George Falkiner, principal

COVID-19 has required primary producers to do what they do best; respond quickly to changing conditions. At HR, this has ranged from managing socially-distanced shearing and crutching contractors, to rebuilding veggie patches and dragging out the softball kit with the team after a trying Summer period, all while we transition from drought feeding to navigating floodwater! Despite the challenges, I am confident the industry is well-placed to adapt and continue feeding and clothing Australia and beyond. We are committed as ever to delivering value to our clients - come virus or high water!

On a brighter note, with breeding ewes making between $300 and $400 SIL and finished lamb making $9+/kg, there is a strong future ahead. The good news is, people always have to eat! The wool market is having its ups and downs, however, with the Chinese factories beginning to open and Italy slowly recovering, hopefully the wool price will regain its recent losses. As social restrictions are eased - people will be out and about and updating their wardrobes. So, don’t lose faith in merino livestock.

We are concentrating on producing quality, profitable poll merino and merinos and already planning for next year’s joining, AI and ET programs, as well as rolling out tractors to plant the winter crop following fantastic and much-appreciated Autumn rain.

Due to the current travel restrictions, we will be doing a lot more of our marketing online. If you would like to stay abreast of HR news, industry best practice and client updates, please make sure the team at HR has your contact details (email: admin@haddon-rig.com.au).

Best wishes for a safe and prosperous 2020.

GBSF

Andy Maclean, stud manager

It's been a busy start to the year for the team at HR; starting with drought-feeding, shearing and joining ewes through the worst Summer we've experienced at Haddon Rig. Despite this, we managed to achieve excellent conception rates. We joined 10,000 Merino ewes (including young ewes) in confinement to 2.5% sires with 2.5-3 fat score in November, and they scanned at 95% in March. Fast-forward to April and we've had over 400 mls of rain and are now looking into the best start to Autumn in memory.

It’s great to see the magnificent sheep and lamb prices we are currently experiencing, a deserved reward to any breeders who have persevered with their flocks through an extremely tough few years. We have joined all of our 2019 drop ewe lambs (weighing greater than 45 kgs). These 2,000 young Merino ewes were joined for 2 cycles (35 days) and left for 5 weeks and will be scanned mid-May to commence lambing 26th July. In the rebuild phase after the drought, we anticipate there will be a lot of double joinings and out-of-season lambing to bolster breeders’ flocks. We will continue updating the status in our HR+Update, but for further information please feel free to get in contact.

We’ve completed general crutching and have just under 10,000 Merino ewes ready to start lambing in mid-May . The ewes are fat, healthy and enjoying green pastures. Our 2020 Auction and Sale Rams are looking excellent; they are extremely well-grown and will present well for private and on-property sales later this year. SGA samples have been submitted and will be made available on our website in coming months.

We are still heavily investing in our HR Merinos; their quality and figures are improving all the time. We are also heavily investing in our newer Poll Merino Stud – purchasing ewes and conducting large AI/ET program. In 2020 we joined just under 2,000 Poll Merino ewes and are seeing strong results when joined with our key sire investments. Our main focus for the Poll Merinos is early maturity and growth, fertility and wool quality to take advantage of present buoyant meat markets. 

We hope everyone is staying safe through this difficult time. Although many things are tough, we’ve  been enjoying having the kids home – especially providing a few extra hands for crutching! Looking forward, we expect strong results with our lambing before classing and our ram sales later this year. We also plan to be at Dubbo Show and Sale and South West Slopes Merino Field Days through August and September. Please contact me for further information or to arrange an inspection in the meantime.

stuart murdoch, stud classer

The Haddon Rig draft of shedded, auction and paddock sale rams this year look excellent. The Shedded team (both polls and horns) are extremely well grown and even in type with HR’s repeatable and industry sought-after wool quality. Their body weight averages are 9kgs heavier than at the same time last year. This is a tremendous testament to the new management techniques implemented on-farm and the hard work put in by Andy, George and the team to overcome some of the toughest years that we and the majority of our clients have ever seen.

We are strongly committed to our HR Poll Stud and will focus on continuously improving our genetic depth and to pass on to our clients. We have demonstrated this through our repeated purchases of quality sires and semen predominantly from Poll Boonoke as well as last year’s purchase of 338 stud ewes from Moorundie Poll Merino Stud SA (right in the thick of the drought). We did not take our foot off the pedal and continued our artificial insemination program; joining the majority of our Special and Stud Poll ewes plus another exciting Embryo Transfer programme for our elites.

The HR team puts client profitability at the forefront of everything we do. Our present focus is to continue our legacy of easy care, easy in lamb, easy managed, superior wool merinos and to strongly concentrate on early maturing merinos. We want our clients to increase profits with their Merinos and capitalise on the strengthening lamb market. We are positioning our Poll stud to the lead the way.

Following the drought and with encouraging rain, some of our clients are looking to rebuild their flock numbers. Most self-replacing flocks are focusing on breeding their way back rather than purchasing in. HR has a strong history of high lambing percentages with records dating back 40 years.  This already puts our clients on top of the pack as well as any re- stocker who is lucky enough to purchase HR genetics.

We look forward to welcoming you at the annual HR On-Property (and online) Sale on Thursday September 10. Private inspections can be arranged any time - please contact me (email: stuartmurdoch2@bigpond.com tel: 0427 437 103), your stud representative or Andy Maclean (email: andy@haddon-rig.com.au tel: 0429 662 226).

ROB LATHAM, FARMING MANAGER

Receiving 370mm of rain has meant we are planting into moisture, a big difference from planting in drought over the past few years! We are hoping to get all of the dryland area planted this year; we started planting oats and canola for feed on the 10th of April, and have just finished planting the cash crop canola and started planting wheat in the past few days. We will then move onto planting lupins, barley and chickpeas.

Grain prices are currently holding well but we would expect the price  to drop once harvest gets closer. The purchase of the weed seeker a few years ago has proven to be a great investment during the drought and has cut our herbicide use by around 60%.

After a hot and dry summer the cotton has held on fairly well and we expect to pick 12-12.5 bales average when we start in the next few days. Unfortunately the cotton price has dropped which is pretty hard to take after so many bad years. With the recent rainfall we have been able to harvest water off our irrigation fields which has given us a great start towards the summer 20/21 cotton program. Hopefully Burrendong Dam fills over winter and we can get a full allocation.

The last of the forage is due to be baled at the new Forbes property next week which will be a total of just under 1000 produced since it was purchased in 2019.  We will be planting wheat and canola there this winter which we are hoping to make a start in the next week or two. We have been lucky there and managed to get under a few storms which gave a total of 310mm since the start of the year.

Overall we are looking to take advantage of the recent rainfall and get our winter crops planted in, balancing our sowing program for a mixture of cash and feedcrops to support the stud.