Registered Breeders of Australian White Sheep
Adapting to a changing environment securing food production for the future
Registered Breeders of Australian White Sheep
Adapting to a changing environment securing food production for the future
About Us - AWSBA flock number 0236
Our Commercial Flock
We run about 100 breeding ewes joined to AWSBA stud and flock rams. Each year we assess and score our ewes on desirable traits from the AWSBA breed standards and keep the highest scored animals for our breeding flock. The remainder are culled and sold as prime lamb and hogget. Ewes are culled on production traits not age and some of our girls raised twins at 9 years of age. They have time to recover before joining or leave the property to become mutton. Each lambing increases the proportion of stud ewes in our flock.
Our Stud Flock
Having improved our original commercial flock with Bungarley genetics, we purchased 6 SIL stud ewes and 2 stud rams from AWSBA Stud Breeders to form our foundation flock. We bought 4 registered stud ewes from Kalnari AW stud. We now have genetics from Tattykeel, Baringa, Highveld, Amaroo, Camden Valley and Kalnari Australian White Studs.
Our stud flock is growing with careful selection of animals we join. We have some very quiet, fast growing, easy care animals which don't need shearing, have few feet problems, no lice, no fly strike, gain weight quickly all while working to maintain the native pastures. Our ewes rarley require assistance when lambing and the flock are all great mothers and band together to protect the young.
We produce AWSBA blue tagged flock rams and sell by arrangement. We are happy to share our experience and knowledge of this breed and the many benefits we have discovered.
Protein from Sunshine
Here is drought season lamb ready for marking. We score the lamb ewes as described above and grow on the best 30 to assess for the next joining, when they will be over 50 kg. The remainder are sold as prime lamb and hogget.
Turning back the clock for Resilience
A large focus on operations at Wilrey Farm is to conserve the existing native ecosystem and rehabilitate sensitive areas such as creeks and remnant woodland areas. Collecting seed and propagating local tree genetics has been done since 2015 with over 1000 trees being planted by 2023. All trees on the land are managed for ecosystem and stock shelter. Areas have been fenced off such as dams and creeks to provide relief from grazing pressure and during wet years natural tree germination has been abundant. Monocultures provide habitat for certain pests which lack natural predators, we encourage and provide habitat for the greatest biodiversity to encourage natural predators to do the bulk of control and we do the remainder with sensitivity.
Ecosystem enhancement for climate resilience
- Beekeeping - We keep 5 european bee hives across the property to provide pollination services. Clovers, native trees and plants, fruit trees and vegetables need pollinating where native agents are in low numbers or not present. Apart from providing 60kg of woodland honey last season the trees have more fruit and seeds to regenerate.
- We keep approx 50 laying hens which supply eggs to a small market. They are housed in pens overnight and range freely during the day to suppliment their diet with fresh grass and the odd insect. They keep insect pests down around the depot and fertilise the pasture in the process. They pay for themselves through egg sales.
Our Partners
