Having a full-time job off-farm does not leave a lot of time for Marty Beckett to run his small family farm at Baan Baa.
But he is still committed to the property and the best way he could see to have the enjoyment of living on the land without the extra work involved in running Merino sheep was to breed a flock of Wiltipoll ewes.
Mr Beckett is the fourth generation of his family to farm in the northwest and he has been breeding Wiltipoll sheep for the past three years on the 400-hectare property.
He is still in a phase of building numbers, and presently is running 150 ewes which are complemented by a cropping program growing barley for grain, oats for sheep forage and sorghum and cowpeas for summer forage for trade steers.
Mr Beckett said his interest in Wiltipoll sheep began when he started looking around for a viable alternative to his cow herd.
"I could see there was a good return from breeding sheep compared with cattle, but I didn't want the extra work involved with shearing," he said. "We used to have Merinos when I was a kid but mum and dad went out of them to run cattle."
Mr Beckett purchased his first draft of mixed-age Wiltipoll ewes three years ago and has been concentrating on selecting for fertility, length and depth of body and constitution.
He now has a young flock as he carefully selects the better young ewes to replace those he started with.
"The Wiltipoll are easy care which is important as we all work off-farm," he said.
"They also seem to be good doing sheep, and through this drought have been keeping their condition without a lot of supplementary feeding."
Mr Beckett said the only time he has had to feed was winter last year when the ewes were on the point of lambing.
"They are surviving through this very dry season and our young ewes have grown into very nice sheep," he said.
Mr Beckett sells surplus sheep through the TRLX saleyards in Tamworth, and last years wether portion at six months sold for $120 when the market wasn't as high as it is now.
"I can run 10 ewes to one cow and when the ewes have twins, it is a no-brainer for us," he said.
Mr Beckett said the returns are so much greater for his smallholding from running Wiltipoll ewes than breeding cows.
"Fertility is important, and we have had lambmarking percentages up to 140 percent, but this year we only had 90pc due to the drought," he said.
Replacement Wiltipoll rams are sourced from Ian Hopwood and Loris Denyer, Reavesdale, Murringo.
