A SERIES of return buyers underpinned a solid sale for Flairdale Poll Merinos at their on-property sale, held at Cooke Plains on Monday.
The Lehmann family offered 77 rams and sold 60 to a healthy average of $2181, with co-principal Matt Lehmann confident the remainder would be sold swiftly privately.
While a number of rams were passed in towards the end, there was hot competition on the first half of the catalogue from a number of long-standing Flairdale clients.
Winning the bidding battle on the top-priced lot 37 and also prominent in the volume buying stakes was Dale Paxton, Vivonne Bay, Kangaroo Island.
The 110-kilogram top-priced ram was knocked down for $6000 and had figures of 5.63 for post-weaning weight, 5.61 yearling weight, 15.94 yearling clean fleece weight and 9.73 yearling staple length.
It had a 19.1 micron fleece, with 15.5 coefficient of variation, 3.0 standard deviation and 99.4 per cent comfort factor.
Mr Paxton also picked up the second-highest price ram for $5900. The ram weighed 95.5kg and had ASBVs of 4.06PWT, 5.53YWT and was in the top five per cent for YCFW at 33.65YCFW.
Chasing a dual-purpose ram, Mr Paxton said it had good muscling, good micron and good wool figures.
"The wool has got to be right but I'm looking for muscle as well," he said.
Mr Paxton said they mated 4200 ewes, with a third Merinos, third crossbred ewes and third Merinos mated to Border Leicesters.
Among the other volume buyers were regulars Laskey Farming Trust, Orroroo, who bought nine rams to $3800, averaging $2489.
Orroroo's Scott Bartlett and father Kevin secured eight rams between them to a top of $2100 and average of $1300, while Battersby Family Trust, Orroroo, bought seven rams to $2600, averaging $1457.
Matt Lehmann said the stud were reasonably pleased with how the sale panned out considering some clients were missing due to border restrictions.
"Overall we're pretty happy with how the sale went," he said.
"What we sold, sold really well.
"The clearance wasn't quite as high as what we wanted, but with some people not being able to be here it wasn't too bad."
Elders and Nutrien conducted the sale, with Laryn Gogel and Richard Miller sharing the gavel.
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