A LOYAL Oakbank Merino, Gre Gre North customer has paid top price at this year’s annual sale.
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Bruce West of Raywood said he had been buying Oakbank rams for 15 years. This time he picked up two, including the top-priced Lot Seven, for $4500.
The 14-month-old ram had figures of a 20.23 micron fleece, a standard deviation (SD) of 3.25, co-efficient of variation (CV) of 16.34 and comfort factor of 99.30.
The ram was sired by Wanganella 0019.
Mr West also paid top price last year, paying $3750.
Mr West, who runs a mixed cropping and wool production enterprise, said the ram would go over his maiden ewes.
“The ram has that beautiful wool on it and it has really good structure too,” Mr West said. “He has very white, long stapled wool, with a nice crimp on it.”
Mr West said he kept coming back to Oakbank, as the stud bred rams of good length and bone structure, with nice soft wool.
Stud principal Warren McRae said commercial flock buyers were to the fore, although Jock MacCrae, Eilan Donan, Sutton Grange, paid $4000 for Lot 21.
The ram, also sired by Wanganella 0019, had a 19.24 micron fleece, an SD of 3.30, CV of 17.19 and CF of 99.05.
“I think the sheep job is pretty good at the moment. People are expanding numbers and there is a bit of grass around – things are rolling along, alright,” Mr McCrae said.
“The wool price is good.
“The rams are paddock run – they have been out in the rain all year so they are just ready to go.”
His son, Jack, said the stud hadn’t done anything different, this season, in preparing for the annual sale.
"We had a few more rams in this year and the average was up a bit from last year, so it was a pretty good sale,” Mr McRae said.
“Our clients are looking for heavy wool cutters and big, good structured rams,” he said.
Most of the rams went back in to the local area.
Among the volume buyers were Durham Ox’s Murray Haw (seven), North Monea Farms, Longwood (six) and K.J. and M.J. Hewitt, Gowar East (five).
A significant number of rams sold for between $2000 and $4500, with solid bidding, throughout the sale.
“It was a very good draft of rams, a very good even sale and certainly represented good value for buyers,” Elders’ Ross Milne said.
He said a solid clearance represented the additional number of rams offered.
“We are starting to get through the sales now and the clearances have been very positive. A fair majority have had averages up on last year, which has been good,” he said.
Elders and Landmark conducted the sale.