THE Stringer family's traditional sheep farm at Forge Creek has undergone multiple succession partnerships, transforming from a single income enterprise as new ideas are adopted and carrying capacity increased.
Ian Stringer began the business in partnership with his brother Dennis and their father Jack in 1950 when they moved from a thriving sheep and cattle property at Ensay to "a condemned piece of land" abutting Duck Arm on the Gippsland Lakes.
The farm had no water and the country was open, so the trio set to work building dams and constructing internal and external fences using timber on the property.
"If you went outside and clapped your hands, as far as you could see the land moved in waves," Mr Stringer said, describing the rabbit population they had to eradicate.
After a few years, an annual fertiliser program began that continued for decades.
Their hard work paid off and the farm became a well-tended set-stocked sheep property, breeding Corriedales and cutting nine bales of wool at 25-26 micron off 243ha.
"[Back then] we sold our wool for £1/lb," Mr Stringer said.
The partnership dissolved in 1965 when the sons bought out their parents and split the farm.
Mr Stringer continued to farm sheep for wool, moving on to Romneys and Polwarths, before switching back to Corriedales.
"Some 40 years ago I got into Merinos and have stayed with them ever since," Mr Stringer said.
He began using Bindawarra rams over the Corriedale ewes, culling heavily and eventually breeding to a self-replacing Merino bloodline, maintaining a set-stocked, self-replacing flock of 500 ewes.
After 10 years, the fleece micron had dropped to 19M for the main line of wethers and ewes and remains at that figure today.
"We mostly stick with Bindawarra rams," Mr Stringer said.
"They are big, bold sheep and good sheep, with long white, soft and dense fleeces.
"We look for a bold upright-standing sheep – their progeny have to have feet and legs that are sound because they have to carry them around."
In 1996, Mr Stringer stopped spreading fertiliser annually, moved to a more independent testing regime and switched to lime application.
He began resting paddocks, switched from set-stocking to rotational grazing and noticed significant change in pasture recovery and density.
"If you rotationally graze you get a humus cover on the ground that protects the soil," Mr Stringer said.
"We aim for 100 per cent ground cover – you can't do it, but we aim for it.
"I started breaking the property up to four to five hectare paddocks and began rotational grazing.
"I used a computer program to record how much feed there was in a paddock, how much sheep to put in, forecasting how much they would eat and then recording how much they did eat."
In 2001, Neil Stringer and his wife Angela began working in partnership with Ian.
The property, at Forge Creek, has a soil profile that varies from fragile light grey loam to heavy red gum clay.
"One of the drivers to apply lime was to break up the clay soils," Mr Stringer said.
"The soils support ryegrass for about three years.
"With rotational grazing, we've noticed there's as much ryegrass as we want.
"Our pasture profile is now dominated by subclovers and natural rye – and we've retained more native grasses, which allow moisture penetration."
Some lake-side paddocks are rested every year to graze lambing ewes.
Oat crops are used to clean up paddocks that are then planted with rape, chicory and barley for extra protein.
"Rape is the cheapest high quality protein we can grow," Neil said.
"We try to have those feeds available when they're most needed for our lambs, particularly for the fat lamb market."
The ram paddock and acreage around the house and sheds are heavy with kikuyu in the warm months and are grazed hard until it becomes dormant, when sub-clover and rye emerge.
In poor seasons, pasture is supplemented with ewe pellets and maize.
Ewes are maintained at condition score 3, building them up prior to lambing.
Wethers are maintained at minimum condition score 2, aiming for 3, with no detrimental affect on wool.
"We endeavour to give our rams a high protein diet with 200 milligrams/head/day of lupins for one month prior to joining," Mr Stringer said.
"To join 1:100 they've got to be in good order."
Mr Stringer runs one ram to every 100 ewes and replaces each ram after four years of work.
He expects an 80pc survival rate among the Merino lambs.
The changes incorporated since 1996 have returned significant gains, necessary with an enterprise that supports two families.
The partnership now runs 550 wethers and 950 ewes in the Merino flock, with 100 ewes annually joined to a Border Leicester ram.
They maintain a flock of 300 first-cross ewes joined to a Poll Dorset ram to produce fat lambs.
"Rotational grazing has enabled us to increase our carrying capacity and enabled flock growth," Mr Stringer said.
"We breed our own first-cross replacements and the only sheep we buy are rams."
The enterprise split lambs, with the first-cross ewes lambing from May and the Merinos lamb from late July.
The fat lambs need to be ready to sell as weaners before Christmas.
They cut 45 bales of wool, including 11 bales from the crossbred sheep, with an average 19M fleece.
Shearing is split, with Merinos shorn in September and crossbred sheep in February.
More recently, the Stringers began buying fat lambs from the farm business and selling them as gourmet meat packs.
