The long journey to respect at Forbes

By Brett Tindal

The road to acceptance for the Dorper breed has not been an easy one over the

past 30 years, but commitment and persistence is paying off at Forbes saleyards as

buyers now chase premiums for sheep they sold in the exotic pens back in the day.

Randal Grayson, Director of Forbes Livestock Agents (FLA) has been an agent in the Forbes district for as long as the Dorper breed has been in Australia and recalls the challenges the breed faced, but also the successes they now enjoy.

Randal started as an agent in 1994 and now runs a business with five office ladies, six agents and 14 casual staff for sale days. He remembers the days when some of the original Dorpers were bred up from Damara’s and is grateful the breed got past those days and have established their own base as they were not

a great article. “Back in the day we had spare pens at the top of the yards, called the exotic pens and the shedding sheep had to be unloaded, drafted and sold in

those pens and separated from the rest of the sheep in the yards and were really treated like leppers.”

“It was all dictated at the time by processors who demanded that they be sold separately to the wool sheep – that’s just the way it was back then,” he said.

Randal said the breed slowly grew in interest in the drawing areas, as wool prices dropped and shearers were hard to find and costs started to get out of control, but its really been the last 5 to 10 years they had really taken off in the western country.

“The slow burn into the breed saw some people dip their toes into the breed and some stayed and are now very successful and others moved on as they didn’t have the infrastructure or the interest in spending money to improve their infrastructure to

accommodate the breed,” he said.

Agent Randal Grayson, Forbes Livestock Agency & Co

“In the 80s and 90s the wool market was not great and sheep and lambs were worth nothing, hence the lack of infrastructure when the opportunities came

around.” Mr Grayson compared that to today’s market at Forbes in April 2026, where they yarded 11,061 sheep and lambs and 3778 were shedding sheep or 33.79 per

cent. “The Dorper has evolved and have now become a commodity our buyers are chasing every week and are willing to pay good money for the right lines and

articles,” he said.

He said the Dorper lamb is now an animal that is marketable from the time you take the tail off, where it can go into a small bag job, through to the MK and trade markets to the big heavy export lambs, anywhere from 12kg to 34kg plus. “We have done a few trials with Junee abattoirs and had lambs coming back at 34kg and the processors saying if you can put the weight on them to these levels, don’t stop at the traditional trade wights of 25kg dressed – just keep sending them.”

“The line of lambs in the trial dressed at 30.6kg, with a 52.7pc dressing percentage at seven to eight months of age – equating to a 1kg of dressed weight per week as young lambs and that’s pretty cool, considering they were all straight off grass.”

Mr Grayson said it was stories like these that until processors started killing the Dorper lambs that they started to understand the yield potential and weight these lambs can create at young ages.

“A crossbred lamb will yield between 48 to 50 percent, while a Dorper will dress at 50 to 53pc every day of the week and at $12kg at the moment that potential 5pc is a lot of money across a consignment,” he said. “The recent dry down in the South and a lack of supply to the processors - where the South holds the majority of the lamb processing facilities – saw buyers start to come North to secure lambs and they got their first taste of Dorpers.”

He said they hadn’t really ventured into Dorper sheep before and when they came, they still had a discrimination between the black and white Dorpers, but now they have seen them on a chain, the blacks make the same money as the whites.

Mr Grayson said a big change with the Dorpers has been the fact that buyers can now pick

the weights better at the yards, as they understand the breed potential and work out the yields and their profits as they buy these heavier lambs. “Its been a tough road, but

once we got buyers killing and handling the sheep on a more regular basis, they now see what they can do and if we present the right article in consistent lines, they are even willing to pay premiums for them, “he said.

Forbes has become a respected centre for good quality Dorper sheep and Randal believes that being a good halfway point between the North and the processors has set the Central West Livestock Exchange as a pivotal role player in closing the divide for the northern and Queensland buyers to access processing facilities. “We have a great set up now, which we didn’t back in the day, where we have holding pens and paddocks that allow a lot of these producers to take advantage of from places like Longreach and parts of far western NSW and even as far as Julia Creek.”

“These guys might only have access to a gyrocopter on certain days to muster and now they can capitalise on those days, truck then here and they can settle in these holding paddocks for a few days and present really fresh for sale rather than hollow and

stressed like the old days.” He said that’s been a massive change and help to the Dorper breeders and has really cemented their ability to present better at sale time.

Mr Grayson was adamant though that even though the growth of the Dorper was immense and continues to grow, the industry needed all sheep including Merinos and the crossbreds as not all producers can handle the Dorpers. “We need Merinos as a base and crossbreds for those that suit their operations and mainly the older generation who have grown up with them, but the younger generation, don’t want the stress and the hassle of wool and extra work and costs and will continue to migrate and grow the Dorper

interest,” he said.

Mr Grayson said the best attribute of the Dorper breed was its versatility and the ability to hit markets from as light as 12kg and the better performers in the breed pulling 34kg plus

carcase.

Mr Grayson said the boom started when the export job really kicked off and instead of putting a lot of effort into a Merino or crossbred lamb at $10 to $30 per head, the export

job saw lamb prices go to $80 to $100 and now to the highs of today and the faster you put weight on the better rewards you are getting.

“I'm a big advocate for the breed and as soon as we can get more breeders, producing lambs that have the length and balance of a crossbred with all the Dorper characteristics like some breeders are doing now – watch out.” Mr Grayson said the biggest challenge was to get supermarket acceptance for the breed, but he believes a time will come when supply dictates, they will need to and this will open the market right up once they see

the bodies.

He finished by stating the trial wasn’t over for Dorpers, as they spread into the eastern country like Molong, Orange and Yass with higher rainfall and potential challenges with a variety of new climatic conditions, it will be interesting to see how they handle and adapt to that challenge in large scale.