Page 2 - Newsletter 2021ab Merinos 1-2-combined

2 years on and James is still
proving to be a good
investment
Darren O’Brien and Jodie Reseigh O’Brien

O’Brien Polls and O’Brien Dohnes Yorke Peninsula SA

I came across Caroonboon 181395 or James as I boringly call
him, at Bendigo Australian Wool and Sheep Show in 2019. I
thought he had wide backend stance ,he stood up on his pas-
terns for the 3 days, I also liked his body length and growth for
age. His wool was crimpy enough to make you have a second
look; so when he turned up at ‘Classings Classic ‘ ram sale
Murray Bridge and stood perfectly all day, I thought he was
well worth a punt.

With that punt I wanted to put some accurate ASVBs around
him, so I entered him in the SA Sire Evaluation, this would also
give our studs an accurate link sire to use into the future. In
both our studs we measure a lot of traits, visual traits include;
front and back pastern,
front and back feet roll,
butt and hock shape,
Darren O’Brien purchaser of Caroonboon James 1395 at the Classings Classic
belly wool length and creep Sale Murray Bridge SA for $18,000. At the time of his first shearing he cut 9kgs
and fleece colour of wool at 7 months of age . His fleece was very even throughout his frame,
As well we collect data at various stages on; microning at 19.8, Comfort Factor of 99.7 and CV of 12.1
growth,
EMD, growth, fleece weight, and a unusual bit of EMD for long bod-
FAT, ied animals.
fleece weights, We have tried him over a fair variety of ewes including Dohnes,
Micron so he will be put to the test over the next couple off years.
yield We have also used 3 of his sons over our ewe lambs, mating
and pedigree on about 1300 to 1500 lambs a year. them up at 7 to 8 months, they have just finished dropping.

When the ASVBs started coming back from his progeny and We are looking forward to his influence over both our studs in
thus getting him ASVBs, we thought he would perform OK in the next couple of years.
the South Australian Sire Evaluation. His progeny have good

lambs to ewes joined.

The challenges of farming We as wool growers and meat producers are faced with an
in Australia ever growing list of challenges. One of our next big challenges
is how we are going to continue to market our wool and meat
Craig & Kate Smith ‘Innesvale’ Oaklands NSW into this industry given the challenges around animal husband-
ry? It seems to be an increasing noise. Once the animal activ-
ists take mulesing away where will they stop? The bottom line
Craig and Kate Smith, along with their 4 children Georgie 12, is that some of the leaders in these animal activist groups do
Ella 10, Sophie 8 and Tom 5 run the family farm “Innesvale”. The not want vision impaired people to have guide dogs let alone
property is based 6kms out of Oaklands in the Southern River- farmers raising and caring for animals. I believe we need to get
ina, roughly half-way between Deniliquin and Albury. Craigs on the front foot and promote the fact that we do respect and
mum Ruth also lives on the farm. care for our animals as much as we do. We need to be seen as
the clean green environmentalist’s that we already are. The
We run a mixed livestock and cropping program consisting of trouble is none of us have the time to promote it.
irrigation and dry-land farming. Many of the problems raised are from simple misunderstand-
Our livestock enterprise consists of self-replacing merinos ings of our animal husbandry practices and procedures. Per-
and prime lambs. We have been using Caroonboon Poll Meri- haps we could get the MLA or the AWI to support and develop a
nos since 2009 after seeing first hand the excellent versatility curriculum to provide to the education department to teach and
and productivity this type of sheep can offer year in year out. train the next generation at a school level.
Increased fertility and lamb survivability traits, together with
maintaining a heavy cutting high yielding fleece was the pack- Agriculture is a great industry to be part of. Covid-19 has sure
age offered by Jim Dickson at the time. reminded us all how fortunate we are living out on farms and
still being able to do what we do best. We need to make sure
Our merino flock originally started with a very heavy skin type our group leaders are doing their best to secure the longevity
cutting 7-8kg that would rarely get 100% lambs marked to and sustainability of our livestock industries through the posi-
ewes joined. It took a few years to straighten them up and we tive promotion of our “best practice animal husbandry”.
are now shearing 6-7kg, but consistently achieving 110-118%