Merino Sheep

Superfine Merino sheep and wool

Booroomba runs approximately 20,000 self-replacing superfine Merino sheep.

Originating from Royalla Blood, the sheep were classed by Winston McDonald.

In 2005 we replaced all our rams with the top grade of Tallawong rams based on Bookham Wether Trial information with the aim to increase wool cut, fertility and eye muscle area while maintaining micron.

Since 2005, the top grade of Tallawong and Bogo Rams have been purchased. This has been hugely successful increasing wool cut by over 1kg and maintaining micron to an average of 17 microns while increasing fertility.

The sheep cut an average of 5kgs of wool with a 6 year average of 17 microns. We had a 100% lambing rate from unscanned ewes in 2015.

We inoculate with Gudair for Johne’s Disease, Glanvac 6 and Selenium at lamb marking. All sheep are colour coded ear tagged to the year colour for identification. Booroomba sheep are managed with an emphasis on profit per hectare.

The herd has been a closed herd except for the purchase of rams since 1998 and is free from footrot and lice. The property has no neighbours with sheep and as such we can guarantee the sheep are footrot and lice free.

The sheep are heavy cutting with low micron fleeces, and produce a bright soft and well-nourished wool.

The sheep are classed every year paying particular attention to wool, body conformation, feet and fertility. We want to achieve the highest possible kilograms of wool and meat per hectare.

The sheep are classed annually by Pat McNeil, Australian Wool Network.

Rams are chosen using visual assessment and Australian sheep breeding values (ASBVS) with the aid of Pat McNeil and Malcolm Peake, Bogo Merinos. Sheep are benchmarked by entering in the Bookham Wether Trials.

Fleece weight, carcase traits and fast maturing fertile sheep are our focus.

Our lambs have a very high survival rate. Every year we grain feed our lambs for 6 weeks to increase their immune system and durability.

You can find our Australian Wool Network Wool testing results for Merino ewes 2015 and Wool testing results for Merino 2016 wethers and weaners from these links.

You can find more information on Bogo Merinos here.