Bruckners find first class way to build sheep into mixed farming

Finding a first class way to make money out of sheep comes down to quality and consistency — and that’s exactly what one Riverina operation is achieving.

It takes a first-class effort to turn off drafts of crossbreds for breeding or meat and it’s the cornerstone of one Riverina operation.

In true mixed farming fashion, breeding first-cross lambs sits alongside a big cropping operation on two stations in the Riverina — one west of Wagga Wagga at Collingullie and the other southeast of Hay.

The combined area of nearly 20,000ha is overseen by Heath Bruckner who operates Gnadbro Pastoral Company with his family.

The first-cross breeding operation has been running for 20 years but has morphed into a major enterprise with the addition of the property at Hay about 15 years ago.

Today, Gnadbro joins about 15,000 Merino ewes, targeting the heavy export end for wether lambs and selling the ewe portion as either ewe lambs or joined ewe lambs, or as the traditional 1½-year-olds.

CHANGING WETHER

When the first-cross program began two decades ago, the wether portion was merely a by-product of the main game of producing first-cross ewes, but the lift in lamb values meant that changed.

With that has come the challenge of trying to properly finish up to 15,000-16,000 progeny to maximise returns, where full attention needs to be given to both ewe and wether lambs due to their potential earning capacity.

“It is not impossible but to juggle finishing the wethers to heavy weights as quickly as possible, to bring ewe lambs up to joinable weights at the same time and to maintain the growth of the ewes we are going to retain until they are 1½-year-olds, it takes very careful management on our country,” Heath said.

With the kind of rates going for prime lambs in that summer period, the emphasis for the April-drop wether progeny is to have them finished and off the property by the end of February.

It was a feat achieved this past summer, when the wether portion went direct to JBS Australia at 26-32kg carcass weight, at a price of 860-880c/kg. Even without the skin price, this returned more than $240 for each wether lamb, and across about 7000 lambs, the maths shows the effort was worth it.

This year, the wethers were finished on barley, some of which they bought in at around $200 a tonne and when the price went up, switched on to their homegrown grain.

Last year, the wether lambs averaged about $220, which Heath said worked out a similar result to this year’s drop given they did not receive supplementary feeding.

The use of containment areas and feedlotting to be able to achieve good weight gains is something Heath likes, alongside the benefits of taking grazing pressure off the country.

He is considering making more use of feedlotting and is looking at automated feeders. This, he said, could allow him to take first-cross lambs off grazing country, finish them more quickly and create room to run more breeding ewes, expanding the first-cross operation even further.

EWE BEAUTIES

The grown first-cross ewes remain the main game at the moment, and with an average return for the 1½-year-olds of $448 last spring, it makes dollars and sense to keep the focus on this part of the enterprise.

Some of the Gnadbro first cross progeny that are sold each year from the Bruckners operation.

The annual turnoff is about 7000 wether lambs, 2500 ewe lambs in February to May and 4500 hoggets in September, or about 14,000 all up.

Lambing percentages are about 125 per cent depending on the seasons, and while they are reasonably happy with this result, are always looking to improve.

The on-property sale is a feature on the southern NSW spring circuit, with buyers appreciating the big drafts of one-mark ewes sold on property and prepared to pay for all the advantages this offers in terms of biosecurity and quality.

But it takes 18 months of careful management to get them to this stage, and while traditional lamb producers fall over themselves to secure the Gnadbro first-cross ewes, Heath acknowledges there is part of the market that now wants to buy ewe lambs.

“There are some of our clients that like to buy a few first-cross ewe lambs as well as our 1½--year-olds, and it is true that you can get another year out of them, but the flip side is the potential lower lambing percentages from the ewe lambs,” Heath said.

“It also can be challenging for us to try to get them up to joining weights of 55-60kg by January.”

For the past few years, they have taken the cream of their first-cross ewe progeny and offered them as ewe lambs or have joined them and then sold them as scanned-in-lamb ewe lambs, taking the risk out of the purchase for the buyers.

Most recently, their drafts of joined ewe lambs sold on AuctionsPlus and made to $400.

Regardless of what they are selling — older ewes, ewe lambs or wether lambs — quality and management are the key drivers for the price they get.

HAY BOUNTY

Heath said the operation needed to source about 3500 Merino ewes a year for their operation. This usually was a mix of maidens (about 2000) and classed breeders (about 1000-1500) which are either sourced privately or through the annual spring Hay sheep sales.

“The classed breeders are great because you know they have been classed in for a reason, so they bring quality to the operation, and we can often keep them on until they are about seven, knowing you will have to cull some along the way due to age,” Heath said.

“But we also need the young ewes for the operation that are always coming into it.”

The goal is to source ewes with a 20-21-micron fleece, with the medium wool ewes offering frame and scale which is passed on to their progeny.

Rams are sourced from the Cadell stud at Ariah Park, NSW, with joining in November. As about 70 rams are needed each year, it is the scale of the Cadell stud which can offer an even and consistent line of rams that is attractive as well as the quality.

At one time, Gnadbro used to breed its own Border Leicester rams, but Heath said it was time consuming and he wasn’t sure they were breeding the quality of rams they could buy.

“Buy not running 300 or so Border Leicester ewes, it freed up a paddock for another mob of Merinos (to breed first-cross lambs) and it just made sense to switch over to Cadell,” he said.

The operation has moved to twice yearly shearing, and with the correct skin length on first-cross ewes adding to their appearance and appeal at sale time, the Gnadbro operation is shearing for three months every year.

“We were either crutching or shearing every six months, so we opted to shear rather than crutch,” Heath said.

“By shearing every six months, we have eliminated the need the need for crutching and it makes sense for management rather than anything else.”

While neighbours have switched to 100 per cent cropping, the Bruckners have gradually grown their sheep enterprise which dovetails into their cropping program.

Each year they crop about 2800ha, a mix of wheat, barley and canola. Some of this is fed to the stock and some is traded outside the business.

Heath acknowledges the irony when some question his financial outlay to livestock handling gear and portable races and yards and improvements to sheds by the same people who “go out and spend hundreds of thousands on green gear (John Deere tractors)”.

“It is getting more difficult to get people to work with livestock and we need to find ways to do things efficiently now our numbers are getting bigger,” he said.

“We use contractors to lamb mark, have a full contract shearing and even with this, we are still busy enough.

“I think some of those who got livestock out of their systems found that it just added to their workload and there was no time for doing maintenance or even rest.

“We just like the way sheep fit into our program with the cropping, and the returns, well, they are certainly there.”