A strong faith in Merino mothers, access to the stubbles of neighbours and consistent processing feedback from WAMMCO, were ingredients that contributed to the July Producer of the Month title win for Mt.Barker/South Stirling producers Warrick and Lynda Cooper.
The Coopers consigned a line of 629 Merino/ White Suffolk and Poll Dorset cross lambs to Katanning for processing on July 24, that averaged $95.12 per head (including a $5.79 skin), to win the prestigious WAMMCO title for the month.
The lambs weighed an average of 24.2 kg and realised $3.69 over the scales on WAMMCO’s daily schedule. Just over 54 percent of the line were in the 22.1 – 26 kg, fat score 2-3 premium class.
Warrick is a committed woolgrower as well as a successful prime lamb producer and says he will retain the current wool/lamb ratio while wool prices maintain current levels or above.
He mates up to half of his Merino ewes to White Suffolk and Poll Dorset rams to produce the annual prime lamb turnoff, and also follows up the Merino ram mating with these rams to produce extra, later-drop crossbred lambs.
“We had a bigger carryover of crossbreds in a tight season last year and they fared reasonably well with the patchy season this year. We do not feedlot our lambs but run them on our own barley stubbles with some supplementary feeding, and are fortunate to have access to the stubbles of cropping-only neighbours.”
Warrick said he had not used WAMMCO contracts, preferring to sell over the scales on the daily schedule. Last year was an exception when lighter lambs as the result of the tight season were sold for the local market.
“I like the WAMMCO system because the feedback enables me to see accurately how my lambs are going, and how I can improve my returns.
“The seminars and field days are also valuable and demonstrate how far the industry has progressed from a few years ago, when we simply put the lambs in the yards and either invited offers or sent them off for processing virtually as an unknown quantity.”
Warrick said he cropped about 700 acres of barley and oats and ran conventional pastures on the Mt.Barker, South Stirling and Cheyne Beach properties.
“However pastures are on everyone’s minds as the next step towards improved productivity, and I expect to include perennials in our pasture mix within the next year or two.
Wayne Radford, will retire at the end of 2022 after a 56 year career in the industry. Wayne left John Curtin High School at Fremantle to join the skins team at Wesfarmers ...
Read moreMedia Release 28/07/2022 Western Australia’s largest sheep and lamb processing cooperative will return a record $8.4 million in pool bonuses to its producer members at the end of August 2022. The 2021/22 ...
Read moreMedia Release 14/07/22 Des Griffiths, an early CEO of the WA Meat Marketing Cooperative, credited with helping WA lamb producers to reshape an influential global lamb processing and marketing cooperative, passed ...
Read moreMedia Release (20-06-2022) Recently appointed Livestock Manager for WAMMCO, Mike Curnick is looking forward to capping his 37-year career in WA’s livestock sector in the lamb and ...
Read moreA distinguished career in the meat processing and livestock industry will end with the retirement of the WA Meat Marketing Cooperative’s Livestock Manager Peter Krupa on June 30. Mr ...
Read more