also bought two, paying the sale’s second top price of $3750 for a son of Leahcim Poll 142032. 

The ram had an early breech wrinkle ASBV of -0.9.

He also picked up 110 Poll Merino maiden stud ewes for $120.

Mr Nicholls runs about 1200 Merino ewes and is looking to breed sheep that don’t need mulesing.

The $3750 second top price was equalled by two other ram buyers –  Blaxland Poll Merinos, Tamworth, and Simon Croft, Milparinka Pastoral Company, Guyra twice.

Milparinka went home with 11 rams.

A feature of the sale was the number of volume buyers.

The Pietsch family, Yarraford Trust, Glen Innes, bought eight including four at $3250.

Long-time buyer, Veolia Environmental Service, Tarago, on the NSW Southern Tablelands, put together a draft of seven to a top of $2750.

Return buyer, Ross King, Waterloo Station, Walcha, picked up six to a top of $2000.

Repeat buyer, Geoff Farlow, “Giru”, Deepwater, snapped up five all at the auction floor of $1000.

Petali stud principal, Martin Oppenheimer, said buyers were looking for fleece weight, growth and worm resistance.

“People know what they want,” he said.

He was happy with the result with the average and numbers sold up on last year’s sale.

The sale was conducted by Elders Walcha with Paul Dooley, Tamworth, the guest auctioneer.