When it comes to selecting rams, the easy-care attributes and fast growth rates of the Suffolk breed are helping the Neldner family achieve strong sucker lamb results at Gomersal.
Tim Neldner, his wife Kelly and parents Geoff and Margaret, run a mixed farming operation across 445 hectares of owned, leased and sharefarmed land in the Barossa Valley.
They run 650 Merino ewes, which Tim buys in as 1.5-year-olds, joined to Suffolk terminal sires to produce quality first-cross lambs. About 160ha of wheat, barley and faba beans is also grown, alongside a 14ha vineyard.
Traditionally, Merino wethers were run, but when Tim and Kelly took on the management of the farm in 2011 they decided to make a switch to prime lamb production.
"Originally we used both Suffolk and Poll Dorset rams, but we decided to shift to all Suffolks due to their ease of lambing, which is really important - we have minimal issues at lambing now," Tim said.
"The Suffolk-cross lambs have also been performing well over-the-hooks, even in the last couple of years when feed hasn't been plentiful in late spring.
"We've still managed to get them up to our target dressed weight of more than 24 kilograms and they've been holding their nice, fresh skins.
Growth is the most important trait I am looking for, as at the end of the day the bigger the lamb and the quicker I can turn it off, the better it is for our profitability.
- TIM NELDNER
"They tend to keep that freshness in their wool and can handle a setback through the season better than other breeds we have had."
Big-framed Merino ewes averaging about 21 micron are sourced from the Upper North and pastoral areas of SA, while Tim has been buying Suffolk rams from Garry and Pauline Gumm's Wattle Wood Springs stud at Yankalilla for the past seven years.
Tim uses a combination of visual appraisal and Australian Sheep Breeding Values to select his rams, with a focus on length, thickness, structure and growth for age.
"Growth is the most important trait I am looking for as at the end of the day, the bigger the lamb and the quicker I can turn it off, the better it is for our profitability," he said.
"Weaning weight and post-weaning weight is very important and I also look at the live weights of the rams and how heavy they are in relation to their age."
In 2017, the Neldners completed a Lifetime Ewe Management course, which has helped to fine-tune their ewe nutrition, particularly before joining and in late pregnancy.
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"I don't think we were managing the nutrition for the ewes prior to lambing and through late pregnancy as well as we could have and I really learnt a lot," Tim said.
"We have only been scanning since we did the course and in the first year we had a very poor scanning in our young ewes, which we put down to nutrition.
"Since then our pregnancy scanning rates have increased significantly, now averaging about 125 per cent, and last year our lamb marking rate was 109pc and this year it was 105pc."
The ewes are joined in late November for seven weeks to start lambing from April onwards, which fits well with the season and other other farm management operations.
"We really focus now on making sure the ewes are at condition score three or more when we put the rams in," he said.
"We then aim to get them to a condition score four early in pregnancy and try and maintain that through lambing, especially our twin-bearing ewes."
The ewes graze the stubbles after harvest and will then be supplementary fed grain in lick feeders, generally from late January onwards, when the stubble feed has deteriorated.
"We try and work out their requirements on a per head basis, depending on the season and our on-farm grain reserves," he said.
"We usually cut a clover-based pasture down for hay too, so the ewes will be supplemented with both hay and grain through pregnancy and lambing until the green feed is up and running."
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The ewes are scanned and separated into single and multiple-bearing mobs so the ewes carrying twins can be given preferential treatment. They graze the best quality pasture and stubble paddocks and have access to grain ad lib, particularly during late pregnancy.
Although Tim is restricted by the size of the paddocks, he aims to run all the ewes in mob sizes of less than 150 head.
All the lambs are marketed as suckers between six and eight months of age, with most sold in September and October. In the past few years, the majority of lambs have gone to Australian Lamb Company in Colac, Vic.
Any lambs not sold as suckers are weaned, shorn in October and placed on annual ryegrass pastures to ensure they remain grass seed-free. Tim aims to have all remaining lambs sold by mid to late November.
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