Breeding Dohne sheep is helping fourth-generation farmer Garry Mooring, Louth, stay in the industry, with their ability to thrive in harsh conditions one of the breed's best attributes.
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Mr Mooring shifted to Dohnes, from Merinos, 14 years ago.
"During the dry times I've noticed that they do well, they roam, graze and survive a lot better than Merinos do," he said.
In an average year, Mr Mooring runs 8500 sheep but he is currently only sitting on around 35 per cent of that capacity.
Farming 24,000 hectares near the banks of the Darling River, Mr Mooring runs a mixed operation, with cattle and a full-blood Dohne line, which were gradually introduced into the Merino flock in 2005.
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At the time Mr Mooring was looking for a dual-purpose sheep when the wool market was struggling.
Dohnes have allowed him to diversify with meat sheep and continue to produce high quality wool.
"They're definitely the best dual-purpose sheep I could find," he said.
"We were the first that went into Dohnes out here, that I know of, but now a few others have got into them and they're very happy with the way they perform."
The heavily framed sheep produce large wool cuts, with his ewes averaging 6.5 to seven kilograms and lambs about 4kg to 4.5kg, although this has dropped slightly because of last year's drought conditions.
Despite being in drought for the majority of their Dohne breeding operation, profitability has improved with the easy to manage, heavier sheep achieving higher lambing percentages and growth rates.
"They're early maturing which makes them, for meat, a much better product to sell and their fertility and ease of management is very beneficial to anyone looking to go into them," Mr Mooring said.
Mr Mooring has changed his management plan to sell wether lambs at five to six months old rather than nine to 11 months old to reduce costs with hand feeding cottonseed and hay.
"We've been doing really well at that rate and letting someone else value add to them," he said.
The sheep have been hand-fed cottonseed and hay every day for the past 14 months and they're still in very good condition, Mr Mooring said.
But Mr Mooring was concerned about restocking to full capacity when the drought breaks.
"When it does rain, I don't think sheep will be available because people have just dropped back to their core breeders," he said.
Dohnes' high fertility and survival rates mean when the time is right, he may be able to restock more quickly than a traditional Merino breeder.
