Demand for Charollais on the rise, stud principal says

Stud principal Daniel Hooper said buyer interest in Charollais was growing stronger year-by-year.

"It was our best sale that we've ever had by a long way, prices were really good and we sold a lot of rams," Mr Hooper said.

"We have a lot of people coming for the Charollais and they're a specialist when it comes to easy lambing and a lot of people are joining them to maiden ewes.

"The White Suffolks are more of a high performance breed and people seem to be pretty happy with the results they're getting."

The stud recorded a 100 per cent clearance rate with the Charollais rams and sold 50 of 51 White Suffolks rams at the sale.

"The Charollais are a unique thing and that probably brings people from a little bit further as well because they're becoming quite popular," he said.

"They're a French breed and probably one of the most popular breeds in the UK and in places like Ireland [so] there's a really strong demand at the moment for rams in general."

Top-price Charollais buyers Murray and Fairlie McDonald said they would join the ram to their first and second-cross Charollais ewes in December.

"We first saw them in the UK in 1982 but you couldn't get anything in Australia back then," Mr McDonald, Timmering, said.

"We like the muscle on the sheep and we're running a Merino flock and since using these rams we've found we've had very little lambing problems.

"They're quite open faced too and that's something we keep an eye out for because woolly-faced sheep are harder to manage sometimes."

Rodwells Benalla livestock agent Adam Roberts said there was plenty of competition at the sale.

"There was particularly strong competition for the Charollais and both sold to an equal top which reflected that," he said.

"The White Suffolks have been popular for years but in terms of the Charollais, people like their easy lambing and the early maturity progenies, which grow into trade-weight lambs very quickly."