*36 of 41 Poll Dorset rams sold to $2600, av $1162
*40 of 40 Southdown rams to $8400, av $1991
Yentrac Poll Dorset and Southdown stud, Burrumbeet, has hit the sweet spot with its Southdowns, selling all the rams it offered to a top of nearly $8500.
Yentrac sold the top-priced ram, a Southdown, to Nedelle Downs, Hawkesdale, and Kirkdale, Evandale, Tasmania, for $8400.
"There just seems to be a lot of demand for stud Southdown rams this year," Yentrac stud principal Rob McCartney said.
"Everyone arrived at Yentrac, looking for stud sires this year."
He said it was the first time the stud had sold a Southdown, at that price, at an on-farm auction. Other rams went for $4600 and $4500.
Overall the sale saw 76 of 81 rams sold to average $1,598.
Mr McCartney said Nedelle, owned and managed by Ned Nagorcka and partner Jaynel, had bought a stud ram from Yentrac several years ago, which had "bred very well.
"Ned has been using semen out of the older ram and now he is refreshing his bloodlines," Mr McCartney said.
The top priced ram, lot 43, was by Yentrac 485/15, out of Yentrac 414/16.
He had a measurement of a 23.99 square centimetre eye muscle area.
"He is a very neat ram, a very good hindquartered ram," Mr McCartney said.
"He is a very good headed ram and very well balanced."
He said the ram was sired by an animal which had been very successful in the showring.
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Mr McCartney said he'd also sold semen from the award winner into the US.
Graeme Nicholson Elders Ballarat said the exceptional quality of the Southdown rams helped push up the prices.
"Yentrac are probably one of the elite Southdown studs, and they had a group of four or five rams that were considered elite, so they were bought by other studs," Mr Nicholson said.
"People are starting to want to buy Southdowns, just for the ease of lambing, and the fact there is very good money paid for trade weight lambs.
"People are chasing that domestic trade weight lamb market."
He said rams went to the Goulburn Valley, western district, Gippsland, the north-east, the Mallee and around Ballarat
"It was a bit of a spread."
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Andrew Miller
I'm a general reporter with Stock & Land, with a special interest in irrigation issues. I completed my cadetship, with the Age, in 1980. Over my career, I've worked for ABC radio news (Mt Isa, Qld) and at provincial and suburban newspapers.
I'm a general reporter with Stock & Land, with a special interest in irrigation issues. I completed my cadetship, with the Age, in 1980. Over my career, I've worked for ABC radio news (Mt Isa, Qld) and at provincial and suburban newspapers.
