How a farmer with 3000 Dorper ewes hasn't needed supplementary feed in years

The budget line item for supplementary feed has been "zero" and this looked set to continue.

Jack and Celia Tucker, Rhynie Pastoral, Moyston, converted to the well-known Dorper meat breed in 2011 and haven't looked back since.

They'd previously farmed Merinos on the property.

Since 2019, the couple have adopted a regenerative farming approach with a keen focus on soil health, crop and grazing rotation.

They were now starting to see the rewards of their change in direction with significantly reduced input costs at a time when they skyrocketed.

Their 15,000 hectares hosted the 3000 ewes and followers along with a cropping enterprise of fava beans, red and white wheat, oats and canola.

Stock & Land visited the property this month while the Tuckers were soil carbon testing, with the aid of Australian Soil Management.

Their flock was mid lambing season with west Victoria's late break appearing to have little impact.

"We've chosen autumn [lambing] to suit our grazing system essentially because we're trying to have most of the lambs off the property by the end of the growing season, into November or by Christmas at the latest," Mr Tucker said.

"We're trying to match our stocking rate with how much natural grass we have on the property."

He said dry conditions had led to great lamb survival as ewes were dropping on clean ground, with plenty of dry matter ahead of them.

"They tend to have excellent survival so once they're on the ground, they're up and about and they want to live," he said.

"We're in a record dry autumn but it actually has been really good conditions for lambing."

Mr Tucker said the drought was actually making flock management quite easy and this was due to the couple's regenerative farming approach.

"The rotational grazing side of our operation is standing up well for us now in that we've got plenty of ground cover still," he said.

"We're lambing onto good grass and we haven't had to supplementary feed for the last four years which is a big factor in the equation when you're doing your sums around meat sheep.

"In our year to year budget, we have a zero in the spreadsheet for supplementary feed."

While there was 60 days of a buffer of green feed remaining on the farm, he said if the dry period continued, some supplementation for ewes and lambs could be required.

The Tuckers still used fertiliser but said they were very targeted in their approach, with mostly natural and less water soluble forms used.

"In our cropping, we'll test the leaves multiple times during the season and apply foliar fertilisers on an as needed basis rather than putting a whole lot up front," he said.

"We're seeing good results with that.

"We'd straight up say that we're not chasing the highest yield in the district but our cost of production is significantly lower than the standard conventional model for the area."

He said there was no need to use fungicides on crops over the last two seasons.

"The other very pleasing thing is we're having less trouble with pests and disease, particularly fungal issues," he explained.

Mr Tucker said the Dorper breed suited the farm's landscape, at the foothills of the Grampians.

"Initially we were chasing a breed that was lower in terms of the labour units required," he said.

"Our own opinion is that if we're breeding a meat sheep, wool is literally a non-required by-product.

"I've got nothing against wool sheep but if we wanted wool, we would breed Merinos, and I figure if we're breeding meat, we want all our energy and our sheep's energy to go into meat."

He said the farm supplied lambs into the ordinary, conventional market.

"We have found that they yield very well and sometimes we get penalised for that in the market so we sell them all over the hook to the usual suspects," he said.

Australian Soil Management regional manager Sophie Steel, Aubury, was helping the Tuckers to test their soil carbon.

"I think here at Rhynie Pastoral, the pastures that Jack and Celia have cultivated are really impressive," she said.

"They've got some amazing ground cover which they're maintaining which is a really important factor in building carbon."

She said carbon in the topsoil fluctuated so the farm was working to create the ecological conditions best suited for sequestration and storage.

"What we're doing today is trying to measure the ecological parameters that influence carbon sequestration and storage in the soil," she said.

"If Jack and Celia are tracking well with those, then we would expect carbon increases as they continue to manage the property like that.

"We're looking at, particularly in the pasture paddocks, increasing root density and depth which will improve the soil structure and therefore, increase water infiltration and enable soil microbiology to thrive."

Mr Tucker said the family weren't "chasing carbon" but measuring it now to keep their options open.

"When we changed our farming direction back in 2019, it became apparent that what we were doing should, in theory, lend itself to sequestering carbon in the soil," he said.

"After talking to a few like-minded people, we felt that was the time to embark on a soil carbon project.

"We're not chasing soil carbon as such but we really do see that it sits neatly alongside our regenerative farming principals.

"If there's a dollar there to be made or in the future we may need carbon credits to offset our produce, we figured why not go for it?"

He also described the family as "conservationists at heart" and their motto was to combine food production with those conservation efforts.

"We don't see that they need to separate the two," he said.

"We do monitor our biodiversity from the smallest flora on the ground through to the largest fauna and we're seeing a rapid increase in species across the farm.

"It's very pleasing to see the work that my parents started 25 years ago, planting tree corridors, really coming to fruition and those wildlife corridors are allowing movement of different species through the landscape."

He said despite tougher markets, there was a future in sheep production in west Victoria.

"We're just going to have to ride it out and at times like these, I think cost of production is a really major factor," he said.

"So aside from any moral things to do with our system, we really do try to focus on animal health and low cost of production."