First time bidders at Willera buy two of the three top priced lots

Lal Lal Mawallok bid competitively to come away with two of the three top-priced rams, snapping up Lot 4 Willera 220551 and Lot 27 Willera 220078 for $5000 each.

Manager Andrew Welsh and assistant manager Ann Welsh, who were representing the stud at the sale, said there were many specific attributes they were keen to pay top dollar for.

"One of the main things we were chasing were obviously micron and keeping it to 18 or below, as well as greasy fleece weight, which was trying to get as high as we can," Andrew said.

"Post weaning weight was also important," Ann said.

Lot 4 Willera 220551 measured 17.7 microns, had a standard deviation (SD) of 2.7, a coefficient variation (CV) of 15.3 and a comfort factor (CF) of 99.3, with Willera 200400 being his sire.

Lot 27 Willera 220078 measured 17.8 microns, had a SD of 2.5, CV of 13.8 and CF of 99.9 with Willera 190262 being his sire.

Lal Lal Mawallok were also the largest volume buyer of the sale, purchasing 16 rams.

"This is actually our first time buying here, but we actually our farm has some Willera rams that were bought prior to us being at Lal Lal Mawallock," Andrew said.

Ann said that Lal Lal Mawallock was a non-mulsed property, which had "aligned us with breeding objectives much like Willera," and influenced their buying at the sale.

Willera stud manager Simon Coutts with equal top price ram Lot 1 Willera 220940, which was sold to Greater Western vendors J & M Kilpatrick.

Great Western buyer J & M Kilpatrick picked up the third ram to sell for $5000, which was Lot 1 Willera 220940, a replacement ram for the sale.

It measured 17.3 microns, had a SD of 2.9, a CV of 16.7 and CF of 99.5, with Willera 200400 also being his sire.

Willera manager Simon Coutts said he intended to measure the sale's success by clearance rate rather than price, knowing that the wider sheep industry was not faring well recently.

"We were really satisfied with the clearance, and it'd be a lie to say we weren't a bit nervous," he said.

"Clearance was definitely front of mind today, and things could have gone either way, but in the end we were pleased with how things have cleared out."

Mr Coutts said he was also concerned about buyer demand with the increase of rams from last year.

"But we did have the demand for them here, and the prices were about where we thought it'd head."

Other volume buyers were Tottington, St Arnaud who bought 13 rams and Gippsland-based Langley Farms, who bought 10 rams.

Several passed in lots were also sold to buyers after the sale.