FAST-PACED lamb trading is not for the shy and retiring types.
Cressy trader Rod Tole has blended mathematic ability with an understanding of market risk to create an intensive lamb fattening operation in the northern midlands of Tasmania.
Key to Mr Tole's success is the amount of lambs he trades and the pace at which he moves them on.
More than 12,500 lambs have been fattened at Greenvale Pastoral this year, with the majority traded on after 10-12 weeks at the property.
"It's high-turnover, they're in and out as fast as we can get them," he said.
Mr Tole said always being in the trading market was the key to his success.
Constantly buying and selling has allowed him to work off an overall average of lamb prices, which has helped him be more clinical when getting rid of stock.
"When selling on a high you buy on a high and selling on a low you buy on a low," he said.
"You can't get hung up on how much you've lost on a lamb.
"It hurt us when we we're buying store lambs for $100 and selling them for $90 but then three or four months later when you're buying lambs at $60 and selling them for $140, that's nice."
He said if traders were in and out of the market it increased risk.
"If you're buying at one particular point and selling at another and you've got no idea where that point's going to be you'll come unstuck. But if you're buying and selling at all times you spread that risk of the market," he said.
Mr Tole fattens his lambs on irrigated pasture, which was made possible through a reliable water source.
A winter wheat and ryegrass mix is sown following a crop of peas, poppies or potatoes.
"We know if we sow at the end of January/early February within five weeks we can graze because we've got the water and the soil temperature to do it," he said.
He said secure water allows him to do very accurate feed budgets, which helps with buying his lambs in.
"If we know we're going to have x amount of dry matter tonnes per hectare we can work out how many sheep we need to get in," he said.
Eight fixed centre pivots - ranging from three to 12 spans - have helped Mr Tole through two seasons of poor lamb prices.
"Over the past two years, which were pretty tight, we've still managed to make a reasonable margin because we've been continually trading," he said.
Mr Tole buys second-cross lambs if they're available, because their genetics are targeted to meat production and growth, but he said some exceptional first-cross ewes could outperform average second-cross lambs.
"Picking (lambs) comes down to trial and error," he said.
"It comes down to the genetics those first-cross guys are using and whether they're using some poor little Merino ewes that have run out of wool so they chuck any old Poll Dorset ram over them," he said.
Producers were starting to use high-indexed, well-grown terminal rams over big-framed Merino ewes to target the store job for lambs, according to Mr Tole.
He buys some lambs from AuctionsPlus, out of Victoria and South Australia, and purchases a few from saleyards but generally 85-90 per cent of his lambs are bought privately.
The mixed farmer has built up a relationship with three or four breeders that he buys lambs from, which has an advantage of know supply, he said.
"It's good because we're not forced into the saleyards," he said.
"We can also select the lambs that we like. Before we buy they either go over an auto draughter so they're drafted to weight or they're very tightly drafted so you don't end up going to the saleyards and ending up with 10 lambs that shouldn't be in a particular pen."
Lambs weighing close to 36 kilograms are targeted by Mr Tole, who aims to put on 13-15kg per lamb before selling them on.
The microscopic detail involved with selection of lambs is linked with the selection criteria of companies buying Mr Tole's lambs.
Local Woolworths branches take the majority of his lambs and he sells some into Coles through the winter.
JBS at Longford take a handful of export lambs for Mr Tole, but they also contract-kill for Melrose Wholesale Meats in Queensland - marketed as Tasmania Royal Prime - who take 1500 Tasmanian lambs a week into Qld.
Mr Tole said the biggest problem holding the operation back a couple of years ago was moving lambs when they were ready.
"The problem was the lambs were ready and we couldn't get rid of them for three weeks," he said.
New selling opportunities - Melrose entering Tas market and Coles taking winter lambs - combined with Woolworths taking more lambs per week has helped him get rid of the lambs when they're ready.
Mr Tole's objective approach to trading doesn't influence his commitment to animal husbandry.
"A happy lamb is a profitable lamb, we treat them no different than we would treat our own kids."
He said he is careful when introducing lambs to lush green feed in the summer - a mix of lucerne, brassicas and high clover-dominant pastures - and they are given feed supplements like mineral lick.
He still runs 1500 ewes at his property but has scaled back numbers in recent years to concentrate on trading.
Balancing his feed budgets and cropping rotations with the peaks and troughs of the lamb trading market is something Mr Tole clearly enjoys, and he shows no signs of slowing down.
