Tasmanian rams headed over Bass Strait

Sixty rams sold during the sale last week while five of the six rams which passed in sold following the sale.

"I was extremely pleased with the sale, with a very good crowd in attendance and several new buyers," Trefusis stud principal Georgina Wallace said.

"It's capped off a very good year for our stud in the show ring and at Sheepvention in Victoria which I suppose backs up our breeding objectives.

"Showing our sheep in Victoria and placing our rams in sire evaluation trials is getting the message out as we sold 36 rams from the sale to Victorian buyers."

Stonehouse Grazing, Lemont, Tasmania, purchased the top-priced 15-month-old ram for $7400 while mainland buyers were among the volume purchasers.

The top-priced ram's wool measured 19.5 micron, 3.8 standard deviation, 19.7 co-efficient of variation with a 99.1pc comfort factor and a birth weight of 92.5 kilograms.

Volume buyers included Penstock Pastoral, Kyneton (23 rams), Brambletye, Conara, Tasmania (10 rams) and Buln Gherin, Stockyard Hill (six rams).

Stonehouse Grazing manager Roy Freeman said he liked the top-priced ram because of his "stand out breeding".

"He's by a Langdene ram in New South Wales and his mother was a Tasmanian ewe that was from Okehampton," he said.

"We've used those genetics for sometime and we plan to join him in early April with a select group of our young ewes out of our breeding nucleus."

Wool Solutions sheep classer Andrew Calvert said the rams "did the talking".

"I think these rams were the best lot of rams Trefusis has offered to date," he said.

"There was plenty of depth right throughout the catalogue and the last ram I think sold for $1900.

"We finished up with a good sale average, a good clearance and a lot of people were very complimentary about the sheep which is always pleasing."

He said the stud had worked hard to improve the sheep and boost the productivity on the rams, while producing sheep relevant to the market.

"This was reflected with a number of local and mainland buyers last week," Mr Calvert said.