Quamby Plains Corriedales, Hagley, hosts annual ram sale

Quamby Plains Corriedales and Poll Herefords stud co-principal Victoria Archer, Hagley, Tas, said there were new buyers at the Monday sale, and strong support from returning clients.

"We definitely had some new buyers which was great, and we had our return buyers too, a combination of both," she said.

"We had a real mixture, I had three rams going to New South Wales, 16 going into Victoria, two going to King Island and 11 to Tasmania.

"We're very grateful for our continued support, it was fantastic to get some new clients as well."

Volume buyers included JD & AJ Burbury, York Plains, Tas, who bought six rams at the annual sale, as well as GS Isles & Son, Oatlands, Tas, who bought four rams, and Ballark Farming, Morrisons, who also bought four rams.

The sale offered 49 lots and sold 32 to a top price of $4000 and an average price of $1497.

Ms Archer manages 3000 commercial ewes and 450 stud ewes, and said they aim to produce high-quality wool with a lower micron, and breed for high fertility, lambing ease and good shape.

She said they were part of the Corriedale Performance Group, which has a ranking system for rams on their dual-performance index.

The group combines Corriedale breeders in Australia and characterises rams on production and eating-quality traits, genomic tests, and comparisons to other breeds.

She said the top-priced ram was a gold ram, meaning he was in the top 10 per cent.

"He had lovely white, soft wool with fine micron, good structure and great shape, he also had very good maternal weaning weight," Ms Archer said.

Philip Gough, Salamanca Pastoral, Hotspur, bought the top-priced ram, Lot 21 220022, which was sired by 190104 and out of 170304.

Its Australian Sheep Breeding Values included a birth weight of 0.40 kilograms, a post-weaning weight of 6.98kg, an adult weight of 8kg and a maternal weaning weight of 0.62kg, as well as a post-weaning eye muscle depth of -0.55 millimetres and -0.24mm post-weaning fat.

Prior to the sale, they had a mixture of rams which ticked the boxes and Ms Archer thought several of them could have made the top price.

"It was a handful of rams, people had been interested in him particularly, but there were other top rams that had interest too," she said.

Ms Archer said they were pleased with the sale, particularly during the challenging market conditions and seasonal changes.

"We're very happy with the sale considering the current climate," she said.