Winston and Sue McDonald, Royalla Merinos, Wallendbeen, held their annual ram sale last Tuesday, where Mr McDonald used the occasion to announce that next year would be the last sale for the stud.
The 82-year-old has been running the operation since the 1980s on his own and has made the decision to hang up his boots from the stud.
He plans to stay in the wool industry and keep a good-quality Merino flock.
"I've never employed a classer, it's been just a one-man job," Mr McDonald said.
"It's just gotten a bit much to be able to do it to the standard that I think it should be done."
Many return clients supported the sale, which topped at $5400 with an average price of $2560. All up, 32 rams of the 40 offered sold to a clearance rate of 80 per cent.
The top ram for the sale was purchased by John and Micheal Lowe, Innisvale, Crookwell for $5400 who have been clients of Royalla since the mid 1990s.
The one-year-old ram measured a fibre diameter of 18.3 micron and was sired by a Greenland Merinos ram.
Micheal Lowe, Innisvale, said the ram's micron was what they aimed for in the self-replacing Merino flock.
"He was a good, well-balanced type of ram, he was well covered and heavy cutting sheep," Mr Lowe said.
Innisvale also purchased two other rams for an average of $2866.
Sue McDonald said that the sale result was a lot better than the couple had expected.
"For this year when everything's down in the dumps to have a very good sale like that we were really happy," Mrs McDonald said.
The volume buyer for the sale was Dymock Agriculture, Boorowa, operated by Murray Dymock and his father John, who purchased eight rams to a top of $4400 with an average of $3060.
CC and SM Braid, Boorowa, purchased five rams to a top of $4000 to an average price of $3300.
Nutrien Crookwell conducted the sale with Tim Woodham as auctioneer.
