Willera Merino stud, Serpentine has focused on expansion and meeting buyer and societal demands in a market that's more regularly requiring multiple attributes for wool and carcass of their poll rams and ewes.
With a flock of 13,000 commercial ewes, co-stud principal Karl Hooke, said they'd continue to expand and fine-tune the stud, focusing on a broad range of traits, whilst ensuring to keep their highly ranked data available.
With non-mulesed becoming more desirable, particularly with younger farmers, as well as wool sustainability becoming a bigger part of the conversation, Mr Hooke said it was the natural progression for their farm.
"That's where we picked up a lot of clients, just young sheep producers going out on their own and looking for sheep that have the traits that they're chasing," Mr Hooke said.
"And I think the young ones know the writings on the wall with non-mulesed too."
WIllera Merinos stud manager, Simon Coutts who joined the team in 2016 said they wanted to maintain an attractive wool cut in the early days and have adjusted traits from there.
"We sourced genetics originally to improve growth and carcass traits but at the same time we went to a renowned merino stud and we wanted to take the traits with us," Mr Coutts aid
"Once we started to reach some goals and get best practice for us commercially we started to push the stud and seed stock sales, we were able to prove it worked on a commercial scale, it was just evolution in a sense."
They're also a supplier to the New Zealand Merino Company, who although has a significant criteria to meet, usually ensured Willera Merinos are able to get a better price for their wool
"We're getting about 30 per cent above the market price of our wool with them," Mr Hooke said
"You've got to be non-mulesed, have a certain staple length, there's a lot of characteristics that go into it, but currently at the moment about 50% of our clip goes into the New Zealand Merino contracts that we have.
"But our biggest profit driver is the number of lambs for a start, and then from there, we want to increase early growth."
For wool purposes, he said they select rams with long staples as they cut a minimum of 65 to 70 millimetres every six months on their entire flock, excluding older ewes.
They're currently looking forward to the studs biggest ram sale at the end of August, where they'll have 183 rams on offer and have grown their ram offerings significantly in recent years.
"The first year we had the auction with rams, we sold 57, to 85, to 108, then 138 and this year we're 183, that's purely from demand, last year the auction averaged at $4000 and so we keep putting more rams in."
This year's sale they're increasing rams on offer once again, in hopes of levelling out their average price, to keep repeat customers able to continue buying.
"We don't specifically want to get the price down, but from the commercial wool growers point of view and the way the sheep job is, I think growers paying that price this year sort of isn't fair in a way," he said
"The only way we can change that is by increasing our sales numbers at the moment because the demand is quite high for our style of rams."
The sale will take place on their Serpentine property, Friday, August 25 from 10am.
Holly McGuinness
Holly is a journalist for Australian Community Media, covering South Coast, NSW. As a born and bred Shoalhaven local, she's passionate about covering community concerns and amplifying local voices. To get in contact, email holly.mcguinness@austcommunitymedia.com.au.
Holly is a journalist for Australian Community Media, covering South Coast, NSW. As a born and bred Shoalhaven local, she's passionate about covering community concerns and amplifying local voices. To get in contact, email holly.mcguinness@austcommunitymedia.com.au.
