Donnan family proves sheep mix works at Willangie

THREE'S a great crowd when it comes to sheep studs, writes SANDRA GODWIN

Andrew Donnan

ANDEN White Suffolk stud principal Andrew Donnan can't decide whether he's a grain grower who produces sheep or a sheep producer who grows crops.

But he remains convinced that running three sheep studs - White Suffolk, Suffolk and Poll Dorset - is no more difficult than one.

The Donnan family is well known for sheep around Willangie, south of the Mallee town of Sea Lake.

Andrew's grandfather, George Donnan, and his father, Stan, registered the Viewdale Poll Dorset stud in 1960 and an uncle, John Donnan, founded the Kerangie Suffolk stud in 1971.

Both studs went into recess in the 1980s. John and Andrew founded Anden White Suffolk stud in 1989, using Suffolk ewes from the Kerangie and Stone Haven studs.

Seven years ago Andrew and his wife, Denita, reactivated Viewdale, and then Kerangie in 2010.

Andrew said his foray into sheep breeding began as "a hobby" with a few Suffolks in 1985, which he crossbred with Poll Dorsets to produce animals with white fleece and pink skin.

"I liked the clean wool-free points that are around the head," he said.

"Suffolks were good, but meat buyers made excuses to downgrade the price.

"They wanted the Suffolks because of their good attributes, but penalised farmers so much for the darker skin and wool colour that people had to change."

Between the three breeds, the Donnans sell about 200 stud and flock rams a year, 150 at their annual on-farm auction.

Last month 153 rams sold to $4500.

The family is well known also on the show circuit, where they do the hard yards to publicise their stock.

"We've done well in Adelaide, which is the main White Suffolk show in Australia," Andrew said.

"We mainly do it for the advertising.

We've won a couple of champion ribbons so people come and see what you've got and will buy high-priced rams."

In 2008, they sold a ram for $28,500 at an elite show in Adelaide - three years after selling another one for $25,000.

Andrew signed up to LambPlan not long after it started in 1988.

As part of the program, each drop of lambs is weighed at birth, weaning and post-weaning, when a scanner also is used to measure body fat and eye muscle in order to calculate breeding values for the Anden rams.

The Lambplan figures show the Anden White Suffolks have been consistently heavier at weaning and post-weaning weight and better on the Lamb2020 and Carcase-Plus indexes than both the breed and terminal sire averages for the past 10 years.

Eye muscle depth is similar to the breed average and post-weaning fat scores have been below both averages, at -0.58 to -0.92.

The Carcass Plus index has risen from 150.3 in 2004 to 185.7 last year, and there has been a corresponding rise in the Lamb 20:20 index from 106.7 to 111.5 over the same period.

Andrew said growth rates had improved with the use of higher growth rate rams.

"I've concentrated a lot on growth rates, because we're in the Mallee and we've got short seasons," he said.

Andrew said some people had rushed into boosting muscle, with a subsequent loss of shape and length in their animals.

Good on growth: Willangie stud sheep breeder Andrew Donnan with young White Suffolk rams.

"We're trying to do it slower, so we can gradually get the muscle and keep the length and size," he said.

"We've concentrated on picking the best doers, the faster growing, because now we can measure muscle and fat, we're trying to increase muscle all the time so the dressing percentage is increased."Andrew joins his sheep twice a year, with rams due to go in with the ewes from December 29 to February 2.

The second joining is from February 26 until April 10.

He buys semen each year for AI, and owns rams in partnership with another farmer that allows comparison of performance in two mobs.

All up, Andrew estimates he uses as many as 10 different sires each year on the breeding flock, which includes 300 White Suffolk ewes - 50 of them embryo carriers - 140 Poll Dorsets, 45 Suffolks and 800 commercial Merino and first-cross ewes.

He keeps two or three older rams, using mainly ram lambs to service the ewes and then sells them. The best of the ewe lambs are retained and the culls sold at 48-50kg liveweight through the market.

The Donnans have four sons and a daughter: Joel, 23, Ashlee, 21, Trent, 19, Kane, 17 and Wade, 13.

Joel came back to the farm three years ago after working for four years as a landscape gardener in Swan Hill.

"I always wanted to come back to the farm," Joel said.

"Dad was flat out trying to do it all himself and asked if I wanted to come home."

Since his return, Joel has helped introduce Andrew to newer technologies that aid direct-drilling of crops.

While Andrew continues to spend most of his time with the sheep, Joel has been able to take over much of the tractor work.

This year they sowed 3840ha of crops, including yitpi and corel wheat, buloke and hindmarsh barkey, wintaroo oats for feed and morava vetch.

Andrew said he had fallowed grazing ground until the dry years, when it got too bare, so he now sows vetch as a cover and green manure crop.

He adopted direct drilling and minimum tillage about six years ago. It was later than many farmers in the northern Mallee, because of the difference in soil type.

"My soil's different, there's a lot of heavy creek ground and heavy red," he said.

Asked what's in the five-year plan for the farm, Andrew laughs and says: "We just got over the last five. Ask Denita if there's a plan.

"I would like to get a couple of average seasons under our belt while grain prices are reasonable," he said.

"Because I don't crop everything every year, I try to keep yields up a bit with fallow and vetch.

"Last year we had really good crops. Even though it was a dryish year, there was moisture in our fallow from the floods and we just got enough rain here.

"Sheep have been steady, so both (crops and sheep) have been good for the past 12 months, before that it was one or the other.

"Lambs were booming four years ago, but it was a complete drought crop-wise."

Andrew said he thought about growing peas, chick peas or canola each year, but hadn't.

"I'm a basic wheat and barley man, with feed for the sheep," he said.