Burren Juntion Merino breeders David and Erica Shorter aim high

TWO Merino breeders want it all, and they want it now, writes JAMES WAGSTAFF

David Shorter

WHEN discussing the breeding objectives of their Merino flock, David and Erica Shorter joke about being greedy and "wanting it all".

"We're trying to do what most people are doing - get our ewes a bit bigger, have lambs that grow a little bit quicker, and finer wool and more of it," David said.

"Basically, we want it all," Erica chimed in with a grin. "And all at once," David added.

The Shorters run a flock of 2500 Merino breeding ewes based on Hazeldean bloodlines alongside a dryland and irrigated cropping program and 70 crossbred cows at Burren Junction, between Walgett and Narrabri, in northwest NSW.

The home farm was purchased in 1984, and the Shorters now own about 3240ha and lease a further 1620ha.

The district's average rainfall is "allegedly" 475mm but last year "we wouldn't have had half of that", Erica said.

"We got enough rain in autumn to suck us into planting a winter crop," David added.

"It was a horrible dusty, dry drought at the end of April and then it rained a bit and we planted, and most of it germinated and most of it died."

Some long-fallowed crops were harvested, as were those on irrigation, with the sheep and cattle left to graze the short-fallow crops after they failed.

"As things turned out it was a bit of a saviour for (the livestock), but you don't need to go to the expense of sowing either," David said.

The Shorters need rain - lots of it. And soon.

David reckons recently leased lighter country would respond well to 50mm, while the black, heavier soil country that accounts for most of their land - "beautiful farming soil: when it's on, it's on" - needs buckets more.

"You can't ride a horse across (that country), it's that cracked," Erica said.

"We've got a little bit of irrigation and we watered some forage sorgham, and I reckon it was taking about 2.5 megalitres to the hectare, which is the equivalent of 10 inches of rain, to wet it and that probably isn't as dry as some of our dryland country," David said.

The Shorters have been using Hazeldean genetics since the late 1980s when they bought cast-for-age rams and ewes to use in their own stud, which has since been disbanded.

For the past decade David said they had aimed to buy a good Hazeldean ram "every year or so" and used them to breed rams for themselves.

The couple said they chose Hazeldean for its focus on "objective measurement and breeding, and that line of thought".

David said Hazeldean sheep were very even and once the Shorters culled 30 per cent of lambs - "we probably cull more than we need to" - the remainder went on to produce the "one line of wool and unless something goes wrong with their health they're good sheep for the next five or six years".

The pair like Hazeldean's "open-minded" approach to sheep breeding.

"They've opened up to bringing semen sires from other sources and are not arrogant in that approach," David said.

In more recent years the Shorters have begun to use polled sires and are excited about what such animals can offer.

"Some of the poll rams we've bought in recent years have been cracking good," David said.

"And we've got some progeny we'll be using this year from some poll rams we bought in 2011."

At the 2011 Hazeldean Riverina sale at Hay, the Shorters bought the top-priced sons of AI sires Stockman Jim and Coramandel St Thomas.

"We have bred from them and are pleased with the progeny - we've got some good rams out of them," David noted.

The ewes are joined for six weeks starting in March with one 1/2 to two rams joined per 100 ewes.

Lambing is in September. Ewes are shorn in July.

Depending on the season, grown sheep cut 6kg-plus of 20-micron wool, with weaners testing less than 17 micron.

The wether portion, which in a good year is fattened on a winter crop, is sold at nine to 10 months, weighing around 60kg, usually to Fletchers International at Dubbo.

Last year, with Fletchers at capacity due to the dry season, the wethers went to Country Fresh at Tamworth.

Cast-for-age ewes are generally joined to crossbred rams and sold in lamb privately to local producers.

"We've always had sheep, and from the early 1990s (with the crash of the wool reserve price) we probably wondered why," David said.

"But even when the sheep weren't worth much they still tasted good."