IN welcoming a standing-room-only crowd to his family's 28th annual Minta Merino and Poll Merino ram sale at Mount Cooper, principal Mark Hull said he was very happy with what they were producing and offering for sale, in particular the white well-defined wools on easy-care sheep with good frames.
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Not only was he happy - the buyers in the gallery also expressed their approval with strong bidding throughout.
By the sale's end all 99 offered had cleared to a top of $6000.
Although this was down $2400 on last year, the average was up $7, indicating the evenness of the offering of 30 Merinos and 69 Poll Merinos, and the strength of middle-ground bidding.
The sale opened with five Merinos, the second of these being Minta 283, sired by a $23,000 East Bungaree ram.
This ram stood second in the Eyre Peninsula Ram of the Year judging at Wudinna last month, and made the sale's top Merino price and second-top overall at $4500. Buyer was Luke Saegenschnitter, Truro.
Minta 304, the fourth Poll Merino to enter the ring, made the sale's $6000 top. Buyers were a Yorke Peninsula partnership of Neil Daniell and Peter and Rod Farrow, Wool Bay, who took last year's $8400 top-price.
This impressive Poll Merino, with a special silky soft and well-defined, long-staple wool was sired by a Nantoura ram and had wool figures of 19.2 microns, 3.4 standard deviation, 17.6 coefficient of variation, and 99.7 per cent comfort factor, to back up its visual appeal.
Mr Daniell took another Nantoura son two lots earlier at $3600 and the Farrows later bought a yearling at $3200 to back up their top lot.
GV Hull Nominees was again the biggest volume buyer, repeating last year's buying support and taking eight from $1000 to $2600.
* Full report in Stock Journal, September 5 issue, 2013.
