Diversity behind Shippens' success

Succession planning is so important in agriculture and even though they had a sizeable debt, they got control of the property when they were young and enthusiastic.

Even though their passion was sheep, and they had a sizeable sheep contracting business, they were forced (because of the wool floor-price collapse) to diversify into cereal production.

They grew lots of rice and cereals as a means to an end, but never lost sight of their goal that was to have a low cost, profitable self-replacing Merino operation, with scale.

The first two properties they purchased were assisted by vendor finance.

Mr Shippen said it happened that way because they were unable to raise money from the banks by conventional means.

The 6000ha Moulamein, NSW, property, Chah Singh was their first big purchase, followed by Bundyulumblah.

It was at that time they met Bob Simpson who has since become their sheep classer.

They bought Mr Simpson's sheep in 2001 and he has classed the Banyandah flock ever since.

"Mr Simpson's and my vision of productive sheep are much the same," Mr Shippen said.

"We aim to breed big wool cutting and fertile sheep."

In mid-2000, they bought their Baldon aggregation and it was at this time, the drought hit.

"We had a lot of sheep, no feed and debt at the bank," Mr Shippen said.

"We had a choice to scale back and wait for things to improve or go harder, and we chose the latter."

As a result of this bold decision they started their massive saltbush program, to improve their degraded land. And, they bought a number of properties to feed their sheep and traded water licenses to keep their operation financially viable.

In one deal they bought the 3000ha property, Barton Station at Moyston which has since been on-sold to Qatar-based Hassad Australia. The couple had this property for two years which provided valuable feed.

In another deal they purchased Pine Park at Wellington, NSW, – it too has since been re-sold.

"Buying properties we saw as a cheaper option than paying for agistment and fodder," Mr Shippen said.

This was also at a time the Federal Government was buying water for environmental purposes.

The Shippens made the strategic decision to buy and sell as much water as they could find. This allowed them not only to maintain, but increase the size of their aggregation leading them to purchase Liewah Station.

After the drought broke, they entered a consolidation phase whereby they have kept their core operation in the Moulamein area and have purchased a property at Wagga Wagga, NSW, in partnership with Mr Shippen's brother.

They have turned this into a prime lamb operation, which is basically a relief valve for their Moulamein operation.

"We send our five year-old ewes and some surplus young ewes over there" Mr Shippen said.

"These sheep are on a one-way track – we join 15,000 ewes to terminal sires".

"The ewes and their lambs are either sold through the saleyards or over the hooks".

WITH the help and advice of Bob Simpson, Bandyandah Pastoral has created its own stud flock of 2300 ewes to breed rams for its 28,500 commercial ewes.

The operation's breeding aim is simple. They want a large-framed ewe that grows heavy-cutting, bold-crimping, lustrous wool and can rear her lamb.

The sheep must be constitutionally strong because under their marginal conditions they still have to be productive.

The stud has six families comprising two internal families called the Bundy families. The remaining four families are from what we see as the more productive parent studs which includes Willandra, Wanganella, Banavie-Charinga and a South Australian group consisting of Collinsville and Ashrose rams.

The best 500 ewes are used for an AI and single mate program.

"We have a couple of rams we have bred which are showing exceptional potential," Mr Shippen said.

"We have no preference for either poll or horned rams. We treat each ram on its merit although it is interesting that more than one third of our rams are now polled."

The 1200 ram lambs born from these families are treated as one and run together for comparisons on micron, fleece weight and body weight.

Mr Shippen says fertility is not a major problem in his country. Ewes consistently achieve 95 per cent pregnancy rates, and this year a solid 115pc of lambs were marked to ewes joined.

The ram lambs are classed twice until they end up with 200 'keepers'. Of these, 180 are used as flock rams for the commercial operation the following year. The top 20 are evaluated and placed into the stud ram flock.

THE primary aim of the enterprises' commercial operation is to make it as simple and low cost as possible.

To achieve this, they handle their sheep as little as possible and when they do handle them, they do as many jobs with them as they can.

The three major operations during the year are crutching, lamb-marking and shearing.

Mating commences in January to target a June-July lambing, but the rams are not taken out until April when the ewes are crutched and scanned.

Ewes scanned not pregnant are separated, with the five year-olds sold, while the younger ewes are re-scanned six weeks later and either lambed at Wagga or lambed at Moulamein and then trucked to Wagga.

Pregnant ewes on the first scanning are spread as thinly as possible across the property and are left untouched until lamb marking.

Within each mob a small portion of ewe hoggets are also grazed which Mr Shippen says helps to develop their maternal instincts and teaches them to feed and water properly.

These ewe hoggets are drafted off at lamb marking and they are classed for keepers or prepared for sale as 1.5 year-olds.

Prior to shearing in October, the ewes with lambs at foot are trickle-fed grain. This educates the young lambs to the concept of being grain fed.

When the lambs are weaned at shearing the tops of the wethers are sold to the abattoirs and the remainder, along with the ewe portion are trickle-fed grain on irrigation until shearing and then placed in the saltbush paddocks.

ALWAYS looking for future wool-growing opportunities, the Shippens would like to secure an additional property to run as a low-cost wether operation.

Ideally the property would be in a higher rainfall area with strong soil types.

"We've had great success with our sheep going into higher rainfall country because of the importance we have placed on our clean, high yielding wool," he said.

The primary driver behind the wether concept is the strong belief they have good wool-growing sheep that will enable them to make a healthy financial margin when run as a wool growing operation.

Wethers retained as lambs would supply the operation and be kept for a period of three years before being on-sold to the meat trade.

A wether growing operation of this elk Mr Shippen says would eliminate the variables they face annually of knowing what price their wethers will return as lambs.

THE strategy employed to sell their 2200-2400 bale wool clip is simple.

All wool is sold forward into spot market opportunities at a pre-determined price level that is satisfactory to production costs.

When the 21-micron indicator hits 1200c/kg a substantial portion of their clip is sold on a forward delivery basis.

"We have confidence in our product and our ability to deliver," Mr Shippen said.

"At this price we are making money."

The strategy is based on the theory the 21-micron indicator has fluctuated across a range of 200 cents for the past two to three years in any one year.

"The 1200c/kg sits within the top 80pc of this range and we're happy to accept that money," Mr Shippen said.

The Shippens were profiled in Stock & Land's special '10 of our Best' feature in this week's paper. Read more about their enterprise in the November 27 edition