A decision in 2002 to go for self-replacing SAMMS is paying handsome dividends for Warren and Tammy Garlick of ‘Capolinga’ SAMMS Kondinin.
A line of 150 fifth cross SAMM lambs from Capolinga went through Katanning at the end of April to win WAMMCO’s Producer of the Month title with an average return per 24.99 kg lamb of $115.49 and a WAMMCO Select bonus for red meat yield of $290.
A top per kilo rate of $4.60 applied to 88 of the 150 lambs with 54 attracting the WAMMCO Select bonus and heavier individual lambs making up to $148.
“We used to buy in ewes and mate them to Prime lamb rams but found many problems with the system and decided to change the lamb basis of our 50/50 sheep cropping mix,” Warren said this week.
He started with SAMM rams from Rocco de Bellis’s Gracefield stud at Katanning and now breeds most of his own SAMMS with a near-pure commercial ewe flock of about 1000 and 240 stud SAMMs. Capolinga will offer a team of 45 rams at the Corrigin breeders’ sale in September.
“Apart from their ability to survive a tough season and to reach the premium grades straight from the paddock, they can be mated earlier and have lifted our lambing percentages since 2002 from 80 percent to around 140 percent for our pure SAMM ewes.
“The winning line of 150 lambs were all from fifth cross ewes sand were delivered off stubbles with a paddock ration of oats for the last two weeks.”
Warren said feedback from WAMMCO was an essential component of his lamb enterprise.
“WAMMCO Select in particular enables me to compare different groups of lambs and to aim for the top,” he said.
Warren and Tammy increased their WAMMCO shareholding two years ago and are counting on continuing price stability for lamb.
“We are hoping to see lamb prices staying at $4 or above to cover rising costs,” Warren said.
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