When things were tough for Andrew and Ashley Litchfield on their 1200-hectare property, Wits End, Geranium, South Australia, they came up with a solution that has them well placed going forward.
They are a mixed operation, primarily growing barley and vetch for grain and hay, and running a self-replacing Merino flock of 900 ewes and 300 hoggets.
But, it is in their meat production flock where they put White Suffolk rams over their cull Merino ewes that has led to big developments for the Litchfields.
"During the dry, we needed a way to maintain condition on our stock so we were hand feeding," Mr Litchfield said.
"We thought about it and decided to build a feedlot to allow us to containment feed all our sheep in the dry season.
"This also allows us to finish any lambs that don't come up in the paddock and buy in lambs to finish.
"Our original operation was just a self-replacing Merino flock, but with farming conditions becoming tougher, we branched out into sucker lambs to broaden our income streams.
"We bought 1200 lambs in this year to finish, and if prices rise again to make the feedlot viable, we will bring in up to 5000 plus a year."
Mr Litchfield began farming in 2004, only cropping part of the farm on weekends.
In 2010, they started buying in Merinos, with Mrs Litchfield doing the majority of the stock work, and five years ago expanded their operation by buying a small neighbouring farm.
This allowed the Litchfields to mate and keep White Suffolk lambs.
Wits End has been re-fenced to 40ha paddocks and bad sandy areas cordoned off, allowing for pasture management and preserves some ground cover with most years seeing them sow 40ha of pasture.
"We also plant 160ha of triticale to graze as well as lucerne, veldt grass, serradella, primrose, clover, medics, and forage turnips," Mr Litchfield said.
"This year was our best opening rains allowing our non-wetting sand to get 'wet' at seeding.
"At the start of August we are dry with plants starting to struggle with moisture.
"This year we have had frosts most days, getting below minus five degrees several times.
"This has made paddock feed very limited, with pasture very slow growing.
"Most pastures are spread with 100 kilograms per hectare of fertiliser sweepings or sulphate of ammonia.
"We try and spray grasses and skeleton weed out where possible as well."
The crossbred lambs stay with the ewes and are sold as sucker lambs in late August onwards.
They are rotated over the sown feed as well as native and improved pastures.
"On a good year we wean lamb onto sown feed coming into its peak production," Mr Litchfield said.
"We hand feed extensively through summer and lambing, to allow us to get early suckers away.
"We supplementary feed everything through summer and lambing as having a feedlot allows us to containment feed.
"Feed is mostly home grown, being hay and barley, but we do buy in lupins."
The Litchfields join their ewes to rams in late October, 40 ewes to a ram, and aim to sell lambs at five month old onwards.
This year they sold their crossbred as store lambs, averaging 35kg at four months old.
They have a 95 per cent joining rate with a 110pc lambing rate.
Lambs drop in March/April, which allows the Litchfields to have early suckers gone before grass seeds become an issue.
In the lead-up to joining ewes with rams, all sheep are drenched and given Glanvac.
"We also feed the rams lupins for eight weeks prior to mating, to improve fertility," Mr Litchfield said.
"The overall health of the rams is assessed prior to mating, with a foot and testicle inspection.
"All our Suffolk rams are from Windy Hill as they are good framed, well presented rams.
"On top of their quality, they are extremely quiet rams, which makes them easy to work with.
"This is important to us, as we have children that work in the yards with us.
The Litchfields sell the majority of their lambs through the Ouyen saleyards, although they do also sell over the hooks on well priced forward contracts.
All their lambs are weighed prior to sale, and get supplement feed if they are not coming up to weight.
