Humidity tests wool quality

The family moved from Gulgong, NSW, 400km north to ‘Clovernook’ at Walcha, NSW, four years ago.

Mr Whillock said they were still getting used to the country and working out the best management practices for the farm on the south-eastern edge of the Northern Tablelands.

He said the region’s summer-dominant rainfall and humidity made it more difficult to keep wool white and resist flystrike.

“We want to breed plain-bodied, easy-care Poll Merinos that have the wool quality to stand up to our higher summer rainfall environment,” he said.

They also need to have good worm resistance and good carcase traits, with heavy cutting ability.

“They need to be truly dual purpose and have the wool meat, fertility, and fitness for environment.”

In December, Mr Whillock visited six studs in South Australia, Victoria and NSW in search for semen sires. 

But a few months later, he also ended up buying a ram he’d seen on the trip.

“I’d seen him as a young semen sire at Toland the December before and I intended to use him as a semen sire, but when I didn’t find what I was looking for, for a ram for natural joining and AI backup, at the sales earlier in the year, I contacted the Tolands.”

They negotiated the private purchase 2015-drop TP 151071 in February.

“This ram combines performance, the right wool type, figures and phenotype.”

Mr Whillock said the ram’s growth and fleece weight impressed him, as did its figures on MerinoSelect, which he used to benchmark his rams.

“The Toland family focus on a lot of the traits I’m focused on.

“We’re just about to have first lambs on the ground by him.”

This includes 40 lambs out of stud ewes and ‘Phil’ was joined to 120 commercial ewes.

“We’re looking forward to seeing the lambs.”

Mr Whillock and his wife Rebecca farm in partnership with his parents Ian and Janet. The move to the bigger farm that has a higher possible stocking rate was part of a succession plan, for the enterprise to be able to support two families. The farm is 840 hectares, on which they run 1650 commercial Merino ewes, of which two-thirds are joined to Merino rams and one-third to Poll Dorsets.

Last year, Mr Whillock’s long-held aspiration to have a Merino stud came to fruition, when they registered Clovernook Poll Merino stud. They join 150 stud ewes.

The family has for a long time, bred their own rams for the commercial flock. Mr Whillock honed his interest in livestock genetics by doing his Honours on the topic, then working for an artificial breeding company doing ET and AI work in sheep. He then worked on a Merino stud, before entering the partnership with his parents.

Mr Whillock said even in their commercial flock, they have always carefully selected rams and semen sires from quite a few different studs. He said the main sources of outside genetics in recent years were Toland, Centre Plus, Nerstane, Petali, Miramoona and Tuckwood, from South Australia.

The flock’s clip averages 17.5 micron and they shear on an eight-month program.

Lambing is just about to start at ‘Clovernook’, with the stud ewes lambing down in August. They’ve pushed the commercial ewes’ lambing back to September, to help manage the winter feed gap, caused by cold temperatures suppressing pasture growth.

They buy in supplementary feed, and depending on the seasonal conditions, will feed out cereals that meet ewes’ energy and protein needs. This year, following a great autumn, spring and summer, they’ve fed out protein meal, with the ewes’ energy requirements met with pasture. The family is gradually improving pastures.

The Angus-cross cows, which are joined to Charolais bulls, are also calving. The family produces about 120 EU accredited weaners annually.

Mr Whillock said they were achieving about 95 per cent number of lambs weaned for ewes joined, with the stud ewes doing about 115 per cent.

“Where Mum and Dad used to farm, they were consistently getting 110-120 per cent lambs weaned, but we’re still getting used to our country.”