WAMMCO

Prominent Newdegate farmers Julie and Rob Newman have stamped their second season of prime lamb production by winning WAMMCO’s Producer of the Month title for January 2007.

Taking guidance from local lamb specialist Ian Quartermaine, the couple introduced Coolalee rams over a section of their Merino ewes to produce their first crossbreds for WAMMCO in 2005, and followed the procedure again to produce about 1,000 prime lambs in 2006.

A large consignment of 822 of these lambs took out the January title, weighing an average of 22.46 kg to return $73.26 per head at an average contract price of $3.26 per kg. More than two thirds of the draft attracted the premium contract rate of $3.40 per kg.

Another 200 lambs that missed the January draft, are scheduled for Katanning at the end of February.

Rob also runs a busy summer seed cleaning and grading business as well as a substantial cropping program on the Newdegate property and leaves supervision of the lamb/Merino enterprise to farm manager Jan Funch.

He said the new lamb component fitted well with his Merino/cropping activities, even in a year when pastures were light-on for most of the season.

Some of the draft were born in January/February, but most were dropped in early April. They were weaned onto clover pasture then moved onto  hay stubbles and finally lupin stubbles, without requiring supplementary feed. 

“Having a high cropping component is a bonus because the stubbles provide much more summer feed, making management of the lambs easier,” he said.

Black faced Suffolk rams as well as Coolalees will be used in this year’s mating program with the new crop of lambs  again going to WAMMCO under contract.

Further details: Rob Newman 98711562 Media: Geoff Gare  95377669