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POLL Dorsets, and their predecessor, the Dorset Horn, have long been the terminal breed of choice for the Allen family at Bimbadeen, Forbes, New South Wales.
Running a substantial mixed farming enterprise with sheep and cropping, family patriarch Keith Allen said they had used ‘Dorsets’ for longer than he could remember, at least 50 years or more.
“I consider Poll Dorsets to be the best prime lamb sires because of their tremendous growth, beautiful meat and good eye muscle,” he said.
“We’ve used Poll Dorsets since the breed was first developed and they are far superior as a terminal lamb sire. In the past 10 years in particular there has been an increased focus on the commercial aspects of the breed and the lambs they produce.”
Keith, who farms with son Grant, Grant’s wife Stephanie, and grandson Isaac, said the family was able to sell lambs 10 months of the year. He said the family’s flock of first-cross ewes had an even split of autumn and spring lambing to ensure they had an adequate feed base for lambing ewes.
“We could never lamb all of the ewes at once as we couldn’t feed them all,” he said.
The split lambing ensured the Allens were also able to market lambs throughout much of the year, targeting weights of 22 kilograms carcase weight for the sucker lamb market and 31 to 33 kgcw for older lambs. A lambing percentage of 130 to 140 per cent is regularly achieved despite some concerns on increasing predation of foxes.
“Much of the land around us is now used for cropping, there is much less sheep than there once was, so foxes are becoming an increasingly bigger problem. We do bait with 1080 and run alpacas, but I’m not so sure on how effective most of the alpacas are, one does a good job,” Keith said.
The Allens aimed for ewes to drop lambs every two weeks during autumn and spring, this helped spread the workload during lambing and ensured a steady output of saleable lambs later in the year. Nearly all autumn-drop lambs were sold by the end of September as sucker lambs.
Keith’s first sucker sale in July last year, held slightly later than usual with 195mm of rain falling on the property in less than six weeks during June and July, achieved good results with lambs - aged 18 weeks, they sold for $160 to $152.
Over autumn and winter export weight lambs were sold over-the-hooks and through saleyards. Keith said he kept an eye on them in the paddock then spoke to his livestock agent before deciding where to sell.
“We have sold a lot of lambs over-the-hook, however, freight is quite expensive at the moment and the local stock market at Forbes is very good. You do have to factor in trimming over-the-hooks as unfortunately you can’t see under the skin when lambs are in the yards.
Keith said it was always important to present lambs as well as possible.
“We try and keep the lines of lambs even. We’ll pocket crutch if we need to, to ensure lambs are presented cleanly.”
This advertising feature has been sponsored by the following businesses:
- Australian Poll Dorset Asscociation
- Ryanah Border Leicester Stud
- Logancrest Poll Dorset Stud