Maroona Station is a forward-thinking, family-owned business south of Kingston, in southeast South Australia. Owners Rob and Kirsty Starling run 7,000 Merino ewes on their 2,500 ha property.
“So why are we talking about a sheep operation in South Australia in this newsletter?” I hear you say. Well, Rob and Kirsty are pushing the boundaries in their business, and have deviated from the more traditional sheep farming model, whilst keeping the core fundamentals of sheep genetics, nutrition and management clearly front and centre. That’s where we supply a little help from Western Australia.
There is a saying that “the only free lunch in livestock breeding is hybrid vigour”. Maroona takes full advantage of this fact and joins all of their Merino ewes to East Fresian x Border Leicester rams, so all lambs are terminal every year. The advantages are plain to see when looking at scanning percentages, lamb survivability, weaning weights, and the real kicker, marketability. Wether lambs are highly sought-after in the processing market. The ewe-lamb portion is sold in November each year, in an on-farm sale, where demand for the first cross ewe lambs is substantial. The on-farm sale has been part of this farming venture for 30 years and has even led to a selling complex, which would put some commercial selling complexes to shame, being built on Maroona.
The Starlings purchase their replacement Merino ewes in each year from two well-respected Merino operations in South Australia. According to Rob, “These Merino breeders know more about Merino sheep than I will ever need to, so I leave the Merino job to them and concentrate on what we do well. We run our own Border Leicester stud to ensure our sire supply and quality. This model allows us to still run a Merino ewe, so we still cut $100 worth of wool off each ewe per year, and sell 8,000 lambs that are highly marketable”.
Sounds so easy, right? Well, there is a massive amount of work needed to maximise this model. Firstly, the property is fenced into 118 paddocks, which allows minimal mob size at lambing and maximum pasture management with larger mobs through the growing season. There is a 22 km central laneway network, with strategically positioned yards, so manpower and travel distance are minimized. All ewes are scanned for multiples as well as early/late lambing date. All ewe mobs have access to a self-feeder containing Milne Feeds EasyOne®, which keeps the ewe “topped up” during the time of year when their nutrition requirements are at their highest - lactation. Rob says that the imprinting of the lambs, where they get taught to feed from a trough, as well as the extra starch for lamb rumen development, is also a winner. And, coincidentally, the self-feeders are from Universal Feeders in Goomalling.
After being at Maroona Station, witnessing the passion for the business from Rob and Kirsty, and seeing the obvious attention to detail first-hand, Milne sheep specialist, Brett Blanchett, says it is encouraging to know that Milne Feeds, with a strong company ethos of providing market-leading sheep feed solutions, can add to the success of their business across the borders in SA.
