Mr McCulloch and his wife Katherine run first-cross sheep and cattle on “Noorunboon”.

“The past couple of years I’ve been sourcing replacement ewes (mainly Border Leicester/Merino, with some White Suffolk cross) from wherever I can get them,” Mr McCulloch said.

He’d like the replacement price for ewes to stay about $150 to $160, and explained once prices got above $180 it cost too much to replace them.

The new sheep will go onto lucerne and oats and the cattle tall fescue, phalaris and tropical grass.

The property has creek frontage which is mainly used for grazing cattle and there is a rotational grazing program in place.

“It works well when the rainfall is reliable, but it’s a bit hard when it sets in dry. We try to move things around fairly often,” Mr McCulloch said.

“The sheep and cattle both work in pretty well together, especially during the past few years with average or above average rainfall.

“You can use the sheep as a bit of a tool if you want to clean a paddock out a bit and farm it. You can use them to really chew it out if you want to.

“I used to grow a bit of wheat here four or five years ago, but the cattle and sheep have been too good to worry about growing crops. We’ve just focused on fattening the cattle and crossbred ewes.”

The breeding ewes are divided in two mobs, with the aim of lambing three times in two years.

The first group will be lambing in March or April, and the next group at the end of August or September.

“If we are having a good season I’ll put the rams back with the ewes probably a month after they lamb,” he said.

“Skin prices have been very good this time too, so I don’t know whether I’ve done the right thing shearing them or not.

“It saves a lot of work shearing them – you don’t have to worry about jetting them and you can shear and forget about them for six or eight weeks, especially when they’ve got feed in front of them.”