This is Seeds for Success, a show where we have a good yarn about ag life with producers who are having a go. On the show you'll hear from farmers in New South Wales who are out there battling the elements, making tough calls, and getting the job done. You'll get a laugh out of some of their stories and also pick up some know- how along the way. I'm your host, Neroli Brennan. Today we're continuing our chat with
Hamish Wald. In our last episode, Hamish gave us the rich history of his family farm business and all the help, support and luck he's utilized to get where he is today. In today's episode, Hamish delves into their experiences of shifting their dual- purpose sheep enterprise to White Dorpers, explaining how well- suited they are to their farm and
business goals. Hamish also shares with us how important it is to surround yourself with great people, and he explains how proud he is to have his children returning to the business and building skills and knowledge that will allow them
to grow beyond the family business. You'll also hear Hamish talking about the steps they are taking to build their Dorper stud, and how they're using EID to really refine their stock flock with a focus on optimizing length, depth, and width, to meet their meat carcass quality goals and to
match their environmental growing conditions. Today, Local Land Services natural resource officer, Jasmine Wells, brings you this second part of her great two- part chat with Hamish.
So Alex and Callum are both on the farm?
They are. They've fallen into it. Alex, she was a bit unlucky. Her gap year fell into the first year of COVID, so she'd worked really hard right through school, through everything. Her extracurricular, she had an off the track thoroughbred with a heart of a lion, jumping really well, and she was unlucky. In year 12 at school, he got
lame a couple of crucial times. So he got lame at Willinga about a month before the Aus Champs down at Boneo, and so he was lame going to that till about
a week before he was sound. So she was able to final and got to 20th, and then she placed at Summer Classic in the end of December and she was looking forward to that next year where she could have 12 months where she was just going to be working at home, but she'd go to every show she could do. She'd go up and do the Queensland run in the winter, she'd do the spring run down through here, she'd
do state champs and no distractions, but COVID happened and like so many kids it got disrupted. And then when it got to the end of the second year, she was tossing up whether to try and have another gap year or start uni. And she made the decision that second year of COVID it was going to be no different. And so she put herself in to do Ag Economics up at UNE, went up there, loved her time up there, but she's got
herself through and she's got one year to go. And so she's come home to do her last year. It's been fantastic having her home. She's got 12 months at home. She's got into a really good job while she was up there for her working for a software crowd based in agriculture. And so she's still doing that three
days a week at home. And then she works here Thursday, Friday and she manages to get her uni done at sometime in the middle, as most people seem to be doing that now. This younger generation does so much more work than we ever did.
I didn't actually know her. I met her briefly at the draft, but I didn't know it was her. My mother actually commented. She said, " Oh, look at this young girl here. The time that she took to stop and talk to some of the young girls drafting." Just really kind. And there was a couple of little kids that came up and talked to her.
Oh no. Yeah, no, we're very lucky, Penny and I. And it's nothing to do with us. We spent the first year worried they'd break. By the second year we realized, you can't really break them, and they're just the same children they've been since they were tiny. Callum and Alex, I think they're born with their personality and we're just lucky.
COVID was very cruel, but it meant we've had them for an extra couple of years that we wouldn't have had.
So Callum's on the farm as well.
He is. Callum, when he left school, it was a battle to keep him through year 11 and 12 because it's not his thing. He is very lucky. There was a careers day and basically they let him know that if he left school at 16, he still wouldn't have his licence. And if he then decided later on he did want to study, it didn't matter how well he did in year 11 and 12, but anything he did then would make it easier for
him later on. And he had a terrific mentor at the school who went with them from year 7 right through. And he had an incredible group of peers. And once he made the decision he was going to do year 11 and 12, he had a terrific work placement English teacher who was from a rural background. She understood those bush kids. So he put his head down and worked really hard through year 11, got himself early entry to uni.
Callum's a pretty straight thinker, then figured his work was done, parents were off his back. So I don't think there's a lot of work done for year 12, but then he left school and a week after he left school he'd organized a job for himself at Burrawang, which, we're lucky, is the Dorper stud at Ootha. Incredible team. Graham Pickles, who was a major shareholder, was an entrepreneur from
Good grounding.
Sydney and had a terrific clear thinking business brain. Mal Brady who was the stud manager from the school of hard knocks. He'd learnt everything the hard way, incredibly hard worker, but incredibly positive. And then Wicus Cronje, who was the stud master from South Africa, Barend's dad. Look, there's been a lot of really important foundation people in the breed,
but the work he did there, it's just carried the breed forward. He's just taught everyone. He's very generous with his time and he's passionate about the breed and God, the whole breed
has been very lucky to have him. And well, his work and his work in the Dorper breed will actually spread out through the rest of the sheep industry because it's just based on sound principles, and a lot of it goes back to what our grandfathers used to say, to be quite honest, a fair bit of it. So Callum is very lucky. Went into that environment and he had six months there. It
was just very good for him. He was surrounded by those people who were very generous and gave him a lot of time because he was just an 18- year- old boy with too many questions. And so yeah, he loved it. He had a really good six months there. Then it was sold to a corporate because there was no real succession for that group of people. They were all looking to move on I think, and then it was sold to a corporate.
He actually decided to come home at the end of that, and he deserved to go away. The same as Alex. There's been so much change with the stud and so much work and they've just taken on the physical side. Alex has taken on all the technical side of it, and the work she's done with our cross systems has been able to come across into it. And they've done work that we couldn't possibly have done.
And then with Barend, we were very lucky. Barend, he was already well known in Condo. His wife, Stevie, she's always been a fantastic girl in Condo. Fortunately he married her, which has anchored him here a bit. Scanning and lamb- marking, working in the sheep industry, he already had an incredible reputation. He's just well known. He's just a thoroughly
decent, reliable, hardworking, kind man. He'd already been working with the stud for Robin and Anne, who we bought it off, for four years. So he was doing all the classing and stud work anyway. But we were so lucky when we approached him to come and help us, because we needed him and he took it on. Like most relationships, you think you know what you're getting into, but you don't know. And
he's just an incredibly intelligent guy, thoughtful guy. He's helped create this terrific culture on the place with Alex and Callum and other people we've had come and work. Yeah, he's got a huge future in the industry. I think, a bit like both of our kids, they're going to outgrow the farm. The world's changing very quickly and they've got
these other outside skills. They bring great skills to the farm, Alex does, but Alex is quiet in the background. She's going to have a bigger future than just the farm. The same with Callum. His ability to get on with people and even get through difficult situations, which his mother's got and she deals with every day in her
work. She's got a team of 25 with her and somehow she keeps them all getting on, which I haven't got those skills. Callum, so he's the same. I think he's got more than just the farm. We're just very, very lucky to have him at the moment. And then Barend's the same. He's grown up in South Africa and that family has
developed with the breed in South Africa. So they've tried all the things that people are trying now with shedding breeds. They've seen the dead ends, they go up. They've seen some of them do work, some don't. And I don't think Barend ever thought he'd end up doing what he's doing, but a mix of his personality and what he's grown up in, he's got an enormous future here in Australia.
Even as a teacher. I've been in the yards with him and I'm one of those people that asks too many questions and he'll stop and explain exactly what he's doing, what he's looking for, and you know he's got a pile of work in front of him, but he still takes the time.
He does. And so he's going to be bigger than our stud. He'll move around, but anytime we can pinch off him, we're just very grateful for, and we've just got to keep telling ourselves that you're better off having someone like that, that you know will one day outgrow us, than having someone that hasn't
got his ability. Because Robin and Anne, the foundation, and Barend helped them, that they put into that stud using those sires from Burrawang what Wicus and Mal Brady and Graham Pickles, and they had this incredible staff there on farm as well, like Amy Strudwick doing the marketing, and Anthony, her husband. We were able to basically piggyback off the back of
them, that genetic work they did and it just carried us forward. And then to have Alex doing that side, which they're all complementing each other at the moment. Barend can see everything that's there. Alex is able to unfold what's underneath the skin of all those animals. Her data means that it is all there.
So you're using EIDs?
Absolutely, EIDs. We're using genomics, we're using every tool we can at the moment. It's super expensive. It does not help us selling a ram. At the moment, we're in that foundation phase of the stud where every cent that we make is being spent just building this base, trying to create a ewe base going forward. We're using a team
from OverTech to do all our embryo transfer work. So we're using a crowd, Lynn and Francois Marais, reproduction vets from Dubbo. They come across and they do two embryo programs. Burrawang is still letting us use some of their genetics, which has been very good, and we've put a lot of resources into trying to create this really good ewe base.
And what are you looking for in that ewe base? What are you aiming for there?
We're keeping it very, very simple. Fertility is number one, so that's where Alex's work in the EIDs is so important. And that database, every time a ewe's been joined, who she's been joined
to, how she's raised those lambs. And we've got history and what's fascinating, which anyone that does that, we've got some five- year- old ewes that have had 16- year lambs naturally in their life, that's in an accelerated joining and you've got some ewe's that are only having four, five- year period. So fertility is number one. Structure is important as well. And then no different to any other sheep developed
in Australia. We're looking for length, width and depth. We're not constraining or looking for a moderate body size in the Dorper. We're looking for length, width and depth because even though there's a perception that they've been developed for that 20 to 22 kilogram carcass, the genetics are already in there for them to go bigger, and we're trying not to constrain the body that the animal's in because we think
the environment does that for you. Genetics are only part of it, so we're trying to go for length, width and depth to get you that good fast early growth. The meat sector want them to go out to 28 to 34 kilos carcass. There's a portion that's still very marketable at 18 to 20. So if the season's tough, they can come off. If the season extends, you can take them into that trade range but keep them growing out.
And so what we're aiming for is a 28 kilogram carcass at 28 weeks of age, and that's what the processes are telling us they want. They don't get fat in that age. They keep growing out. They've got terrific eye muscles, length and width and depth. By doing that, you end up with good eye muscles, you end up with depth down the leg, it'll go to a range of environments.
And then what happens is people in that environment, the sheep adapt to what that environment is. If they've got too short a growing season, they won't be growing those sheep out to a 28 kilogram carcass. They'll be growing it out to 18
to 22 kilos. If it's a tight year, they go at 16 to 18 kilos to a bag lamb if it's very tight or if you can get their 18 to 20, I guess what they've done, they've got rid of that store lamb part of the industry because of its nature, is you're selling into the processor
market the whole time. And depending on where you are and how your season's going, we're trying to keep the target market open by having that bigger animal.
You've allowed them to have the potential.
To do a mix of what their country does and what the season does, and then you try and line that up with the processor, rather than having a particular set market for it to go into. And a lot of blood and treasure can go into doing that. And the reason I know that is we're doing that with our cattle herd at the moment. We're tied up with the
Teys Grassland for our Herefords. You get the same rate or better than the grain fed Angus rate, but to get that you've got to grow them out to a 600 kilogram carcass. Some years we get them there in 20 months. Some year it takes 26 and the 26- month one, it's a lot of blood and treasure to get them there and your cost base has probably eaten up all that reward.
So I guess our sheep at the moment, our sheep program is so much better suited financially and even agronomically on the farm to where we live in the environment we're in at the moment. That's part of what we're doing with the sheep breed. We're trying to set it up so it suits the country we're on and you can keep your cost base low that you don't have to feed them. You can choose to grain feed them if you want
to, but you don't have to. If you want to opt out anywhere along the way, you can match your stock to the season.
And you've got both White Dorper and Dorper. Why is that? Can you explain that to someone who doesn't know a lot about Dorpers?
You see, so far we bought the stud because I went to buy bread and milk at Chamens and ran into Robin Sanderson. Well, it's even worse. The Black Dorpers were, we'd just finished scanning up the Dohne ewes, the first half of the dispersal to sell. Callum was working at Burrawang. We'd done
a very particularly short joining. We'd joined 1, 800 ewes for only four and a half weeks in the Dohnes, and so we thought we'd have about 15, 20% empties because you're lucky to only get 60% in on each cycle just doing the maths. The one thing I did remember from ag college. We had about 300 empties and they'd just been scanned, and Callum rang because he was at Burrawang and they're doing their embryo transfer program
and all their recipient ewes were pregnant, which happens. They're highly fertile. And so they were synchronizing their recipes for the program and he spoke to Mal Brady who was the manager at the time, and he said, " Oh look, dad's scanning at the moment. They might have enough empties."
And so we had 300 empties or whatever. Then he said, " Yes, can we have them?" He asked what money we wanted for them, and that was early 2020-21, must've been about the March, and sheep prices had been quite hot.
At the heart, you like to think they'll stay the same, but in reflection, they were very, very dear and he asked what we wanted for them and I said " Look, I don't really care about money, but if they've got spare embryos over in the program, if we can have some embryos." Because that was going to give us genetics that you don't normally
get. There's genetics that those studs at Burrawang now, it's got a very strong commercial focus being corporate owned. They won't release any of those genetics now because financially it's not in their interest and business is business. We've got a very good relationship with them and they're very good, but business is business. There was an incredible opportunity then. I offered them, I said rather than
money for the sheep, I'd prefer embryos. And so we ended up synchronizing those. It's a long answer to it. So what ended up happening, we wanted all white embryos because that's all we had. When they did the flush, I got a phone call about three weeks later from Mal said, " The flush hasn't gone as well as we wanted, so all
your embryos are going to be black or Dorpers." I went, " God Mal, what are we going to do with those?" And then he said, "Oh, I'll see what I can do. I'll see what I can do." And then we ended up, he rang back and said, " Look, we'll give you a 50/50." So we got half white embryos, half Dorper embryos, and then he said, " Mate, look, this thing's growing that quickly. I've seen it happen in the
western division. It's about to hit the central wheat belt. You're going to need them anyway." And he laughed, and so we ended up with those Dorpers. It sort of opened the door for us a bit and then they were coming up to selling it and they offered us a second lot of embryos and they were very dear, but it was the same thing and we couldn't afford them. But it's that you don't get those opportunities come along
and you've just got to grab them. What's that saying? The right farm never comes up for sale at the right time. And it's the same with that. Those opportunities never come up when you're ready for them. And so we bought another lot of embryos and they were half Dorper and half White, but he's a very good
businessman, Mal Brady, and he was thinking ahead. That meant we had those terrific Dorper reams for sale, which we had in last year's sale. They were as good as the lead of Burrawangs who have got extraordinarily as good as anybody's, but then we had none for the next sale. So we were looking at the place where we had those ewes
from that flush, which were what we were after. We had rams in last year's sale and then we're going to have nothing in this year's sale. So then I had to go and buy some Dorper ewes off him to flush, because otherwise we're going to have rams in last year's sale, rams in next year's sale, nothing in this year's sale. So he had me over a barrel then and so yeah, he fleeced me.
We were able to buy 15 and we were able to pick them out of their flock, 15 best ewes. And Wicus was there helping Callum and they did it together. The two of them were able to get 15 ewes from 15 different families. So it was terrific for us to create a base for our Dorper flock. We're no threat to anyone. We're still tiny. It'll be five or six years time before we've got enough numbers that we can show people
some really good rams. We're not at the stage where we can show them lines of really good Dorper rams. That's going to take work as it's taken every other major stud in Australia. But Barend is very passionate about Dorper sheep because that's what he grew up with. So it's going to be an important part of our program, our White Dorpers. We're very lucky, because Robin had such a good base
already, we've got really good White Dorper sheep. And I can say that because it's had nothing to do with me. It's been to do with Robin and Anne's base and then what Barend's been able to do and then Alex behind the scenes and Callum as well. Yeah, they put together a really good white base of sheep and we're hoping the next five or six years time, our Dorpers will be just as good. As I said,
it's that same thing. We were very lucky that the base of those sheep were better than I realized from Robin and Anne, and then we were able to get those breed leading genetics early. It was a once off opportunity and we grabbed it and it's worked. We've been very lucky. Now hopefully at some point we sell some rams and start to-
Yeah. So how many rams are you selling a year, at the moment?
We've been selling about 300, so it's gone up very quickly. We kicked off with 350 stud ewes initially, from Robin and Anne, but we've done six ET programs now, so we've had 700 ET lambs on the ground. We were able to buy with Matchless, which was one of the very good foundation, White Dorper studs. We were able to buy 150 of their stud ewes when they dispersed
last year. And then through natural progression, we're up now to 1, 200 ewes in the stud, and from that we cull about 50% still. Even though it was founded in 2005 because of that rate, we've still got classing rates are very high because we just can't be seen to be selling a
ram that's not quite there. So we're still culling. 50% of our rams go and then at the moment, we've just sold 130 rams this autumn and we sold 200 rams last spring, and so we'll probably try and stay around that for a couple of years while we consolidate. And then if the demand's there, we'll increase.
And still running your commercial flock as well.
It's been hard because we've increased our cattle numbers at the same time. Like everyone, we've been looking for this US herd rebuild, which I think it's obvious because it hasn't happened yet, it's not going to look like what we thought it was going to look like initially. It's going to be a slower burn, a slower move up,
it won't be a quick jump. And we've got 1, 500 commercial Dorper ewes as well, White Dorpers, and they're run the same as the stud in accelerated joining. They're split into two halves, so they lamb February the first, June the first and October the first. So we've got half the flock lambing every four months. The idea being that before those ewes lamb again, their previous lamb's already gone
And being a stud, your biosecurity is obviously on point. You're in here today to pick up some baits actually. So how are you managing that? That's one of the biggest threats.
We're very lucky, we've got good neighbors. When we changed from Merinos into Dorpers, classic Merino farm, we had a lot of those fences done in the 50s with the wooden posts, some that were done in the 70s where they split the wooden posts and put a steel post in. They were netting fences that the bottom had let go. They were fine for Merinos because they don't go through a fence.
When we changed to Dohnes, they put pressure on fences like as soon as you've got an open face on a sheep, whether it's a Dorset, a Border Leicester, a Dohne, they do that. So we'd done a lot of fencing as we'd transitioned into the Dohnes. The Dorpers, I think because they're a stronger animal, they're no more naughty than a Dohne, but they're stronger, so they were the same.
The only difference is we've gone from a plain wire as a salvage wire on the bottom of our hinge joint fences to putting a barb salvage wire, and most of that's to do is we have a lot of trouble with pigs. The pigs lift the fence and open the hole and then the Dorper tries to follow it. I don't know that we're any better off putting the bottom barb on it. I think the plain salvage wire is
just as good and our fences are good. Our neighbors were good and they helped us fencing. There was no problem, which is lucky because not everyone can always help you.
Yeah. And being a big Merino area, those meat sheep could be met with some contention.
They could, but they're terrific people. Well, the classic of Banar, all the families that my great- great- grandfather that settled at Banar, the Crouchs on our western boundary, who are the best sheep people in Condo, they were all related back there. When I rang them, they're tough phone calls. I rang when I changed to the Dohnes and they saw that as a hell of a change because it wasn't your traditional Merino. I rang them with the Dorpers and this is how the disruption that's happening
through here. When they were in partnership, they won eight Don Browns and I think since they split up, they've won another four. We're lucky to have them as neighbors. They're just fantastic sheep men. I rang them up and said, " Look, we're making a change. We're transitioning to Dorpers. If there's anything you want done, fence or whatever, we're happy to do it before they get here."
We had a six- month period before they came and I was talking to Barry who I respect greatly, and there was this silence, because Barry will tell you when he is not happy, and he's always polite and there was a silence. He said, " Oh, Hamish, we're going out of Merinos anyway. We're changing to cattle." And I nearly fell off my chair because there's no sign of that.
And then I rang the eastern neighbor, Yarnel, who Don Brown worked there, so it was out of respect for Don, that they kicked off the Don Brown flock ewe competition, and they're extraordinary Merino people as well. Because of the nature of our country, they've got a different type of sheep to Crouchs because Crouchs are on red country, they're on that heavy
black country. We're on that transition in the middle. Rang Wal, and he wished me all the best and he said they'd be interested in watching how it developed, and that's a type of people they are. They're passionate about their Merinos, but they're just fundamentally thoroughly decent people. And they've turned up to all our ram sales. We're lucky, we've got a
really good community. So I know that hasn't been the journey for everyone, but generally it comes down to it doesn't matter what it is, everyone's got an incredible amount of pressure on them. Change is always hard and you've just got to be respectful because it's important I don't impact their businesses. They've got good wool growing enterprises. I don't want our sheep disturbing their business and exactly the same, we've got a stud.
Brucellosis is rife through the entire sheep industry. Doesn't matter whether it's a Dorper, a Merino, a Dorset, and it improves fertility. I know how important fertility is in our cattle herd. It's the number one factor. No different in sheep and if you're a stud, yeah, it makes or breaks you, biosecurity. So it was in our interest for those fences to be exceptional, on our sheep not getting mixed with anyone else's either. We blood test every ram before we sell
it to make sure it's got a negative test. There's no point doing that if you've got porous boundaries. So we spend a lot of time on fences and we spend a lot of time on pest control. We don't allow pigs to transition through our farm. Pigs on our farm we don't think are our neighbors. If there's a pig on our farm, we treat it as it's our pig and it's our job to get rid of it, even though they do move through the landscape. So there's never going to be a solution to pigs. They're just something
we're continually managing. Don't think that'll ever be any different.
No, I think it's brilliant. I look forward to going to the next sale, actually. I'm going to-
No, it'll be great, Jas. What it is for us, it's a great chance to catch up with a lot of people. As I said, last year's sale, it was our second sale. It was in tough conditions. There'd been a couple of terrible sales of very good studs the week before. We'd gone from 60 to 100 rams because we feel we need to put up 100 rams so that everyone that comes, we want to go home with a ram. The price of the sale
is not important. We just want everyone that comes, goes home with one. We had a hundred people at our sale, 55 of them were neighbors and friends that had no interest of buying a ram, but it was just lovely to see dust coming up that driveway and they all stayed and they created this atmosphere that we were able to sell all the rams and we're just so grateful.
Give it a plug. When is your next sale?
September 11th. That's Wednesday. It starts at 10 o'clock, finishes at 12. I think we're muscle scanning in the middle of August and then we class a couple of days after that. The farm's always open, anyone that wants to come and see. Quite often it's daunting turning up on a sale day or whatever. A really good chance to
see the sheep and what we do, for anyone that's interested. Even if you're not interested in Dorpers, if you're in the wool, come along and have a look. They're going to be very important for the meat sheep industry going forward. Come along and have a look and you'll see what we throw out. It's hard work. It's only half the rams that make it to the sale. The other half
don't. To me, Barend and Callum are pulling out a lot of rams that I still think look fine, but they're further down that track than me. They're pulling out rams that they don't want to have a problem in two years time. That's the time often when you learn so much. If anyone wants to come on farm, we've got an open door. You can come anytime because we're always working sheep.
Thanks, Hamish. That was great.
Thanks, Jas.
Thanks for listening. This podcast was brought to you by Central West Local Land Services. Local Land Services delivers advice and support to farmers, landholders and the community across New
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