Gum Hill shines

While it has been a tight season in the Mount Bryan district, like many areas of SA, the family still managed to produce a state saleyard record at the Keith Merino Breeders Association’s annual off-shears sale in October when they sold young ewes at $346 to repeat buyer Chris Gilbertson, Millicent.

The Line’ family’s top young ewe price was $28 up on the previous record, which was set only a month prior at the Pinnaroo off-shears sale.

The stud is headed up by Justin and Anthea Lines. Mr Lines is the fifth generation to run Gum Hill, which was set up by his great-great-grandfather JA Lines. 

Today, Mr and Mrs Lines’ son James is the sixth generation working on the family property at Mount Bryan, which covers 2600 hectares, with about a third of the property sown to cereals and legumes. About 2000 ewes are mated at Mount Bryan annually.

While the area has gone through a significant production shift across the years, swinging from 80 per cent livestock a few decades ago to more of a cropping focus, the Lines family has stuck with sheep.

Also involved in the enterprise are Mr Lines’ parents Glan and Daphne and his brother Haydn and his wife Poppy, who run the family’s property at Keith in the South East. The Keith property covers about 4600ha and has more lucerne country and irrigation. There are about 3000 ewes mated to Merinos at the South East property and 300 cows are run.

“While the South East property is a run as a separate business, we all work together,” Mr Lines said.

Mr Lines’ grandfather Lance expanded the business down to the South East in 1960, with the purchase of the family’s first Keith property Geneseo. A second property at Keith – Parraweena – was bought in 2000.

The Lines family also run cattle and produce small seed but Poll Merinos are the major focus and passion.

Recording measurements has been a crucial part of the stud’s success.

“My grandfather Lance started measuring fleece traits back in the 1960s,” Mr Lines said. “He was measuring skin and follicle densities in the 1970s.

“We’re always looking for the next 10 per cent gains.

“Every animal’s performance is recorded, so we can adapt to changing market requirements quickly, if needed.

Mrs Lines said measuring different traits helped the stud create a more robust and productive animal that would to perform in different conditions.

The stud has a huge commercial focus.

Gum Hill is one of the biggest ram sellers in SA, but they do not hold an on-property auction.

Instead, the Lines family meets with clients on-farm from July to October, selling privately.

Mr Lines prefers dealing with clients directly.

With 1000 rams available annually and selling between 800 and 1000, it means the three selling months are extremely busy, with an average of seven rams sold to each client.

The couple see about three clients a day during the selling season.

With the stud’s growing popularity, the family has come close to selling out its rams in the past few years, so they are looking to carry more ram lambs through.

“We try and keep 120 to 130 rams each year for our own use,” Mr Lines said.

Clients come from a huge spread of areas, from Ceduna on the West Coast of SA, to Millicent in the South East and also NSW, WA and Victoria.

Lines Gum Hill clients are often quoted on the market pages for selling at or near the top of sales.

“Attending markets is important to me because I can see what our clients are selling and this helps when selecting rams to suit their enterprise, especially since we cover many different environments,” Mr Lines said.

A focus in the breeding program is increasing muscle and fat.

“Slowly and surely we’re getting better carcases and better carcase weights,” Mr Lines said.

“We sold culled ram lambs recently for $232, which weighed about 32 kilograms dressed at 12 months old.”

Mr Lines said he did not want to push the limits of how big he could get his sheep.

“I think there’s a limit in how much weight you can have in the ewes, I don’t like to see them above 70kg,” he said.

“The bigger the sheep, the harder it is on the shearers that are so critical to our industry.”

Mr Lines said he did not want to fine the flock’s micron down too far.

“With the wool figures, 21 to 22 micron on a mature ewe is where I like to sit,” he said.

Gum Hill has been selling in the Keith off-shears sale for more than a decade, but Mr Lines said it took a good three to four years to really establish their names at the sale.

Mrs Lines said the stud had an amazing response on social media after this year’s Keith sale, with plenty of messages from as far as NSW.

Despite outstanding sale results, this year has not been without its challenges.

Since September last year, the Lines’ property at Mount Bryan has had 220 millimetres of rain, half its average rainfall.

“It’s been tough since August last year, since then we wouldn’t have had a rain over 20mm,” Mr Lines said.

“We’ve never mated ewes when hand-feeding before, but we did that in November.

“We usually budget for four to five months of a feeding program, but we’ve just done a 10-month feeding program, which is similar to a lot of other people this year.

“But the demand for sheep meat and protein must be enormous because the prices being paid this year are certainly not indicative of a drought or tight season.

“To see farmers getting $200 for their lambs in a year like this, it’s quite incredible.”

Despite feed being tight, Mr Lines said the quality had been good.

“Our rams are growing about a kilogram of wool per month, partly because of the quality of the feed,” he said.

But lambing percentages are back by about 5 per cent this year and it has cost a lot to keep their sheep in good condition.

The family are already thinking ahead to the summer months and are planning to set up confinement feeding to maintain their stock’s condition and ground cover on their property.

“We’re fortunate to have some cover and we want to preserve what we’ve got,” Mr Lines said.