Joining flexibility works well on lower EP

With father Robert, Daniel runs 530 breeding Merino ewes and 200 self-replacing Merino hoggets, alongside 600 hectares of canola, wheat, beans and lupins.

For the past few years, joining has begun in late November, rather than on Melbourne Cup day, as is often tradition.

"The last couple of years we've pulled the rams out a bit later, and pull them out at crutching time, in early March," Daniel said.

"Even though the joining period is long, I find that with the ewes that have joined, once the job is done they don't have any interest, and once the rams are done they start huddling in the corner ready for their own paddock."

Daniel said some of the later lambs drop in June, but in general, most of the mob started lambing down in April and May.

"We used to drop the lambs in June and July, right over winter, but we've brought it forward to try to avoid the real cold nasty wet weather," he said.

Ewes are retained until they are 4.5-years old, when they are then sold to a local restocker.

"If we had more paddocks we'd keep them a bit longer, because at that age they're right at the prime age for crossbreds - they are still sound mouth and good sheep," Daniel said.

Sheep at their property Wandilillie are shorn on an annual basis, with breeders shorn in September and lambs in December.

"The hoggets were getting up to 130 millimetre staple length if they were shorn in December, and we were getting a penalty for being too long," he said. "So we brought that shearing forward a bit, and are cutting a 90-100mm staple length in September.

"With the lambs, there's a bit more wool on the lambs if we shear them in December, we're getting about 50mm staple length then and the shearers plough through them pretty easily."

Daniel aims for about a 19-micron wool cut for the ewes, with fleeceweights of about five kilograms.

"A finer micron is worth more but you don't yield as much, so we aim to get a happy medium of good fleeceweight, while still keeping the micron down," he said.

"Because of the high rainfall here, we usually get a clean wool sample with not a lot of dust in it That allows us to buy rams that aren't as greasy. But you don't want a ram with real thick wool either, because if the wool gets wet it stays wet.

"We're just aiming for a good all round sheep with good body size, that will grow a reasonable amount of wool."

For the past 10 years, lambing percentages for Daniel Parsons, Edilillie, have sat between 105-115 per cent, with good genetics and good nutrition contributing to the success.

"We buy our rams from (Poochera stud) White River - we've always been with them because they are big plain sheep and good doers, and fill our orders pretty well," Daniel said.

"Up at Poochera, it's a drier and dustier environment but to White River's credit they keep the sheep very level."

Nutrition for Daniel's mobs consists of grazing on stubbles and natural regenerative pastures through the drier summer months, when lupins, barley and hay are also fed out using a trail feeder.

"Every now and then through summer we also put some salt lick blocks out to give the sheep some extra vitamins," Daniel said.

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"I think that particularly helped last summer. The extra vitamins were good because there wasn't a whole lot in the stubbles, each block generally lasted for a couple of weeks. We also use sheep nuts a bit, using leftover grain. The sheep seem to get a lot of energy out of it."

Daniel said the dry start this year meant handfeeding was required for longer than usual, up until August.

"It was so dry during summer, and then we got 20 millimetres of rain at the start of February. Everything came up and came green, but then it didn't rain again until the end of April and then it got cold and wet," he said.

"The paddock started to get a bit of a green pick in about August but even then the sheep were keeping on top of the paddock pretty well."

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