Pinora stud clears total draft of Poll Dorsets to $2100

The stud sold its complete draft of 69 rams to a top of $2100 to average $1488.

Stud principal Kelvin Sundermann said he was extremely pleased by the result.

"It exceeded all expectations with a total clearance and an increased average, probably due to the increased confidence in the lamb industry at the moment and the excellent start to the season," he said.

The sale started with a bang with the sale topper, Lot 1, selling for $2100.

The ram was bought by A & P Anton & Sons, Toongabbie, which was also one of the volume buyers selecting another five rams at the sale.

The top-priced July 2019-drop ram weighed in at 129 kilograms, and had figures of 7 millimetres fat, 50mm for eye muscle depth and 43.9 for eye muscle area.

Robert Anton, who runs the operation with his brother Tom and mother Pam, said it was the most even line of rams he had seen at Pinora.

"I've been buying rams from the stud since their first sale 14 years ago and they certainly produce a good product," Mr Anton said.

"The top ram's figures were very good: he was a good, long ram and his progeny should weigh well because of his length and deepth.

"We send quite a lot of our lambs direct to the abattoirs and we've found Pinora's rams produce nice heavy lambs which is what we like."

He said the rams would be joined to a mob of first-cross third, fourth and fifth lambing ewes in December.

Sixteen of 23 registered buyers purchased rams.

Four other return clients underpinned the sale, purchasing six rams during the auction including JW & AM Cameron, Buchan, C & M Wheeler, Buchan and Millring Pastoral, Toongabbie.

Michael Bracecamp, trading as M & N Bracecamp, Berrys Creek, also bought six rams to $2000.

"I've been buying from Pinora for years and these rams do the job," Mr Bracecamp, who has about 1100 ewes and produces 1500 lambs annually, said.

"We contract grow for Coles mainly and the larger lambs over 26 kilos go to Australian Lamb Company, so Pinora ram's produce good specification lambs for those two buyers."

His rams will be joined to first-cross ewes on January 1.

Nutrien Greenwood agent Ian Baker said, "it was hard to draft the rams because right through to the tail end they were still running around at about 110 to 115 kilos which shows how exceptionally well they presented".

"A lot of those rams would have stood up with any of the other stud rams in the country even though we sold them as flock rams.

"We had quite a few buyers who missed out, including one bloke who came to buy six rams and obviously his pockets weren't deep enough."

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