Neil Stringer of Forge Creek Lamb on the Gippsland Lakes raises the baa
NEIL Stringer stands on a hill overlooking a picturesque vista of the Gippsland Lakes.
NEIL Stringer stands on a hill overlooking a picturesque vista of the Gippsland Lakes.
“We have about 1km of frontage to the lakes,” Neil said.
“I suppose it’s why I believe it’s so important to keep nutrients and sediments out of the lakes, why we’ve done all the Landcare work on the farm. It’s also about making a clean and green product.”
With such a view as this, it’s easy to see why Neil was inspired to transform the Stringers’ 250ha farm at Forge Creek, in East Gippsland, from “a condemned rabbit” property, into a productive, successful prime lamb and wool business.
WETHER THE STORM
NEIL and his wife, Angela, and his father, Ian, run a selfreplacing flock of 650 Merino ewes and 600 Merino wethers, as well as 320 first-cross ewes.
Merinos are joined in February for lambing in July. The flock produces an average 19-micron fleece and 76 per cent yield and they aim for a tensile of 40 newtons per kilotex or greater, all sold through the auction system.
Merino ewes aged five are crossed with a Border Leicester ram (to breed a first-cross ewe) and at six are crossed with a Dorset ram — joining in February to breed a prime lamb.
The first-cross progeny is sold through their value-added Forge Creek Lamb business, selling half and whole carcass packs through their online shop, as well as the Bairnsdale and Metung farmers’ markets.
In February Dorset rams are joined with first-cross ewes with second-cross progeny sold over the hooks or at the Bairnsdale market.
TOPS FOR CHOPS
NEIL said in the past six months the Forge Creek Lamb business has been the success story, slaughtering 150 lambs in that time. “The way we’re going we’ll be looking for more lambs,” he said.
Neil said up until now they had avoided buying in store lambs “because we are Johne’s disease-free, and because we are footrot and lice-free”.
The Forge Creek lambs are slaughtered, at carcass weight 25kg, at Gordyn in Sale, and butchered at Riviera Meats in Paynesville. Any meat not sold through their online shop, at farmers’ markets (or more recently through local restaurants), is made into Angela’s spicy lamb and sweet potato pies.
“They’ve become so popular we’re running out of meat to make them, so we’ll have to have a dedicated lamb,” Angela said.
UNCHAIN MY HEART
NEIL said being first and foremost a farmer made value-adding their meat trickier.
“I had no background in retail. Before this I’d only sold raffle tickets for charity,” he said. “It’s certainly not for everyone. But it’s meant we’ve become price setters.
“With wool it takes 12 months growing and two seconds to sell it. This (lamb value-adding) is a very different process.
“We’re really enjoying it.”
The Stringers first came to value-add their lamb after taking part in quality assurance programs such as Environmental Management Systems, National Vendor Declaration, Livestock Quality Systems and Flockcare.
“We were trying to get a premium for our lamb,” Neil said. “These programs are supported by the VFF (Victorian Farmers Federation) and government agencies but the industry itself does not recognise the premium.
“We tried to follow the industry best practice but it wasn’t always reflected in the returns at the farmgate sales.
“Around the same time friends were asking for our lamb and so we saw potential to develop a value-added premium product there.”
The Stringers’ foray into quality systems followed years of farm improvements.
RABBIT WARREN
NEIL said when his grandfather first bought the farm in 1950 it was run down and overrun with rabbits.
Since Neil — who has off-farm income with Landcare and Trust for Nature — came back to work with his father in 2000, he’s worked to improve productivity and regenerate the land, with drought and fire among the hurdles.
While they have significantly reduced rabbits, more recently foxes have become a problem — this year alone they estimate they have lost 10 per cent of young lambs to foxes, with Neil now planning to bait extensively.
In the past three years they have planted 3000 trees, with 10 per cent of the property proposed to be under a Trust for Nature covenant this year.
To ensure no sediment or nutrient run off to the Gippsland Lakes, the Stringers have stock-excluded their dams and fenced off a series of ponds and water courses from stock.
WET THE APPETITE
WATER is now supplied through 45 troughs, with many of those troughs pumped with a solar-powered system.
The Stringers agist cattle — currently 65 Hereford heifers — to use surplus feed, as well as to improve the pasture and to reduce the worm burden specific to sheep, with lambs often following cattle in a rotational grazing system. Neil said it’s one of the best ways to manage for pasture growth.
Depending on rainfall (the region receives an average yearly total of 650mm), they will graze hard for about a week and then remove stock.
Pastures have been improved with ryegrass and clovers, with fodder crops of cereal or brassicas sown through no-till methods; supplementary feeding is given to young lambs or lactating ewes depending on the season.
Neil, a father of two, said having grown up on the scenic property, his aim was to pass it to the next generation in a better state than he found it.
“Dad says they made terrible mistakes on the farm in the past but they did what they thought was best practice,” he said. “We’re probably doing the same today.”
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