COMPETITION was strong at the 13th on-property New Armatree Border Leicester ram sale at Armatree on Thursday last week.
The entire draft of 110 SuperBorder rams were snapped up for a 100 per cent clearance to average of $4930 - almost doubling the stud's 2020 sale average.
Vendor, Jenny Bradley, said bidding was strong on the rams with better performance for fat, muscle, growth and number of lambs weaned, and all up they registered more than 30 bidders.
The top-priced ram, New Armatree-200133, sold to Crown Agriculture, Cudal, at $8000, and was one of a draft of four rams the company bought, bringing its average to $6650.
The sale topper was a twin by New Armatree-180116, and was in the top 15pc of the breed for weaning weight, top 20pc for fat depth, and top 10pc for both eye muscle depth and number of lambs weaned and had a BLX index of 143.4, which was in the top 5pc of the breed.
Volume buyers, David Watt, Trundle, purchased 18 rams to an average of $5022; Myalla Station, Cooma, purchased 15 rams to average $4853, and the Norrie family, Eugowra, purchased eight rams to an average of $5550.
Long-time clients included Brian and Maree Plummer, Tottenham, who bought seven rams to average of $4400, and David Greig, also of Tottenham, who bought seven rams to average of $5085.
Stud principals Craig and Jenny Bradley said they were thrilled with the support for the sale.
"We were really pleased to see people travel so far and to compete with local buyers to purchase rams with strong Australian sheep breeding values for production and reproductive traits," Mrs Bradley said.
"It's rewarding to see leading and innovative first-cross ewe breeders support our long-term breeding objectives that are focused on industry production traits."
Mrs Bradley said they had particularly focused their recent genetic efforts on conformation, ensuring feet, toes and legs were correct, while also maintaining their overall direction on performance.
"Toe scoring is conducted on all our sheep," she said. "Rams for sale are presented with no toe trimming and no straw in the pens and must be a score one or two on our scoring guide."
The sale was conducted by Steve Colwell, Halcroft and Bennett, Coonamble, and Elders stud stock agent, Scott Thrift, and was also hosted online via AuctionsPlus.
