Laraben Poll Merino rams are destined for the New England area right through to Victoria following the stud's eighth on-property sale at Botobolar, near Mudgee.
The stud sold 46 lots from the 60 offered to an average of $2144 with the top-priced ram going for $5500.
The ram, 220014, was an embryo transfer and was bought by Nutrien Dubbo.
He had a fibre diameter of 18.4 micron, standard deviation of 2.5 micron, coefficient of variation of 13.5 per cent, comfort factor of 99.7pc along with fat of 5 millimetres and an eye muscle depth of 39mm.
The second top-priced ram was purchased by Jamie Croake, Ilford, near Mudgee, for $5000.
A return buyer, Mr Croake purchased the top-priced ram at last year's sale.
The AI-bred (artificial insemination) ram had a fibre diameter of 15.5 micron, standard deviation of 2.0 micron, coefficient of variation of 13.1 per cent, comfort factor of 99.9pc along with fat of 6.5mm and an eye muscle depth of 29mm.
Meanwhile, R and S Neville, Sunnyview, Cowra purchased six rams to an average of $2300.
Laraben Poll Merinos' Gavin Swords was very happy with the sale result considering the season.
He said a number of buyers bought less than they normally would which affected the clearance rate.
"But the good ones [rams] sold really well and that's what propped the average up," he said.
"They were probably buying less rams but paying a little bit more to try and secure a better ram."
Mr Swords was also more than happy with the offering of rams the stud put up this year.
"I think they were as good a lot of rams as we've put up," he said.
"They were probably not as well presented as we've ever had them because it's so much of a drier year and dusty.
"We try not to feed them. They're paddock-bred rams most of them, and we just let them get dusty rather than put them on feeders. They went onto crop rather than feeders because they've got to go out to work for people.
"Out in the real world, they don't get pampered so we try not to pamper them."
The sale was conducted by Nutrien and AWN Mudgee with Andy Carter, McDonald Lawson Carter, Mudgee, as guest auctioneer. AuctionsPlus provided the online interface.
Ben Jaffrey
Ben is a content curator and journalist for The Land. He has been with ACM since 2015 and first worked at The Area News and then at the Northern Daily Leader. Ben first joined ACM Agri as a digital journalist for all seven agricultural mastheads in 2022 before shifting to The Land full-time in 2023.
Ben is a content curator and journalist for The Land. He has been with ACM since 2015 and first worked at The Area News and then at the Northern Daily Leader. Ben first joined ACM Agri as a digital journalist for all seven agricultural mastheads in 2022 before shifting to The Land full-time in 2023.
