THE Brien brothers are producing top quality first-cross ewes using Border Leicester rams at Ingleburn and Sommercroft, south of Wellington.
Jason and Kim Brien and Greg and Robyn Brien run up to 5500 ewes on 2200 hectares, which includes 4300 Merinos, producing wool and first-cross ewes and 1200 crossbreds, producing fat lambs.
"At the moment we're back to about 3500 ewes, but we've increased the cropping from 1100, 1200 acres to 2000 acres (810ha)," Jason said.
"Depending on the season and markets, we like to produce as many young first-cross ewes as we can, and in the past two or three years we've sold 1200 young first-cross ewes each year."
They've already sold a portion of the spring 2019-drop over AuctionsPlus in July, with the two lots of 200, averaging 52 kilograms liveweight, selling for $327 a head and $328/hd, going to producers in Goulburn and Woodstock.
The key to their good first-cross ewes is genetics, on both the Merino and Border Leicester sides.
The Briens source Merinos from their brother Scott at Bella Lana stud, and Warren Leeson at Dunedoo, who also uses Scott's genetics.
"We buy in all our Merino ewes," Jason said.
"We made that decision as a business years ago to simplify the operation, so we can concentrate on what our country is good at doing - finishing fat lambs."
They've been using Reg Sweeney's Bindaree genetics for more than 20 years.
"They're big, weighty rams that produce fantastic mothers that allow us and our clients to turn off lambs that meet ideal trade specifications with great eye muscle area and fat covering," Greg said.
"We don't normally sell our first-cross ewes until September but they finished so quickly with the feed we had."
Lambs are finished on crop most years, with the brothers growing grazing crops every year and also improving pastures with lucerne and clover. The rest of their first-cross ewes will be sold in the next few weeks ready for an October joining.
"We weighed some of those two weeks ago and they're hitting 50kg.
"Then we've got some young autumn drop first-cross ewes, about 400, and we generally market those, depending on the season and their growth, just prior to Christmas or in January."
Ruth Schwager
Ruth Schwager is a journalist with the national agricultural features team.
Ruth Schwager is a journalist with the national agricultural features team.
