Thinking outside the box at Werneth

The 25-year-old – who runs the farm with his parents Neville and Ann, girlfriend Ebony Vickers, and brother Grant – has joined White Suffolk rams to about 300 first-cross ewes for the past three years.

"It's a way to get a bit more value out of our surplus first-crosses," he said.

The family once ran a self-replacing Merino flock, alongside their cropping operation, but the deterioration of wool prices forced them to think outside of the square.

That was six years ago – and today the family farm looks slightly different.

The Keatings still crop about two-thirds of their farm, but now buy in Merino ewes from Titanga, Lismore, to produce a first-cross product.

"We'll buy the 5yo ewes or the 1.5yos," Troy said.

It is much cheaper buying Merino ewes at the time Border Leicester-Merino (BLM) ewes were fetching about $180-$200 a head, and are still making up to $170.

Add in the value of the fleece at $40-$50, and the Keatings were looking at a more profitable business already.

Troy said the cost of buying in the Merino ewe ranged from $60-$70.

The 5yos are joined up to Border Leicester rams for an autumn lambing, while the 1.5yos are joined up for a spring lambing.

"The split lambing spreads the workload a bit," he said.

Generally the first-cross ewes are sold at Ballarat in December or January, but were sold privately last year.

"When you remove the cartage costs, it worked out a lot better," Troy explained.

The first-cross wether lambs are grown out to 22 kilograms, and sold through the Ballarat prime lamb sale when the reach that weight.

"We put them on lucerne and rape crops to fatten them as quick as possible," he said.

About 300 of the BLM ewes are also kept to join to White Suffolk rams.

"We started doing this, because there were a few first-crosses that we took out of the draft, because they weren't quite even," Troy said.

To extract more profit out of those ewes, he began to use Gemini White Suffolk rams to turn off a high quality prime lamb.

"Gemini was close by, but we knew they produced very good rams," he said.

Selection is based on evenness, structural correctness, as well as solid LambPlan figures.

"We were looking to produce a lamb that could grow out quickly…we didn't want them hanging around," he said.

The BLM ewes are joined in December for an autumn lambing, before the cold snap hits.

Ewes are scanned 100 days into their pregnancy – and drafted into twins and singles for management purposes.

"I'll run then in two mobs and give the twin-bearing ewes better feed," Troy said.

"It's something I've started doing since doing a Lifetime Ewe Management course."

Emphasis was now placed on nutrition and condition to strengthen ewe performance, he added.

Troy said lambing percentages were solid, and have been aided further by the use of alpacas to help stop any lamb losses.

"Feed is short in winter, so we've started growing fodder crops to fill the feed gap," he said.

"We've put in cereal oats in April, and they were ready for their first grazing by June."

This year, he said the White Suffolk lambs were looking good – and should be ready to be sold by late October or early November.

"It's been a good season," he said.

The draft is offloaded when the lambs hit 22-24kg carcase weight.

"In the beginning, we sold them at Ballarat," he said.

"But this year, we'll sell them to Australian Lamb Company (ALC) in Colac for the export market."

He said ALC was ideal because it was close to the farm and took a wide range of weights, plus there was the added benefit of selling direct.

"It's a bit easier than going through the saleyards," he said.

The sheep enterprise also fits well into the cropping program.

Wheat, canola, oats and more recently faba beans are grown on the farm.

Sowing starts in late April, with harvest in early December.

Troy said one of the biggest challenges of the crops is managing the wet weather in winter.

"We'll put nitrogen to get the most out of the plant and boost the yield," he said.

And when the warmer weather arrives, fungicide is applied.

The wheat is stored on-farm, with the farm boasting 700-800 tonnes of storage capacity.

"We'll sell the canola at harvest if the price is right, or warehouse it," he said.

"It's not a big cost to do that and allows us to wait for a better price."

The oats are sold under contract to Unigrain Smeaton – a practice which has taken place for the past five or six years.

In the future, Mr Keating hopes to expand.

"We're probably running as many sheep as we can – and growing as much crop as we can on this land, so we would probably look at expanding down the track," Troy said.