We are passionate about merino sheep, the wool industry and the business of farming.
Wether lambs are sold at 4-6 months of age on Auctions plus and surplus breeding ewes are sold in December.
Austral Park Merinos is a family owned and operated business run at Austral Park. We are passionate about merino sheep, the wool industry and the business of farming.
Currently run by Hamish and Diana Robertson, with their children Camilla and Harvey, management has recently been taken over from Hamish’s parents David and Fiona who had been at Austral Park since 1986. Austral Park Merinos is a commercial, self-replacing fine wool operation that joins 9500 ewes to a Merino or Dohne sire. Situated in Victorias Western District near Coleraine, this natural red gum country consists of rye grass, phalaris and sub clover pastures and receives 600mls of annual rain.
Austral Park is a progressive farm and has been heavily involved in industry development such as trails and field days over the last 40 years. Austral Park hosted the Life Time Wool trial, data from which enabled the development of the highly popular Lifetime Ewe Program. We have hosted lamb density trails, pasture field days and in 2020 commenced hosting The Balmoral Sire evaluation trial.
Prior to 2015 Austral Park ewes were the progeny of Nareen, Stud Park South and Wirranort rams. In 2015 we introduced some Gulandar Dohne rams to the flock. We selected these rams for their good wool characteristics that can stand up to our wet winters, high growth rates and good doing ability. To ensure flock consistency our ewes are only crossed once to a Dohne and all first cross ewes are joined back to Merino rams. Adult ewes cut approximately 5kgs of 18 micron wool. Ewes lamb from the last week of July to the end of August and lambs are weaned at the end of October, Shearing starts mid-November.
In 2017 we started selecting a seed stock ewe flock and to breed our own rams. We sourced rams and semen from predominantly Nerstain, Wallaloo, Coonawarren and Stud Park South studs. In 2020 we started to breed some rams with the desired traits and figures good enough to use in our commercial and seed sock flocks, we also have one of our own bred rams in the Balmoral Sire Evaluation Trial which is very exciting and we look forward to seeing how he measures up some of the leading Merino sires in Australia. We do not currently sell any rams.
We aim to breed ewes that are easy care, fertile, productive and do well in our southern climate of wet, cold winters and dry hot summers. Wool needs to withstand up to 300mm of rain over winter. We aim to produce lambs that are fast going, resilient and heavy wool cutters.
We run our seed stock and commercial ewes under identical conditions. With a yearly stocking rate of 17 dse/ha our ewes wean between 90 and 95% lambs to ewes joined and are lambed in large mobs that are not checked during lambing.
By joining our entire flock to either Merino or Dohne rams and achieving good weaning percentages we are able to put heavy selection pressure on young ewes for wool, conformation and growth rates and surplus ewes are of a consistently high standard. We select ewes with good early growth rates and doing ability so those poor doers are not carried through winter until shearing in December. Having done this for the past 10 years we believe we have basically eliminated these sheep from the flock. Surplus breeding ewes are sold in December off shears on Auctions plus by J.M. Ellis & Co Hamilton.
All lambs are grain trained in October and weaned late in October at 13 weeks of age. Wether lambs are weaned on to phalaris, ryegrass and sub clover pastures. Depending on the season the top lambs are sold early December at 4 months of age, with the lighter one’s going onto lucerne for a month and sold in January at 6 months of age. All lambs are sold through Auctions Plus by J.M. Ellis & Co Hamilton as well.
