Commodity switch at Euabalong West

BY BRETT TINDAL

A dabble into Dorpers close to 10 years ago has seen a switch from a cattle-based livestock system to a 3500 Dorper ewe base for the Worsnop family at Euabalong West.

Dave Worsnop with his partner Helen and his three girls, run the 11000-hectare property “Yarambie” in Western NSW. Traditionally the Worsnop’s ran Merinos, close to 25 years ago and transitioned to cattle, before switching to Dorpers and settling on them as the preferred option.

It was 10 years ago Mr Worsnop bought 300 Dorper ewes to have a dabble and see what they could do, followed by another 300 the following year as he saw the potential grow to run along side his 500-cow breeding herd. Today the Worsnop’s run 3500 Dorper ewes and have reduced their cow herd to 50 due to ease of management and a greater return on investment with a Dorper flock.

Mr Worsnop said the costs to run a cow herd and Dorper herd were similar as they are both reasonably low maintenance, but when we are getting 140 percent lambing’s compared to a calf on a cow once a year, the numbers just made sense. “When you have 140pc lambing

percentages and those lambs are worth say $300 – it just makes sense and especially when we can potentially get two lambing’s a year,” he said.

The Worsnop’s share farm their cropping country to down scale their high-risk operations and focus on the simplicity of the Dorper flock to do its thing. “The cropping game is high input and high risk and we just don’t see the value in it, when we can Run a low input operation and make a good income from it,” he said.

He said the Dorper was a smart animal, very simple to run, easy to manage and out do the cattle as far as income goes quiet significantly. The Worsnop’s generally finish their lambs off grass, while cleaning up stubble paddocks post-harvest and sold all year round over the hooks predominantly. “We sell most of our lambs over the hooks to ALC (Australian

Lamb Company) and prefer that method of selling as we can get a closer guarantee of return,” he said.

Mr Dave Worsnop in the 'Yarambie' yards

Mr Worsnop said that he very quickly became a big advocate of the Dorper, with their ability to finish off grass, eat your woody weeds as well and help clean paddocks up, they knuckle down hard in tough times but still mother their lambs tremendously well and they bounce back really quickly after a tough season. “We find that when the seasons pinch the Dorper ewe just handles it so much better than a Merino or crossbred and nurture their lambs and continue to put weight on them.

He said they fed their weaners a bit of grain for the first time this year and they seem to be going extremely well on it, so it might be something we continue, just to give them that extra start and push to finish quickly.

“We have another property at Thargomindah, where my parents and sister live and we now run that as our major cattle operation with 1000 cows,” he said. “With the sheep operation,

up until now we have had a continuous joining cycle for our ewes, giving us lambs all year

round, but we have tightened that this year into more controlled joining’s, so we can produce a more consistent article at the meat works when we sell them,” he said.

Mr Worsnop sources his rams from the Condobolin stud, Tullinga, and focuses on rams with good feet structure and firmly believes that if you focus on good feet that will flow through your whole flock and you will have minimal issues going forward. “Good feet are a must for us here in this granite country, as the rams need to service big paddocks and travel long distances to service the ewes out here.”

Mr Worsnop classes in 500 maiden ewes every year as replacements for the cull portion, but this year will increase that to 900 maidens to capitalise on the great mutton market at the moment and freshen his flock up at the same time. He said, why not capitalise on the extremely good markets at the moment and cash in the older ewes – we haven’t seen prices

like this in tough times before so it made sense for us.