Meet the Victorian sheep stud forging a new path

Discipline is the name of the game for this sheep breeder, who brought an iconic Western Australian stud across to North East Victoria. See his story.

Discipline is the name of the game for SheepMaster general manager and stud principal Charlie Sullivan.

It’s through this laser-like focus on quality, genetics and reputation that the sprawling SheepMaster enterprise has succeeded from coast to coast.

Uniting his passion for sheep with making bold genetic strides, Charlie provides tangible results for discerning clients in both flock and quality carcasses.

A sixth-generation sheep breeder who grew up on a Merino farm at Molong in Central West NSW, Charlie has recently turned his attention to bringing the SheepMaster breed and its parent stud to the east coast from its original home in Western Australia.

Now based at Merton, north of Melbourne, Charlie is further refining the breed’s set traits of fertility, bone structure and conformation, constitution, feed, and productivity, for an expanding client base.

The SheepMaster parent stud, Merton Downs, is run across 404ha, a mixture of leased and owned property, with another 283ha at Cowra in NSW.

Merton Downs runs about 1000 breeding ewes with the aim to expand in the coming years.

Charlie’s journey with the SheepMaster breed began about 15 months ago with the purchase of land north of Melbourne, and buying stock from the parent stud in Western Australia.

“I wanted to get back to farming,” Charlie said, making a return to agriculture after a decade working in online grain trading.

Charlie Sullivan and Zac Sales at Charlie's SheepMaster Parent Stud at Merton Picture: Zoe Phillips

“Then, five months ago, the parent stud announced it was for sale, near Albany. So we’ve gone with my business partner and purchased the parent stud in October last year.”

Stock have been moved from the west to the east, with Charlie preparing for the Merton property’s first national sale later this month.

Formally launched in 2017, the SheepMaster breed is the culmination of 30 years of work by West Australian breeder Neil Garnett, whose aim was to breed the wool off sheep to produce a highly fertile, easy care animal with high-quality carcass traits.

There are several “daughter” SheepMaster studs across the east coast.

“They’re people who source their genetics from the parent stud, and set up their own studs,” Charlie said.

“There is somewhere from 10 to 15 of these daughter studs across the country, which are just starting to have their individual sales, primarily being in the west where they’ve been more established.

“There are daughter studs in Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia, and part of New Zealand.”

Maintaining a large business footprint across several states is no easy feat.

But the same discipline Charlie asserts over on-farm decisions is applied to his business choices.

Charlie works alongside director Mark Berry and breeder Neil Garnett, who will help guide the organisation through the transition and relocation of the parent stud from the west coast to the east.

“What Neil’s done is he’s never stood still,” Charlie said. “He’s always looking at trends and looking at what’s new in the market, what opportunities are there for infusing traits into our breed. We always need to be innovating and challenging the status quo, and not be afraid to try new things. And just keep improving.

“We’ve just got to keep forging ahead … we’ve got to keep investing in our genetics, investing in our program.

“It’s early days for us … but we’re focused on the long-term opportunity.”

Making precise decisions both in business and in operating the stud is key for Charlie. 


“We need to be really disciplined in our growth, which will be slower as a result, but our quality will be maintained, the quality will increase and never diminish if we stick true to those values, that same scoring system Neil has developed, and just remain disciplined.”

LASER FOCUS

The central pillars of the SheepMaster breed, according to Charlie, are fertility, front legs, back legs, conformation and shedding ability.

“They’re the five scoring traits … and it’s just been disciplined on that.”

“There’s a look and a type of a SheepMaster. The long muzzle, that long body, they need to have bone, so you can put the meat on the bone. The rams look like rams, and the ewes look like ewes. That sounds quite simple … but anything that doesn’t make the grade is out of the system,” Charlie said. 


“It’s all about keeping the best, and making sure that the parent stud continually is focused on the best.”

The SheepMaster is a shedding sheep, or a “silky skin” according to Charlie.

This trait is central to the management of the animal, as well as reducing input costs by omitting the need to shear stock.

“Most of the shedding sheep have a hairy coat, where these … it’s like silk,” Charlie said.

The main benefit of such a trait is management of stock.

“So you have no shearing, no flies, and that obviously relates to the cost of production,” Charlie said.

“It brings down your costs. There’s going to be a transition phase, in my view, in the sheep industry.”

Initially developed in Western Australia, the breed’s heritage includes Damara, Dorper, Van Rooy, Finn, East Friesian, Kojak, Ultrawhite and White Suffolk genetics.

But the decision to bring the parent stud to the east coast works better for the larger commercial sheep following in NSW and Victoria.

“We saw it as a great opportunity, because we can see that the breed has the capability to be in a high rainfall area because that’s where it’s come from,” Charlie said.

“A lot of the genetics within the sheep is for low rainfall, so that’s where I think we’re fortunate the breed is not specific to a certain area.

“It’s a tough animal … it comes back to the original sheep that were brought in from Africa, they had to breed to survive.”

Resilient and tough, the SheepMaster is almost a sheep breed for cattle people.

And the genetic traits Neil had spent years finetuning are easily accessible for new clients looking to transition their flock to a shedding variety, Charlie said.

Charlie Sullivan and his daughter Claudia at his SheepMaster Parent Stud at Merton Picture: Zoe Phillips

PAY OFF

They’re disciplined approach to breeding is paying dividends, according to Charlie, in the prices clients pay for stock.

In 2023, the top ram from the SheepMaster parent stud ram sale sold for $51,000 to Rainbows Rest stud in Western Australia, with the 17 special stud and stud sires offered at the sale selling for an average of $10,979.

“The evidence is in the results, and the prices people have been paying for,” Charlie said.

“We’re not letting the sheep that aren’t good enough for us go out into the market. We don’t want people accessing sheep as SheepMaster sheep that aren’t good enough for the parent stud.

“Obviously it’s all about the ewe. The ewe flock needs to be really good. And we need to class according to our scoring system, and let nothing through the gaps, grow the business, and grow the opportunity for producers in the market.

“We’re not here to go out and just triple our numbers in three years, and bring the price of rams down to $500. Because that’s not the right way to get sustainability into the industry.”

The flock is fully genomic tested, something that discerning clients are increasingly asking for, Charlie said.

“We’re very confident in what we’ve got, and what’s out there. Technology has come a long way in the last couple of years in regards to that, so we need to incorporate that into the business and the breed without jeopardising anything else. “

The Merton site, which Charlie manages with his wife, Lizzie, has received almost 200mm of rainfall since the start of the year, “and we are a really low summer rainfall area, with an average of about 50mm”.

It’s a rainfall trend that much of the east coast has experienced in recent months, and one that has boosted confidence in the sector.

“Sheep people have got animals in better condition than they normally would at this time,” Charlie said.

“We’re hoping that translates to people wanting to join more ewes than they traditionally would have.”

“As a general statement, confidence is much higher than it was two or three months ago, the confidence in the season.”