THERE were no second-year blues for Barabba-based Dohne stud Clover Downs, who built on an impressive inaugural auction by upping the clearance rate at their second sale held at the Jamestown showgrounds on Wednesday last week.
Given some regular buyers were unable to attend, Clover Downs principals Alex and Georgia Mattschoss were well-pleased with the final result.
In the sale breakdown, 48 of the 62 Dohne rams on offer sold to a top price of $2400 and healthy average of $990.
While the sale average was back on last year's $1323, 19 more rams were offered and they sold at a better clip.
"We were quite happy with how the sale went," Mr Mattschoss said.
"Obviously it's quite a challenging year and we knew there would be a few people that wouldn't be able to make it due to border restrictions so we were very much unsure of what was going to happen.
"Luckily we had a couple of volume buyers that really helped out the clearance rate.
"We were just a couple of buyers short that would have been there otherwise so we lacked a little bit of competition in that sense."
A familiar face - Kevin Ritchie, KW&BJ Ritchie, Booleroo Centre - snaffled the top-priced ram for $2400
The Ritchies were the volume buyer at Clover Downs inaugural sale last year where they secured six rams to $2900.
This year's top ram, sold at lot eight, was sired by HR170129 and weighed in at 106 kilograms.
The average weight of the sale team was just above 98kg.
It carried wool with a 99.6 per cent comfort factor and had meat figures of 3.4 for post-weaning weight, -0.2 P fat, 0.4 P eye muscle depth, 17.5 yearling clean fleece weight and a Dohne index of 156.7.
The stud is based entirely off Hamilton Run genetics and Mr Mattschoss said they were extremely happy with the clearance rate given the volume of rams they offered.
There was a mix of existing and new clients at the sale, with the volume buyer TJ&CR Hyde, Loxton, buying 20 rams in total to a top of $1100.
"We look forward to continually producing and providing good quality rams to met the requirements of our clients and look forward to building on our sales results," he said.
"We'll continue working with our existing and new clients to keep pushing forward, build relationships and make sure we're producing what they're after."
Nutrien Gawler/Kapunda and Nutrien Jamestown conducted the sale, with Gordon Wood the auctioneer.
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