Dunedoo's thousand-acre starter or add-on block sold to Limousin Stud

The 398-hectare (983 acre) Mount Beni, pronounced "beanie", sold for $2.45 million - $6156/hectare or $2492/acre - to the Maitland-based family at auction on Friday.

Ahead of the auction, First National Mudgee agent Peter Druitt said agents expected bids north of $2 million.

Five registered bidders, most of them local, pushed bidding along.

The property is in Merrygoen, 34 kilometres from Dunedoo or 90km north-east of Dubbo in a 615-millimetre rainfall zone.

Soils are mostly red loams, running to red sandy loams with some red ironstone country.

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The vendors have made extensive plantings on crop country previously sown to wheat and canola.

Lucerne sown this year and three years ago is established on 52ha and another 65ha has a healthy Nile oats crop.

Also new is 22ha of Mach One Rye and another 10ha has a rye/clover mix.

There's a 50ha two-year-old stand of sub-tropical grasses and clovers, including Premier Digit, Rhodes grass, sub-clover and Arrowleaf clover.

Mr Druitt said about 100ha of the native pastures has excellent clover.

The hay and cropping possibilities are obvious and Mt Beni has also been running sheep.

An unequipped two-stand woolshed has a new set of 1000-head steel sheep yards.

The property is fenced into 19 paddocks, with 8km of fencing renewed, and the vendor estimates the carrying capacity is 2500 Dry Sheep Equivalents.

"In a conservative regime, he has been carrying 600 merino breeding ewes plus followers, and in addition has fattened 1000 trade lambs through the winter, with both bred and bought lambs taken to export weights," Mr Druitt said.

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Mt Beni has 17 dams and metered access to the Merrygoen town water supply.

Plenty of work has also been done on the house, which has been freshly painted inside and out and extensively renovated.

A big kitchen opens to the living area, the bedrooms are all generously proportioned and the bathroom is brand new.

Mr Druitt said the entire house had been re-wired and re-plumbed over the last three years, and a new septic system installed.

Farm infrastructure includes two machinery sheds, a lockable chemical shed, cattle yards, 50 tonne grain silo and a hayshed.