Born at Warracknabeal, Ken Bibby, 84, can tell you a thing or two about farming the Wimmera, north of Horsham.
When aged 14, his father left working on the railways and together they leased farming land at Boolite, northeast of Minyip, before buying their own patch at Cannum in the Jeparit, Dimboola and Warracknabeal triangle.
“We’ve always been croppers and always had crossbred ewes. Perhaps we should have tried Merinos but the crossbreds have always stood by us with descent returns”.
Mr Bibby said they started trading sheep back in the early 1950’s when wool was worth a pound per pound. “It was big money in those days and we turned over our sheep so often our agents never charged for interest on the money we owed” he said with a gravelly chuck.
Along with his son Brendan and his wife Karen they have continued to run crossbreds buying in a mob each year as lambs and tipping out the older ewes whence they completed rearing their fifth lamb.
The crossbred market has always been fairly stable, he said. Last year the family sold their entire drop as suckers, averaging $168/head, this year due to a down market they averaged $148 on their only draft.
Mr Bibby said they will rattle the header across all of their country in the final harvest before he and Brendan both retire. “We have one barley crop that might go 10 bags (per acre) and others we wont get much so our sheep will carry us again like many times before” he said.