YARONG Merino stud, Forbes, was established in 1976, but is part of the South West Slopes Stud Breeders Merino Field Day for the first time this year.
Stud principal Neil Williams said the event was a good opportunity to promote the stud, which will sell rams privately from September.
The stud, which has a flock of about 1000 ewes, will exhibit some of the young rams available this year.
The stud's focus is on easy doing sheep with excellent lambing percentages, eye muscle depth, fat cover and staple length, Mr Williams said.
“You've got to get muscle and fat right to improve lambing percentages, and our ewes have averaged 125 per cent marked lambs in this drought.
“These ewes were fed before, during and after lambing.”
RELATED READING
Mr Williams said breeding sheep that don't need jetting or mulesing resulted in a lower cost of production.
“Our first focus is lambing percentage, then cost of production, then wool cut,” he said.
“Long wool length enables a six-monthly shearing, and the ewes are cutting almost four kilograms, twice a year, in an average season.”
Mr Williams has been carrying out six-monthly shearings for the past three years, with lambs shorn mid-January, ewes in late April and late October, and the hogget ewes in September.
“The sheep cut 10 per cent more wool, the wool increases by 6pc to 7pc in yield and measures an extra 20 to 30 newtons per kilotex,” he said.
“This equates to an extra dollar or two per kilogram in greasy wool price.
“Wool must be 60 millimetres in length to achieve these premiums, and the skirting ratio will go from four to five fleeces to one bale of pieces, to seven or eight fleeces to one.”