The demand for easy-care, fertile Merinos was obvious at Thursday's Mumblebone on-property sale at Wuuluman, where 296 of 300 lots offered were sold at auction to a $20,000 top and $4573 average.
The sale topper, Mumblebone 904, was brought forward from lot 21 to be offered between lots three and four, due to the high level of pre-sale interest. The bids flew from the start for the son of Moojepin 652, which excelled in a range of traits including carcase, growth and fleece weight.
Stud principal, Chad Taylor, said the stud's performance measurement was strongly focused on breeding values and "this ram has a rare combination of traits, including growth and carcase, with a top five per cent fleece weight". The ram also had excellent wool quality and impeccable structure and attracted interest from four states.
"It's wonderful to see an animal with this phenotype, combined with industry leading breeding values being sought by so many studs from so far afield," he said.
The ram was knocked down to Henry Hickson, neXtgenagri, on behalf of Sophie Forrester, Glenkeith Grazing and Cherylton Farms, both of Kojonup, Western Australia. It was offered with breeding values of +7.7 post weaning weight, +10.1 yearling weight, along with +1.9 yearling fat, +3.5 yearling eye muscle depth, +5.0 number of lambs weaned, +30.7 yearling clean fleece weight, and +23.0 yearling staple length.
The high prices also included a second top of $15,000 for Mumblebone 589, a son of 170841 sold to Geoff and Carla Taylor, Ulingala Pastoral Company, Wellington, as one of two they bought to average $13,500.
This ram performed well in growth, muscle and number of lambs weaned, with figures of +8.5PWWT, +10.8YWT, +3.5YEMD, +2.1YFAT and +5.0NLW. Their second ram, at $12,000, was a son of 170716 and had figures of +7.3PWWT, +2.5YEMD, +2.1 YFAT, 25.6YCFW and +5.0NLW.
Mumblebone 072, by 180739, made $13,000, to South Australian buyers G.J. and M.L. Ferguson, Tintinara, with figures of +6.9PWT, +2.0YEMD, +1.6YFAT, +23.9YCFW, +24.8YSL and +4.3NLW.
Volume buyers included the Optifarm-owned Jemalong, near Forbes, which bought 27 to a top of $7000, twice, to average $5074. This was Optifarm's first year at Mumblebone and it sought rams to transition the business away from mulesing with top fertility and weight gain.
Mumblebone offered 40 more rams than 2020 and 100 more than 2019, and also offered rams bred from ewe lambs for the first time. Another feature was its fleece weight performance across the whole draft, which increased the rams' overall value when combined with their high growth, muscling and fertility.
"With plain-bodied sheep it can be slightly harder to breed good fleece weight," Mr Taylor said.
The sale draft averaged fleece weight values of more than +20 "which puts it well above the industry average on a truely easy-care animal". Likewise, the PWWT average was up at +7.0 and the muscling (YEMD) at +1.8, which when combined with the high fleece weight and number of lambs weaned (which averaged about +5.3), made for a very profitable genetic offering.
At the sale's opening, Mr Taylor shared feedback from a client who had compared their existing bloodline against Mumblebone. The Gibbs family, Shepparton, Victoria, found for every 1000 ewes joined the Mumblebone genetics added an extra $130,000 to their bottom line. They bought 15 rams to a top of $5000 to average $3833.
David Grieg, "Bellvue", Tottenham, also had success with Mumblebone, having lifted his lamb marking rate from 75pc on his previous bloodline to 143pc on Mumblebone, almost doubling his number of lambs marked in 10 years without reducing wool cut.
He bought eight rams to $7000 to average $5188 and targeted muscling and fat, as when he first came to Mumblebone, he had seen research suggesting lambing rates could be increased by selecting for these traits. He said this also lifted the sheep's resilience in harder seasons and accelerated their response to supplementary feed or a break in the season.
The four rams passed in at auction were sold immediately post sale.
The sale was handled by Elders, with Martin Simmons, Elders Dubbo, and Paul Dooley, Tamworth, as auctioneers.
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Andrew Norris
Editor at The Land
Editor at The Land
