CONSISTENT Border Leicester rams are helping Harold and Robert Baker breed good quality first-cross ewes as the base for their prime lamb production at Wellington.
The brothers, who trade under Paul Baker Group, are based at Scarborough Lodge, about 10km north of Wellington, running 1000 Merino ewes and 2000 crossbreds.
The Bakers buy in all Merino ewes, focusing on five-year-old western sheep, and breed their own first-cross ewes using Border Leicester rams from nearby Talbragar stud.
They've been Talbragar clients for the past five years, and a big attraction was the influence from the Grinter family's Retallack stud at Ariah Park.
"I've always liked their sheep, and they're true to type," Harold Baker said.
"They're good moderate rams, and they put on another 20pc of their bodyweight in the first months we have them."
Visual structure is the most important factor with ram selection, Mr Baker said, but the genetics have also been able to solve another problem.
"Before using their rams, some of my first-cross ewes were getting footy socks on them, wool on their lower legs, and I didn't know if it was the ewes I was buying or the rams, but with Ben (Simmons, Talbragar stud principal), he's breeding on one line, and that's fixed it."
Rams settle in for a few weeks before joining in October, for an autumn lambing.
We join them in sections to lamb every month outside summer, so we can catch all lamb markets throughout the year.
- Harold Baker, Scarborough Lodge, Wellington
Lambing percentages range from 100 to 110 per cent across the whole flock of Merino ewes and first-cross maiden ewes have scanned from 92pc to 98pc over the last decade.
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The first-cross ewes, which are joined to Poll Dorset rams from the Ryan family's Gilmore stud at Yeoval, are lambing at 120pc to 130pc.
The maidens are joined from 10 months of age, and the brothers aim for three second-cross lambs in two years, by lambing year-round.
"We join them in sections to lamb every month outside summer, so we can catch all lamb markets throughout the year," Mr Baker said.
"We get a good average throughout the year, and it's a great source of income year-round."
First-cross wether lambs are occasionally sold as suckers, but they're mostly targeting heavy trade to export weights.
All second-cross lambs are sold as suckers or trade lambs, generally through the Dubbo saleyards, and last week they sold lambs for $305 a head.
More than half the property has lucerne pastures, some undersown with grain crops, and lambs are finished oat, barley and wheat crops which are then locked up for grain harvest.
"We prefer to sell as suckers or trade lambs but in summer they'll be carried out to heavy weights," Mr Baker said.
"We need to be turning them off as quickly as possible because we're lambing nine months of the year."