The motto of 'more testing than guessing' has paid off for Trunkey Creek, NSW, sheep producer Scott Brown, who has adopted new genetics and a range of processes to improve his flock and overall operation.
Mr Brown runs a self-replacing Merino flock on 850 hectares that has been in the family since 1909.
While the property itself has been around a long time, Mr Brown's enterprise is continually looking forward.
He began using electronic identification (eID) back in 2015 and hired consultant Anthony Shepherd from Sheepmatters, one of the only consultants in the area that dealt with eID for commercial producers, to assist with the rollout.
Mr Shepherd also provided the electronic reader and other necessary equipment, Mr Brown said.
"When I first went eID it was to keep track of what the sheep were doing. Not because I've got good sheep, but because I want to improve them," he said.
"Instead of working on the top 10 per cent of the flock, which seems to be what most people do to get better sheep, with Anthony we started to take out the bottom 10pc.
"I even went back and retagged all the older sheep so by 2016 everything had an eID tag in it."
All ewes have rump samples taken to record the micron, cut, and yield. One of the biggest surprises when he implemented eID was the spread of micron within the flock, Mr Brown said.
His flock averaged 18.5 micron in rump samples in 2016, but that ranged from 15.5 to 23.5 across individual animals.
Mr Brown's initial aim was to increase wool weight, and he went from cutting 4.6 kilograms on average to 5.8kg.
"My original intention was to increase fleece weight and maintain the other stuff, but that didn't last long," he said.
"That to me is a very small part of the whole system - you've got to have live lambs on the ground and a lot of the time you'll find that the best sheep in the mob is usually the worst mother.
"Now for the last 10, 12 years probably, anything that's lambed and then lost has not been joined back to a Merino and instead put to a terminal sire.
"I just had huge numbers of ewes that would lamb and then not raise a lamb.
"I put that down to the genetic stuff - we'd bred that out of them by chasing wool, no one was worried about the rest of it."
Mr Brown's work with Sheepmatters also led him to be involved in a trial for the SmartShepherd collars, which map which ewes were the best mothers.
"It was absolutely amazing...I always wish I could have continued with it," he said.
"Commercially there wasn't enough dollars and then the drought hit, we actually went into drought here in late 2016/17."
Mr Brown was also involved in the Lifetime Ewe Management course, which he said was eye opening too.
Mr Brown's flock was originally based on bloodlines from Merryville Merino Stud, Boorowa, before he made the change to Winyar Merino, Canowindra, in 2013 to get more size and keep the wool quality.
More recently he changed genetics to Mumblebone stud, Wuuluman, for more fat and muscle.
The change to Mumblebone genetics, along with changing practices on farm, had led to big increases in lamb survival, he said.
His involvement in trials and becoming more proactive with data helped change around how to improve his flock, he said.
"I changed my thinking - I did a course with Mark Ferguson at Nextgen Agri with the genetic stuff," he said.
"It was something I was always interested in, and when I was looking around to change studs back the first time in 2013 I was very tempted to change the genetic stuff then but I wasn't game.
"I did an online course with Mark during Covid, and actually it gave me the confidence.
"I buy all my rams on figures. They've got to be physically right but I do my draft on the computer.
"It's such a big step to change your genetics for the third time."
Mr Brown adopted techniques from Jason Trompf's Lambs Alive, which changed his lambing completely into much smaller mobs.
The drought had helped in some ways, he said, as he had installed new troughs which then became useful when he divided up the paddocks.
"The first time I did it I split paddocks with electric fence," he said.
"The twins will lamb anywhere from mobs of 40 to 50 and the singles no more than 100, about 80 seems to be ideal.
"It still increased my lamb survival but it wasn't a huge jump until the new genetics.
"Once I started lambing the maidens from the first lot of Mumblebones my marking percentage just jumped away.
"I've marked 100pc in maidens which I've never been able to do."
Another unplanned benefit of changing genetics was that he had not mulesed for two years, Mr Brown said.
Mr Brown said the ewes were fleece weighed at shearing and the lambs were weighed at marking and weaning to keep track of growth rates
He also kept records from scanning, with single and twins managed separately from scanning onwards.
Mr Brown uses Sapien software and a Te Pari handler with an automatic drench based on weight.
"Literally 80pc of my drafting is done through the handler," he said.
"Anything I put through the system in Sapien, I can draft from.
"I join 50/50 split with Merino and the other 50pc go into Border Leicesters first-cross now.
"The last 12, 18 months I've run them as one mob, so the twins run as one mob and then I draft them off pre-lambing."
The Lambs Alive course changed his thinking around paddock management too, and he enrolled in a Resource Consulting Services' Farming and Grazing for Profit program.
"One of their big things is big mobs, small paddocks, high stock impact," he said.
"Since then I've changed a lot of these places where I had temporary electric fences, I've now permanently fenced."
The property originally had 27 main paddocks but Mr Brown has increased that to 68 paddocks and five lanes with plans to do more.
A mob size of about 800 seemed to be the optimum before splitting groups into smaller mobs for lambing.
"We were traditionally, for the last 120 years, set stocked. I've changed that in the last couple of years to rotational grazing," he said.
"I'm first to admit a lot of the stuff I've tried doesn't work - but if you're not trying something new you're going backwards."