Two-and-a-half-year-old commercial ewes were in demand at the Parkdale SRS Poll Merino sale in Dubbo to reach a top of $114.
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Online buyers were active with 60 per cent of the offering purchased online and destined for NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.
The top-priced pen of ewes was purchased by Joshua Crye, Oberon.
The pen of 220 scanned-empty ewes averaged 53 kilograms with 66pc of the mob assessed a fat score two.
Shorn in December 2023, the ewe flock averaged a wool cut of 6.8kg, measuring a fibre diameter of 19 micron on a 12-month rolling average for the commercial flock.
The volume buyer was Beau Ward, Savannah, Willcannia, who purchased 624 commercial ewes, aged five and a half years old for $66 per head.
The August/September 2018-drop ewes recorded an average weight of 52.5kg, with a focus of the flock to breed a fast growing soft staple.
For the ram portion of the catalogue, 11 of the 25 rams offered sold for $800.
There was strong interest for the 14 short-tailed, mixed aged stud ewes, which were purchased by Mark Mudford, Collie, for $100/head.
These ewes were direct from the Parkdale stud nucleus which has a high selection focus on genetic fat, muscle, growth, fleece weight, staple length, breech and fertility traits.
Breeding the short-tailed ewes has been an exercise for the past 12 years at the stud which started with the late Dr Jim Watts, a Merino breeding and wool scientist.
Parkdale stud principal Don Mudford said there was a high focus on shortening the tail length.
Mr Mudford said the tail length is the most heritable trait of a sheep, so as much as the sire with a short tail is trying to keep hold of his length and the ewe with the longer tail is trying to keep hold of her length, the outcome will be halfway.
"Our western clients like the shorter tails sheep as it is difficult to get a clean muster in the west," he said.
"Any ewes and lambs that come in, in the second muster and the lambs might be three to six months of age and they haven't got into trouble with dags and their long woolly tails."
Mr Mudford said selling into a sluggish market was always tough but was pleased to see more rams be sold after the sale.
Mr Mudford said the natural short-tailed ewes were sold to a local buyer that knew their full potential of fertility and high lamb survival rates of 175pc.
The sale was conducted by Nutrien Ag Solutions Bourke, with AuctionsPlus providing the online interface.
