Neroli Brennan: This is Seeds for Success, a show where we have
Neroli Brennan: a good yarn about ag life with producers who are
Neroli Brennan: having a go. On the show, you'll hear from farmers
Neroli Brennan: in New South Wales who are out there battling the elements,
Neroli Brennan: making tough calls, and getting the job done. You'll get
Neroli Brennan: a laugh out of some of their stories and also
Neroli Brennan: pick up some know- how along the way. I'm your
Neroli Brennan: host Neroli Brennan. Today we're sitting down with Isabele and
Neroli Brennan: Pete Roberts. Isabele and Pete farm alongside their family at Cudal on Ridgehaven,
Neroli Brennan: running the Ridgehaven Poll Dorset Stud as their primary enterprise.
Neroli Brennan: In today's episode, the husband and wife duo talked to
Neroli Brennan: us about their complex business and its spread across three
Neroli Brennan: properties at Cudal and Forbes, as well as the importance of planning
Neroli Brennan: to ensure good communication across the business. Isabele and Pete
Neroli Brennan: also share with us the importance of breeding rams with
Neroli Brennan: good eating qualities without losing sight of their primary objective, fast-
Neroli Brennan: growing lambs that meet market specifications in around 16 weeks.
Neroli Brennan: Local Land Services mixed farming advisor Rohan Leach sat down
Neroli Brennan: with Pete and Isabele to bring you this part one
Neroli Brennan: of this two- part conversation.
Rohan Leach: G'day listeners. Today I'm with Isabele and Pete Roberts from
Rohan Leach: Ridgehaven Poll Dorsets at Cudal. Guys, welcome to the podcast.
Pete Roberts: Thanks for having us.
Rohan Leach: Can you start off by giving us a bit of
Rohan Leach: a rundown of Ridgehaven?
Isabele Roberts: We're a family- owned business located in the center west
Isabele Roberts: of New South Wales, just outside Cudal. So we're in a
Isabele Roberts: pretty good farming area. We feel very fortunate in terms
Isabele Roberts: of what we've got to work with. Our business runs
Isabele Roberts: across three properties. Ridgehaven, which is our main stud property
Isabele Roberts: where we primarily just produced stud stock, selling about 400
Isabele Roberts: rams each year right across New South Wales and into Queensland.
Isabele Roberts: The second property that we run, which is Mount Pleasant,
Isabele Roberts: is our commercial lamb production property. It's about 1, 700 acres.
Isabele Roberts: And alongside producing about 3, 000 crossbred lambs on that, we
Isabele Roberts: also run a Poll Dorset research program called Bowan Park.
Isabele Roberts: That's open to a number of different people to put
Isabele Roberts: their rams in, and basically we'd look at progeny trial work,
Isabele Roberts: collecting data on growth rates, and then we go all
Isabele Roberts: the way through to carcass quality with that. And the
Isabele Roberts: third farm is out about an hour away out near Forbes,
Isabele Roberts: where we run a Merino flock and do a bit
Isabele Roberts: of cropping, and my sister runs that one.
Rohan Leach: So who else is involved in the family business?
Pete Roberts: Isabele manages the stud sheep as well as being our CEO.
Pete Roberts: I'm the cropping manager. My brother- in- law, Floyd, he
Pete Roberts: fixes all the stuff I break. And my sister- in- law, Ruth,
Pete Roberts: manages our books and our Forbes properties.
Rohan Leach: There's a lot to take in there in terms of
Rohan Leach: different enterprises and balls in the air. How's that managed and
Rohan Leach: how does that go?
Isabele Roberts: From the outside, I think it does actually look quite complicated.
Isabele Roberts: In reality, we run simple systems inside a complex business.
Isabele Roberts: That might sound like an answer that I've practiced a bit,
Isabele Roberts: but I actually think it's the best way to describe
Isabele Roberts: what we do. Our absolute focus in what we do
Isabele Roberts: is producing genetics inside our rams for other people's businesses.
Isabele Roberts: So the responsibility that we hold from an input point
Isabele Roberts: of view out there into hundreds of businesses, we take
Isabele Roberts: that very seriously. So in order to make sure that
Isabele Roberts: the genetics that we produce can do the job, we
Isabele Roberts: run a research program, we produce our own lambs. And
Isabele Roberts: so the research program basically looks to see where the
Isabele Roberts: genetics are that we want to be either bringing in
Isabele Roberts: or verifying what we've currently got. And then our commercial
Isabele Roberts: program sends those lambs off to abattoirs and gets them
Isabele Roberts: tested and makes sure that actually what we think they can
Isabele Roberts: do actually are being produced. So there's this kind of
Isabele Roberts: integrated program that we run inside our livestock system. I
Isabele Roberts: might talk about sheep a lot because that's kind of
Isabele Roberts: my bag. The integration that we then have with the
Isabele Roberts: cropping program is that nutritionally animals also need what they
Isabele Roberts: need too. So we kind of integrate what's required for
Isabele Roberts: them from a pasture point of view and a fodder
Isabele Roberts: crop point of view as well. And I think with
Isabele Roberts: really great planning, and you can't possibly run this sort
Isabele Roberts: of system without really great planning, good communication, good on-
Isabele Roberts: farm measurement and predictive measurement on farm, you can in
Isabele Roberts: effect put together your program ahead of time and then
Isabele Roberts: when either things aren't quite going to plan, you step
Isabele Roberts: sideways and you find another way to get back on track,
Isabele Roberts: or you just change direction and you go somewhere else.
Isabele Roberts: But planning is very definitely the key. Having lots of
Isabele Roberts: communication is very definitely the key. But fundamentally I think
Isabele Roberts: the fact that all of us want to be able
Isabele Roberts: to achieve the same thing and have a common goal,
Isabele Roberts: and that's what makes it work.
Rohan Leach: That's a great answer. Yeah, well done. She's doing fist
Rohan Leach: pumps over here for the audience. I really like that,
Rohan Leach: that you're doing research and you're sort of ground- truthing
Rohan Leach: it here all at once. That's really cool to see.
Rohan Leach: I don't know who to direct this one to, but
Rohan Leach: maybe just an overall assessment of the properties that you're
Rohan Leach: running here at Ridgehaven, Bowan Park, and at Forbes. What are
Rohan Leach: you dealing with there? Hectares, soil types?
Pete Roberts: The eastern properties are all on red basalt with a 600
Pete Roberts: mil rainfall. It's choice. You wouldn't get much better growing conditions.
Pete Roberts: Winter we have a cold snap, we have a heat
Pete Roberts: snap in summer, but really we have a pretty extended.
Pete Roberts: So we usually, we will start sowing on the date 1st of
Pete Roberts: March every year, whether it's dry, whether it's wet. We're
Pete Roberts: generally half to three quarters way through our sowing program
Pete Roberts: by about the 10th of April. Everything we grow, bar lupins,
Pete Roberts: which go in at Forbes, is grazed. So we're double-
Pete Roberts: dipping in everything. So every season's different. Every outcome's different.
Pete Roberts: The drier seasons, the forage is worth more. In a
Pete Roberts: wetter season, the grain's worth something. So it's a complicated
Pete Roberts: system with lots of compromises through the year, but we generally
Pete Roberts: have three to four... Well, probably have three outcomes at
Pete Roberts: the start when we're sowing. We want to graze, we
Pete Roberts: want to take hay, or we want to go to grain.
Pete Roberts: But there are seasons that changes. So we generally run...
Pete Roberts: Forbes is Grawlin- type clay. It's a really difficult soil
Pete Roberts: type to work with. It's either too hard or it's
Pete Roberts: too wet. 70 per cent of it goes under water.
Pete Roberts: So the last few years have been difficult.
Isabele Roberts: It's been quite challenging on our Forbes property. It's called
Isabele Roberts: Muddy Water. We didn't name it that, but we certainly
Isabele Roberts: know why it's named that. Listeners are probably fairly aware
Isabele Roberts: that Forbes got flooded fairly significantly a couple of times
Isabele Roberts: in the last few years. And so we've learnt how
Isabele Roberts: to deal with water as well as drought.
Rohan Leach: Yes, I've always wondered at the name of that property,
Rohan Leach: driving past, and so good to know that you guys
Rohan Leach: have no idea who named it that as well.
Isabele Roberts: No, well actually, it used to be one paddock of the
Isabele Roberts: old Carrawobbity station, and so that paddock's name was the
Isabele Roberts: Muddy Water.
Rohan Leach: Because it was obviously very wet.
Isabele Roberts: I would suggest so.
Rohan Leach: And so maybe pastures, and yeah, maybe what pastures you're
Rohan Leach: running on farm, and maybe split that in between east
Rohan Leach: and west.
Pete Roberts: Yep. So eastern blocks, we have the luxury of running
Pete Roberts: permanent pastures, so phalaris, lucernes, chicories, a little bit of cocksfoot, a little
Pete Roberts: bit of fescue. We run rye grasses for production. We
Pete Roberts: still have native country, which is improved with sub- clovers.
Pete Roberts: In Forbes it's a little bit more difficult because we
Pete Roberts: don't have the grass component. So we have in our
Pete Roberts: flood country we run tropical grass, so Bambatsi, digit, which
Pete Roberts: gives us a really good bulk into the autumn. Quality
Pete Roberts: is very poor, but it gives us good bulk. And
Pete Roberts: then any of the non- flood country, lucernes, they go out there.
Rohan Leach: The temperate pastures, so your phalaris, cocksfoot, have you ever given them
Rohan Leach: a crack out west or it's sort of not suited
Rohan Leach: to the environment?
Pete Roberts: They work where water pools. So generally the summers are
Pete Roberts: too hot and dry for us. There is a few
Pete Roberts: cocksfoots you could grow, but nothing seems to eat them,
Pete Roberts: so we steer clear of them.
Rohan Leach: So what was the idea of buying the Forbes place?
Isabele Roberts: We've had it for a while. And we might've painted
Isabele Roberts: a negative picture. It's actually a pretty nice farm to have,
Isabele Roberts: it's just the last few years have been... Well, we
Isabele Roberts: went through the '17, '18, '19 drought and then we got flooded.
Isabele Roberts: And then we had one good year and then we
Isabele Roberts: got flooded again. So in recent memory, it's been less
Isabele Roberts: easy to manage, but it's actually a pretty nice farm.
Isabele Roberts: My dad and mum bought that just before my sister
Isabele Roberts: got married, so that was 20 years ago. So at
Isabele Roberts: that point, we just owned Ridgehaven. And they were looking
Isabele Roberts: to expand and make the business just a little bit
Isabele Roberts: larger anyway, so when Ruth was getting married they decided
Isabele Roberts: to make that move, and she's lived there, basically.
Rohan Leach: So just the right property or looking to diversify and
Rohan Leach: spread your risk?
Isabele Roberts: Yeah, so we sell quite a number of rams out around
Isabele Roberts: the Forbes, Condo, Tullamore, Grenfell, like in and around that area.
Isabele Roberts: So one of dad's criteria was effectively to buy a
Isabele Roberts: farm that we could use to sell rams from as well.
Isabele Roberts: And that's been really quite effective. It is just much more
Isabele Roberts: convenient for the western blokes to come there and pick
Isabele Roberts: up their rams rather than coming all the way to Cudal. So
Isabele Roberts: that was probably a business strategic decision. And in around
Isabele Roberts: Cudal was very tightly held. And so sometimes it's just
Isabele Roberts: the timing of what's available. But it's been a good
Isabele Roberts: addition to what we do.
Rohan Leach: Perhaps then the more recent acquisitions around Cudal, is that, again,
Rohan Leach: just about expansion or is there more a business decision
Rohan Leach: on that as well?
Pete Roberts: Oh, it's opportunity. Really, if we had the finances, I'd
Pete Roberts: buy the district. There's nowhere else I want to be.
Rohan Leach: That actually reminds me of something you told me years ago,
Rohan Leach: and that was you could make the land purchases around
Rohan Leach: here really stack up with your ram enterprise, and that
Rohan Leach: probably your other enterprises weren't quite able to make this $ 6- 7,
Rohan Leach: 000 a acre country, or more, work in terms of
Rohan Leach: getting a financial return. So can you explain that a
Rohan Leach: bit more for me, and why can't you just devote
Rohan Leach: all your land area to the stud and take over
Rohan Leach: the world?
Pete Roberts: Well, that's option number one. So for us, look, we run
Pete Roberts: a pretty good show, but our business is in animals,
Pete Roberts: and we've probably learned how to make money out of
Pete Roberts: prime lambs in this area, because you've got to be
Pete Roberts: proactive and you've got to make decisions and you've got
Pete Roberts: to push the system in this eastern country to justify
Pete Roberts: the land acquisition. The stud stuff, it's a hot premium product,
Pete Roberts: so it suits this environment. But it's the prime lamb
Pete Roberts: business is actually is where our growth is, but we're
Pete Roberts: on the money and we have to be on the
Pete Roberts: money to justify it, to even look at buying more
Pete Roberts: country around this area. From a farming point of view,
Pete Roberts: it's not in our interest to be straight farmers here.
Isabele Roberts: As in just growing grain. So there's your comment in and
Isabele Roberts: around expanding just the stud business, you have to have
Isabele Roberts: clients to buy more rams. So if we were to
Isabele Roberts: produce 2, 000 rams, it doesn't mean we could sell 2,
Isabele Roberts: 000 rams. And so from a business expansion or putting
Isabele Roberts: a little bit more scale into what we do, having
Isabele Roberts: one part of our business that's a commodity, and a
Isabele Roberts: high quality commodity of lamb, but it is a commodity product,
Isabele Roberts: which means that you can put 400 lambs on a
Isabele Roberts: truck whenever you want and your business just ticks along.
Isabele Roberts: There's a level of making sure that inside the business that
Isabele Roberts: you spread that risk as well. And so yes, it'd
Isabele Roberts: be great if we could produce and sell 2, 000 rams.
Isabele Roberts: As long as they were of good quality, I'm very
Isabele Roberts: happy to go there. But at this time, and I
Isabele Roberts: think from certainly a control of the output of what
Isabele Roberts: we produce, scaling the lamb production side of our business,
Isabele Roberts: and doing that well, we can do that and we
Isabele Roberts: can afford the country around here, I think simply because
Isabele Roberts: we've got a system that works.
Rohan Leach: It's something I did notice just driving in. Obviously, the sheep
Rohan Leach: poo sales for $ 3 a bag out the front, that's
Rohan Leach: probably helping a bit with the business as well. Who's the enterprising...
Isabele Roberts: She's about four and two and not even one. So
Isabele Roberts: my niece and two nephews, Floyd's little kids, are doing
Isabele Roberts: that. So a bit of pocket money for them. I don't think it's going to underpin the business,
Isabele Roberts: but sure, why not?
Pete Roberts: I don't know, they're doing better than me. Our kids did it 10
Pete Roberts: years ago and I bought every single bag almost without
Pete Roberts: them knowing, whereas my niece and nephew have actually taken
Pete Roberts: it onto Facebook and they actually sell it outside the business,
Pete Roberts: which is lovely.
Isabele Roberts: And actually if you look at it as a business model,
Isabele Roberts: it works quite well because the input costs are zero.
Isabele Roberts: You've got to put a little bit of labor in
Isabele Roberts: the digging, but the bag that it goes into is
Isabele Roberts: literally a waste product from a different part of our business.
Isabele Roberts: The poo, which is naturally produced and ever- growing underneath
Isabele Roberts: the shearing shed, it's not going to run out.
Rohan Leach: Well, I reckon if you put a Ridgehaven stamp on it, you could charge a premium,
Rohan Leach: get that up to maybe 15 bucks a bag.
Pete Roberts: Three bucks is pretty (inaudible) .
Isabele Roberts: Not sure if it's high quality poo or not. I've
Isabele Roberts: not looked into the research on that.
Rohan Leach: Well, that's probably a great segue into the Ridgehaven Poll Dorsets. So
Rohan Leach: can you tell me a bit more about that operation?
Isabele Roberts: Yeah, so you've probably caught us in a good year actually.
Isabele Roberts: This is our 60th anniversary of producing rams. So 60 years ago,
Isabele Roberts: my dad, he worked with his family, mainly on a
Isabele Roberts: Merino operation, but some of the older ewes went to
Isabele Roberts: a terminal. And he went hunting around looking for rams
Isabele Roberts: and he just couldn't find what he wanted. And so, Dad
Isabele Roberts: being Dad, he always just liked to do the best
Isabele Roberts: he possibly could, and so he decided he'd breed his own.
Isabele Roberts: And so 60 years ago he founded Ridgehaven Poll Dorsets, and we've
Isabele Roberts: been producing rams ever since. And I think the goal
Isabele Roberts: that Dad had right from the very beginning, which was
Isabele Roberts: genetics that can produce a really good quality lamb, one
Isabele Roberts: that can put profitability into your business, that just does the
Isabele Roberts: job for you, I think we've just had a follow-
Isabele Roberts: through the whole time on that.
Rohan Leach: So things have probably changed a bit over the 60 years,
Rohan Leach: so what does Ridgehaven look like now?
Isabele Roberts: Oh, there's a few more sheep running around. And we're
Isabele Roberts: also in a totally different state. It was started down
Isabele Roberts: in Bairnsdale in Victoria. So in 1993, again, Dad being Dad,
Isabele Roberts: wanted his business to be bigger than it was and
Isabele Roberts: he had this really big vision of what it could
Isabele Roberts: look like. So we moved the whole stud, holus- bolus,
Isabele Roberts: the whole family, truckloads of gear up to Cudal. So that was a
Isabele Roberts: massive change, but the reasoning for that was that this
Isabele Roberts: is a really great lamb production area, and so from
Isabele Roberts: a business point of view, there was excellent opportunity. We
Isabele Roberts: now run around about a thousand stud ewes. And those
Isabele Roberts: are bred from a few different lines of genetics, but
Isabele Roberts: the key outcome for us is that we are looking for them
Isabele Roberts: to be carrying those genetic traits that are really significant
Isabele Roberts: in the commercial attributes. So we want lambs that have
Isabele Roberts: really great lamb survival. So ease of lambing is really
Isabele Roberts: critical for us. Any ewe that doesn't have its lamb
Isabele Roberts: all by itself, she's no longer part of the stud.
Isabele Roberts: And so we lamb down, as I said, a thousand
Isabele Roberts: mature ewes and a couple of hundred maidens each year,
Isabele Roberts: and we might assist one or two, and it's usually
Isabele Roberts: twins coming at once. Like it's just not a thing anymore.
Rohan Leach: And it's something that you're probably driving past and notice
Rohan Leach: you don't have a set, " We need to check the lambing paddocks
Rohan Leach: at 9, 10, 11." Yeah.
Isabele Roberts: Oh gosh, no. No, no, no. We check the lambing paddocks
Isabele Roberts: to make sure that everything gets tagged and birth weighed
Isabele Roberts: and all of those maternal checks that we do on
Isabele Roberts: the day that they're born, making sure that the lambs
Isabele Roberts: are with their mothers. And that's literally it. It's not
Isabele Roberts: a check for any sort of lambing issues at all.
Isabele Roberts: So that's fundamental to us. Most importantly though, we're looking
Isabele Roberts: for ones that grow incredibly fast. That's the purpose of
Isabele Roberts: a terminal sire. And certainly when you're putting those genetics
Isabele Roberts: into any sort of lamb system, your lamb growing fast
Isabele Roberts: is what drives your productivity and profitability. And more recently,
Isabele Roberts: what we've started looking at is actually looking at the
Isabele Roberts: quality of the carcass at the other end. So that's yield,
Isabele Roberts: but it's also the eating quality side of things too.
Isabele Roberts: Which we know is never going to be the most
Isabele Roberts: important driver of profitability for lamb production, but it certainly
Isabele Roberts: is one of those things that will underpin the demand
Isabele Roberts: of Australian lamb. And there is a growing percentage of
Isabele Roberts: lambs that are now being sold out under measured environments
Isabele Roberts: that will also go into branded products. And so we
Isabele Roberts: basically want our genetics to be able to sit inside
Isabele Roberts: that space. If any of our lamb clients want to produce
Isabele Roberts: their lambs for that, we want them to be able
Isabele Roberts: to do that. So yeah, I suppose it's slightly different
Isabele Roberts: to what Dad was looking at 60 years ago, but
Isabele Roberts: I think probably technologies and efficiencies and measurements on farm
Isabele Roberts: have enabled us to do that now too.
Rohan Leach: So you've touched on the goals of the stud and
Rohan Leach: eating quality and all those sorts of things. Is growth
Rohan Leach: and just fast- growing lambs really what you're chasing?
Isabele Roberts: The answer is yes. The biggest percentage of lamb to
Isabele Roberts: be sold will always be sold under commodity conditions. That's
Isabele Roberts: just at the end of the day, kilos of lamb
Isabele Roberts: on the hook is what will drive a lamb producer,
Isabele Roberts: a meat processor, distribution from that point forward. That is
Isabele Roberts: what will be driven from that. So you have to
Isabele Roberts: have really good growth in your lambs to enable all
Isabele Roberts: of those people to actually be able to achieve what
Isabele Roberts: they want. But if you don't have good eating quality,
Isabele Roberts: then the potential risk is that the consumer at the other
Isabele Roberts: end may not enjoy their lamb as well as what
Isabele Roberts: they should. And so there is a potential risk then
Isabele Roberts: you might erode your consumer base if you don't look
Isabele Roberts: after that. So it's just one of those foundational things
Isabele Roberts: that if you look after it well, you can kind
Isabele Roberts: of push everything else as much as you want.
Rohan Leach: You can kind of get hung up in the efficiency
Rohan Leach: and growing quick and big and high yielding, but you
Rohan Leach: sort of look at it, lamb is still... It's a
Rohan Leach: luxury product almost. And if you want to be paying
Rohan Leach: for those premiums and get those premiums that you can
Rohan Leach: see in the butchers and supermarkets, then I guess it
Rohan Leach: all comes back to eating quality. You don't want to
Rohan Leach: cut your nose off to spite your face.
Isabele Roberts: No you don't. The MLA's done such a great job, particularly,
Isabele Roberts: I'm thinking about export markets more than domestic. But the
Isabele Roberts: MLA's done such a great job of promoting Australian lamb
Isabele Roberts: that all Australian lamb is good. And so we as
Isabele Roberts: genetics developers and lamb producers just need to make sure
Isabele Roberts: that we can uphold that promise.
Rohan Leach: Looking operationally, this has been a bit of a more
Rohan Leach: recent question that I've been throwing at people, but just
Rohan Leach: a calendar of operations. Where are you sort of joining, lambing,
Rohan Leach: those sorts of things?
Isabele Roberts: I don't know if Pete's going to get an answer here.
Isabele Roberts: So we've got a pretty strict calendar of operations. I
Isabele Roberts: can pretty well tell you what we're doing every week
Isabele Roberts: of the year, sometimes every day over the year. Getting
Isabele Roberts: back to that planning. It doesn't work without planning. If
Isabele Roberts: anyone was going to ask what's the most important thing
Isabele Roberts: about farming, and probably running any business, but planning is
Isabele Roberts: absolute key. Particularly when we're talking about livestock production, because
Isabele Roberts: your joining date influences absolutely everything else. So if you
Isabele Roberts: don't get your planning in terms of when you're going
Isabele Roberts: to join, when you're going to lamb, how are you
Isabele Roberts: going to market them, nothing works. So planning is key.
Isabele Roberts: So operationally, we have a pretty good calendar that is
Isabele Roberts: considered every year before anything really gets put into play.
Isabele Roberts: Everybody's aware of what that is. We have a pretty
Isabele Roberts: good operational flow in terms of weekly meetings with everyone,
Isabele Roberts: including all of our staff, monthly from the decision makers
Isabele Roberts: inside the business, and quarterly, again, looking at just business strategy,
Isabele Roberts: and then an annual planning that reflects back on what
Isabele Roberts: we've previously done before. And then potential changes that we
Isabele Roberts: might use from that or potential changes because we think
Isabele Roberts: that there might be change in direction in the business. So, yep,
Isabele Roberts: that just sounds like a whole lot of meetings, but it
Isabele Roberts: just means that everybody's on the same page and it's
Isabele Roberts: pretty easy on a day- to- day point of view
Isabele Roberts: to get things achieved.
Rohan Leach: And specifically about lambing, joining, those things?
Isabele Roberts: Ridgehaven stud lambing, we have two main lambings. One which is
Isabele Roberts: an April- May. We rerun in April- May because our
Isabele Roberts: early lambs are the ones that we potentially will start
Isabele Roberts: selling out as young ram lambs. So nine to 10
Isabele Roberts: months old come February, March the following year. And then
Isabele Roberts: our main lambing happens in the spring, which is August
Isabele Roberts: and September. And that really just fits in where the
Isabele Roberts: feed availability and the natural cycles of ewes are. Just
Isabele Roberts: keep this in mind when I tell you the other
Isabele Roberts: lambings as well. That's (inaudible) April and August is
Isabele Roberts: at Ridgehaven. Over at Mount Pleasant, which is the commercial
Isabele Roberts: and the research program, we have an early lambing for
Isabele Roberts: the commercial, which is in a March lamb. Prime purpose for
Isabele Roberts: that is that we are looking to get our suckers
Isabele Roberts: off at the end of June and July. So a
Isabele Roberts: big portion of those lambs, there's a significant push to
Isabele Roberts: make sure that they're ready to go at that point. One,
Isabele Roberts: because the next little lambs are coming and going to
Isabele Roberts: hit the ground. But we lamb then because we want
Isabele Roberts: to hit those high prices that are generally there for
Isabele Roberts: end of June, July, start of August. So if we
Isabele Roberts: can get the first of the suckers in, we can
Isabele Roberts: get the best prices. They hit the ground, they grow,
Isabele Roberts: they're out, they're gone. That's critical.
Rohan Leach: So a question there, you can be outside primarily of
Rohan Leach: your main pasture growing season, how are you supplementing them there?
Isabele Roberts: Yeah. And that's the core problem. And I'll throw you
Isabele Roberts: up Pete, because he's actually charged with the responsibility for
Isabele Roberts: making sure there's feed on farm.
Pete Roberts: Yeah. So this is always the compromised position of running
Pete Roberts: a cropping program when meat is your output over grain.
Pete Roberts: So post pre- test. So we pre- test everything. It
Pete Roberts: gives us accurate numbers on how many lambs we would
Pete Roberts: expect for different periods. So the cropping rotation is manipulated
Pete Roberts: post that date. So for this year, we've got quite
Pete Roberts: a small autumn lambing in our stud sheet just on pre-
Pete Roberts: testing results. So we've manipulated our cropping rotation to favor
Pete Roberts: our spring. So more spring forage production. So less grain production,
Pete Roberts: more forage production to accommodate that extra DSE.
Rohan Leach: That's probably a great teaser for what we're going to
Rohan Leach: talk about later in the podcast, but let's get back
Rohan Leach: to the calendar of operations there.
Isabele Roberts: On the flip side of that, our cross- bred ewes,
Isabele Roberts: I have quite a few more lambs on board on
Isabele Roberts: the ewes than I had planned. And so there were
Isabele Roberts: a few crop adjustments that needed to get made to
Isabele Roberts: make sure that we've got feed for them. So this
Isabele Roberts: is where I say we integrate our decision- making. So
Isabele Roberts: one will impact the other, but the whole overall business
Isabele Roberts: works because we've got a bit of flexibility in it.
Isabele Roberts: So that's the March lambing. And then May lambing is
Isabele Roberts: our research lambs, and that's an AI program. So we
Isabele Roberts: can have 300 lambs in five days that all need
Isabele Roberts: to be birth weighed, DNA sampled, tagged, loved and adored
Isabele Roberts: because every single one of those lambs is critically important
Isabele Roberts: to be able to get data from. So that's May.
Isabele Roberts: And then we have a little break then at the start of June.
Rohan Leach: A few days at the start of June, sure.
Isabele Roberts: Just a few days at start of June. Probably to get a few lambs
Isabele Roberts: marked and whatnot. And then so end of June, July
Isabele Roberts: is our main lambing for the commercial lambs. So we'll
Isabele Roberts: lamb down about 2, 500 lambs in six weeks there.
Isabele Roberts: Super important, as Pete said, the preg testing is critically
Isabele Roberts: important to us. We do earlys and lates and multiples and all
Isabele Roberts: of that. And so, lambing paddocks can get allocated well
Isabele Roberts: ahead of time. And so the grazing rotations can be
Isabele Roberts: set well ahead of time. We know where our feed
Isabele Roberts: gaps are likely to be, based on the nutritional requirements
Isabele Roberts: of the animals at that point. And then August is
Isabele Roberts: back at Ridgehaven. And Forbes I haven't spoken about much
Isabele Roberts: because I don't actually... I'm not much involved in the
Isabele Roberts: operational side of that. But Ruth has one lambing, which
Isabele Roberts: is a end of May, June, start of July. And
Isabele Roberts: about 70% of her Merinos are joined back to Merino
Isabele Roberts: ram and 30% are joined to a Dorset just for
Isabele Roberts: terminal lambs.
Rohan Leach: Ruth with one lambing sounds like the sensible part of
Rohan Leach: the business minder.
Isabele Roberts: She comes over and helps me. It's okay.
Rohan Leach: And so where do you source your genetics from for your Merino enterprise?
Isabele Roberts: From Roseville Park. So if we go way back, this
Isabele Roberts: is like a historical thing of our family. My grandfather,
Isabele Roberts: he really pulled the core of our Merino operation together.
Isabele Roberts: He did have some Merryville blood way back then, but
Isabele Roberts: I think in the last 80... I think Ruth and
Isabele Roberts: I were looking at the other day, it's about 85
Isabele Roberts: years we've only sourced rams from one place other than
Isabele Roberts: Roseville Park once. And so, look, hats off to Matthew Coddington.
Isabele Roberts: He does a great job with his Merino operation, and
Isabele Roberts: Ruth sources the rams that she wants when she needs them.
Isabele Roberts: And we have some excellent quality wool because of the
Isabele Roberts: genetics that going into it and the work that gets done. So I won't
Isabele Roberts: speak very much to that because they're really not my bag,
Isabele Roberts: but Ruth does a great job and Floyd does a
Isabele Roberts: great job with the wool too.
Rohan Leach: Before we all need to take a big deep breath
Rohan Leach: after that busy calendar of operations, I'd love your thoughts
Rohan Leach: on where you see shedding sheep fitting in the industry,
Rohan Leach: and whether they're a competition for you guys, and just
Rohan Leach: the whole aspect of people with maybe composite sheep that
Rohan Leach: were needing shearing and now it just seems that there's
Rohan Leach: more and more types of shedding sheep coming out that
Rohan Leach: don't require shearing.
Isabele Roberts: So I'll start this by giving you a little example.
Isabele Roberts: I got sent a photo from a friend the other
Isabele Roberts: day of the back of his ute and he had
Isabele Roberts: shedding rams in it. And he said, " Look what I've done.
Isabele Roberts: What do you reckon?" And my response to him... I had
Isabele Roberts: two responses to him. I said, " One, I hope the
Isabele Roberts: wool price doesn't go up for you. And two, I
Isabele Roberts: hope they grow as fast as the ones that have
Isabele Roberts: got wool." Because he's a lamb producer. He's always been
Isabele Roberts: a lamb producer. And so fundamentally, he's removed one element
Isabele Roberts: of his income, and that's fine because he's also removed
Isabele Roberts: hopefully an element of his expenses. And if we balance
Isabele Roberts: the two of those out, at least he's come to
Isabele Roberts: a zero point. But if they don't grow as fast
Isabele Roberts: and therefore he can't stock his farm as well or
Isabele Roberts: he can't drive his cash flow in the way that
Isabele Roberts: he used to be able to, then there's that potential risk.
Isabele Roberts: So that's me responding in a way of, " I hope
Isabele Roberts: you've done the right thing." I think from an industry
Isabele Roberts: point of view though, why not? If they grow as
Isabele Roberts: fast and if you can't actually get that income, and
Isabele Roberts: if you can minimize your management of your stock, then
Isabele Roberts: a shedding sheep probably makes a whole lot of sense.
Isabele Roberts: But there's a great big what if in a scenario
Isabele Roberts: that is new, and a lot of these breeds are
Isabele Roberts: developing still, and so we haven't kind of figured out
Isabele Roberts: exactly what they can and can't do. So I'm not saying
Isabele Roberts: it's risky, I'm just saying that there's a bit more
Isabele Roberts: of an unknown sitting inside of that. Saying that, we're
Isabele Roberts: not going to go into shedding sheep. We really quite
Isabele Roberts: like the ones that we've got, and I don't mind
Isabele Roberts: the shearers and our shearers come when we need them to,
Isabele Roberts: and we get pretty good money for our wool. And so
Isabele Roberts: we're happy.
Pete Roberts: There's only one silver bullet. It's not a shedding sheep,
Pete Roberts: it's not a fine wool Merino, it's not a Dorset,
Pete Roberts: there's nothing you can buy that's a silver bullet. The
Pete Roberts: silver bullet is management, and it's your ability to produce
Pete Roberts: a product that you can sell at a premium and
Pete Roberts: be cost- effective in this production. So if you want
Pete Roberts: to go into shedding sheep, you've got to do it
Pete Roberts: well to make money. If you want to go into
Pete Roberts: prime lamb production, you've got to do it well to
Pete Roberts: make money. Silver bullet is management. It's not an easy
Pete Roberts: one because not everyone's a good manager.
Rohan Leach: Which is our truth sometimes. Yeah.
Pete Roberts: Yeah. But the reality is the silver bullet is in
Pete Roberts: your management style. So if you think you can make
Pete Roberts: money out of a shedding sheep because you've never made
Pete Roberts: money out of wool, you're probably not going to make
Pete Roberts: money out of a shedding sheep.
Rohan Leach: That's probably a really good message to end on for
Rohan Leach: today's session. So Pete and Isabele, thanks so much for coming on
Rohan Leach: the podcast.
Isabele Roberts: Absolute pleasure.
Pete Roberts: Thanks.
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