Triangle Flat sheep producer Terry Dolbel of Milton Vale, has taken top honours of the 26th annual Bathurst Merino Association Maiden Ewe competition.
Based on bloodlines from Nerstane, Yarrawonga, Winyar and his own home-bred genetics, Mr Dolbel runs a self-replacing operation where he joins around 5500 ewes.
"A percentage, around 1000 ewes four to five years old each year, go to a Border Leicester and are sold scanned in lamb," he said.
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On display he had 430 maiden ewes, classed by Mr Dolbel himself, that were classed at 15pc.
"Our classed out percentage is pretty small, we don't do a lot of culling because we can't breed enough lambs so we do more of a corrective mating where we breed better rams over the not as good ewes to try and counteract and boost them that way," he said.
The average micron is around 17.3, with the average wool cut sitting at 6.5 kilograms.
"We also run around 4000 wethers that we keep till about four year olds and then sell them off... they push the clip up a bit," he said.
Wool is the main focus according to Mr Dolbel, with the 2500 hectare property also used to run Charolais cattle of Violet Hills blood.
"We are 80 per cent wool growers, then sell some old sheep and run a few hundred cattle," he said.
Steers are sold at 18 to 24 months through the saleyards, with a portion of female retained as replacements.
During the drought Mr Dolbel cut down his ewe numbers by 40pc and the cattle by two-thirds. He would like to build his numbers back up but says there is no point if you can't shear them.
"We mainly lamb in August/September. Our lambing percentage is back, we don't get much more than 70 per cent with the weather, foxes, crows," he said.
"Last year we lost about 400 to 500 lambs in the cold bout, so we've shifted through to lambing some in autumn that will start in two to three weeks time.
"We shear once a year, and try to get them shorn before the autumn mob lambs, but with the shearer shortage ewes will be lambing before we get to finishing shearing."
No strangers to success in the Bathurst event, the Dolbel flock has won the competition a few times and was the champion of champions flock in the event's 20th anniversary year.
"The crimp was very good in the sheep, and they were well covered. The main things I look at is always breeding a good crimpy sort of wool, and appealed to these judges," Mr Dolbel said.
The competition was judged by Hamish McLaren of Nerstane Merinos, Woolbrook, and Frank Kaveney, Tallawong Merinos, Yass.
Eight flock featured in this year's competition that covered the south east of Bathurst including; Rockley, Triangle Flat, Charlton, Tannas Mount and The Lagoon.
Second place went to John, Dan and Steve Owens of Nanena, The Lagoon, with their Nerstane blood ewes.
Displaying around 1350 ewes that were classed at 30pc by Steve Owens, the Nanena flock averages 16.8 micron in their adult ewes, with a wool cut of just over 6kg.
The Owens breed their own rams on their 3250ha property which is a solely grazing operation running sheep and Angus cattle of Rennylea blood.
They also received the inaugural people's choice award.
Jeff and Frances McSpedden, Springfield, The Lagoon, received third with their ewes. Based on Kerin Poll bloodlines, specifically following the Morrundie family line at Kerin Poll, the McSpeddens were first time entrants of the competition.
They displayed 230 maiden ewes, that were classed at 22pc by Brian Seaman.
The encouragement award was presented to Andrew Larnach of Oaklands, Rockley, with his Winyar blood ewes.
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