Brothers Peter and Adam Gardiner of Gardiner Bros Farms, Caldwell, have run sheep for years to value-add to their hay and grain business.
But in the last six months they have gone from trading Merinos, to starting a breeding program with Dorpers - buying in 5500 ewes.
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Peter Gardiner explained hay made up close to 60 per cent of their business, the brothers mainly growing oaten hay for exporters, as well as some domestic demand, while they also crop barley for grain.
The sheep became part of the business when they moved to their southern Riverina farm from Bamawm in Victoria, outside of Echuca, roughly 10 years ago, to add consistency to their operation.
"We're all dryland cropping, so it can be hit and miss," Mr Gardiner said.
"One year we'll get one or two tonnes of hay and the next year we might have seven or eight.
"We're just trying to take out the ups and downs and get a bit more cashflow from selling off lambs."
Mr Gardiner said another factor was in a year like this - where it was difficult to sell hay - they were able to use their hay in the sheep operation.
Trading sheep had suited them because it meant they could still crop nearly all their country.
"We would usually buy empty ewes in September, October, sell them scanned-in-lamb in April and then go cropping," Mr Gardiner said.
The brothers have found they can grow a lot more feed by producing hay or grain.
"We can grow a four or five tonne hay crop, or a two or three tonne grain crop, as opposed to one tonne of feed just grazing in the paddock," Mr Gardiner said.
Scare shearers led to change
However, trading meant their sheep numbers varied significantly year-to-year, making locking in shearing contractors difficult.
"Some years you'd have none and some you'd have 5000 and shearing contractors like a bit of consistency," Mr Gardiner said.
"I rang our contractor in September and said we'll probably buy some Merino wethers.
"I spoke to him in December and he said 'thank god you didn't buy in Merinos' because they were still backlogged with shearing up until January."
Given the shearing difficulties, the Gardiners decided to make the switch to shedding sheep, choosing Dorpers because they were the easiest to find in large numbers.
"The Dorpers are pretty well suited for out here, we're in a 350 millimetres to 400mm rainfall zone and they can certainly tough it out a lot easier than a Merino," Mr Gardiner said.
"The Aussie Whites and Ultra Whites also look pretty good so I wouldn't mind getting some of them, to probably cross over later down the track."
Infrastructure built to breed
They bought in Dorpers via AuctionsPlus in several mobs from Broken Hill, north of Hay and South Australia.
"We bought 2000 ewe lambs and we will probably try and keep some of them to get a good base going," Mr Gardiner said.
"We also bought some two, three and four year-old-ewes, a mix of Dorpers and white Dorpers."
The Gardiners took the change as an opportunity to start a breeding program, setting up 11 small paddocks in tree country.
"We're hoping to lamb down in those paddocks, we're just supplementary feeding them all the time, all our hay, grain and silage," Mr Gardiner said.
"Once the crops come off they will go on the stubble, then we'll sell them when they're 22 to 24 kilograms, carcase weight."
The sheep paddocks are all linked to a large laneway that connects them to existing yards.
For the fences they used 1200 concrete posts and valley wire, with barbed wire at the top and bottom.
While for water infrastructure they tacked onto an existing pipeline and put in more troughs.
The next challenge will be lining up lambing between the different mobs they bought in.
"We scanned about four weeks ago and we have 3000 to lamb and then 2500 who have already lambed or scanned empty," Mr Gardiner said.
"They've been continuously running with rams so we'll scan them all again in another six weeks.
"If they're not in lamb again then we'll probably sell them on AuctionsPlus."
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