ELAINE farm manager Peter Rooney is changing the mindset on Southdown-cross lambs from short and dumpy to a lean and popular butcher lamb.
Moving away from the common Border Leicester breed, Mr Rooney began focusing on growing the Southdown breed in 2003, which comes as a result from joining a White Suffolk-Merino first-cross ewe with a Southdown ram to produce a Southdown second-cross.
Mr Rooney is proud to watch the interest in the breed grow.
“The markets and butchers were understandably quiet at first on the new breed,” he said.
“Now I’ve been to sales where there are buyers yelling down the race bidding without even seeing the animal. They now know what to expect from it.”
The Southdown-cross is most popular during Christmas time and by the first week of January, with 2400 being sold last year.
Its lean carcase and ability to put its efforts into putting on meat rather than wool, makes is easy to see why the Southdowns are popular with the butchers.
“Most of the abattoirs like the Southdown-cross lamb to be 20-22kg, with all them all being property sales making around $130 a head.’
The lambs are sold at the Ballarat prime market and to abattoirs, including Radfords at Warragul.
“They cost less to produce than other breeds, and still put the weight on even in the drought years,” Mr Rooney said.
“They’re a big animal with a lot of meat and not much fat which makes them appealing to the meat market. There’s also been great feedback on the meat itself.”
Mr Rooney has worked at Narmbool, Elaine, since 1980. The property is owned by Sovereign Hill and leased by the Ferry family.
Mr Rooney has watched it evolve over the years and in order to make sure the property runs at its full potential, he reviews and makes changes to the farm every five years.
There are a couple of new projects in Mr Ronneys’ sights and while he is happy trying different things on the breeding and farming front, he is a firm believer in knowing what you’re putting in to keep on top.
