Split joining practices reap rewards for Braidwood producer

Covering 360 hectares of owned and leased country, family holding in recent years made the change from running Merino and first-cross ewes to now joining 1500 Primeline maternal ewes.

However, it wasn't just the breed of sheep he was changing but also joining periods for the ewes.

Mr Hindmarsh moved from a traditional six-week joining to a split joining period.

The original method was for rams to go in with the ewes for six weeks which resulted in a low scanning rate.

However, it was changed to the rams going in with ewes for six weeks, then were pulled out for two weeks and put back in with the mob for another four weeks.

"Now we closed it up this year," he said.

"We join the ewes a little bit later to get a bit more condition back on them.

"So we joined about February 20 this year, and we've gone four on, two off and then five on.

"We've found that we can generally get every ewe in lamb all but a dozen to 15."

Mr Hindmarsh said this was the best change the operation has made and is planning to stick to it.

After the first four-week joining, the ewes were then scanned with any dry ewes lining up with the joining of the ewe lambs.

Mr Hindmarsh said the biggest challenge for the operation was getting condition on the ewes before the joining period, especially with the last few wet years the area had experienced.

"We have a lot natural country here that we're slowly improving to get fertiliser on and trying to get the clover going, so we hope that'll only get better over time," he said.

"Ideally, that second joining, we want to try and close that up to four weeks as well.

"We want to try and get the first one up to three weeks on, with two weeks off and then four on again, that's ultimately what we want to do."

By doing this the family plan to squeeze the lambing time up for a more even and consistent line of lambs come selling time.

"The split joining has been the best," Mr Hindmarsh said.

"When you do the first scanning, if we miss a few you know not to be too worried about it.

"Because you know you've got a pretty good feeling that they're going to get picked up on that second one.

"Any ewes that don't get picked up in the second scanning are sold."

Following scanning, the ewes are then wet and dried come marking time, with, again, any ewe that doesn't bring a lamb to the cradle then sold.

The last four years have been abnormal for the family, being consumed by transitioning from the Merino and first cross ewes to the Primeline genetics.

Mr Hindmarsh said the operation has retained a lot of the Primeline ewe lambs, which has not helped the marking percentages, but he has found he can run up to 20pc more head per hectare since the change of breeds.

"We're nearly joining sort of 30 to 40 per cent of all ewe lambs," he said.

"It's been proven that you don't have the higher lambing percentages out of the ewe lambs in the first year, until they hit two-and-a-half-year-old.

"That's when you start to get the numbers up and they're not aborting lambs."

When it comes to selling the lambs for the year, Mr Hindmarsh said the change of joining periods has been a main contributing factor of being able to sell more even lines of lambs.

"We generally try and have about 60pc of our lambs gone by the April," he said.

"The ewe lambs, lambs, are always the last ones to go - you've got to have autumn crop in for them.

"They're just not old enough to be able to be saleable.

"While saying that, if we brought the ewe lambs back to a couple of hundred, one would think we're not going to have as many lambs hanging around."

Mr Hindmarsh said the family's opinion now was not about how much land they own or lease, but to make the most of what land they have.

"With land at $10,000 an acre it is just not viable to be purchasing it for a grazing operation considering you will struggle to meet interest payments let alone start paying the principle," he said.

"It also restricts you to available cash to spend on the country you already have, the first thing you generally remove from your purchase list is fertiliser, and this is the main driver for all fattening operations.

"You tend to have larger numbers for sale, but when you work out the kilograms per hectare you have produced, sometimes you are not generally any further in front dollar-wise before you increased your land holding and started paying the bank back.

"We are always paid by the amount of kilograms we can produce, so you need to make sure that you have exhausted that from the land you already have available first. In our case we have so much more scope to improve what we have, so we are quite excited how far this will take us.

"Make the most of what you own first, get a good agronomist on board and make sure they are willing to send your current land bank into overdrive to maximise every inch of it."