After plenty of rain and bumper forage crops, the sheep on Lapunyah are living a life of luxury.
Sheep on the Lundavra property are offered a buffet-like assortment of legumes such as cowpea, lablab, and forage brassica as well as BMR Rocket forage sorghum, all of which are currently thriving.
With more than 300 millimetres of rain so far this year since planting these forage crops, 250mm of which fell over two days, the property near Westmar is looking at an extremely positive season ahead, possibly one of the best ever according to PCP director Alister Persse.
Mr Persse said allowing the sheep to graze on the crops had many benefits, such as doubling weight gains compared to grazing on native pasture, and currently having the ability to graze at 15 dry sheep equivalents per hectare.
"The cropping regime is set over the five properties across both winter and summer, and we're really excited about trialling different crops," he said.
"We'll specifically target crops to fill nutritional gaps or to value add our animals, whether it be for weaning or finishing lambs, spike feeding ewes, getting higher growth rates or bumping up stocking rates.
"The other main point is that you're rejuvenating your country at the same time, improving both your soil health and the health of your animals."
Following a fallow spray, Mr Persse said the sheep could be utilised as part of a control method to help suppress weeds that are difficult to kill such as milk thistle, feathertop Rhodes grass and fleabane.
"This process will continue to be an important tool going forward," he said.
Mr Persse said he had 257 hectares of Comet oats just coming out of the ground for the sheep to continue their grazing once the other forage has expired.
Along with the prosperous season, Mr Persse is also hoping for good prices this year.
"We've been dabbling in the market, we're just trying to hedge our bets, rather than throwing them all in there at once," he said.
"I think the market will stay very firm, just due to the supply and demand, but we'll see what the markets are doing and what their growth rate is like in six weeks time.
"Generally the lamb market comes good in June or July, so if we play our cards right, all we can ask for is good cash flow.
"You'll never pick the top or bottom of the market but if you can present an article that the market wants, then it's pretty simple."
Electric identification tags and Tru Test equipment are used across the entire mob to rank the ewes before joining, as well as tracking the economic value of the animals
All sheep data management is overseen by Elise Bowen, and Mr Persse says her assistance has been an invaluable help to the operation.
Using the collected data, the top ranking 25 per cent of Merino ewes will be joined to Merino rams, while the remaining balance will be joined to poll Dorsets.
"We're staying with Merinos as our nucleus, where we're aiming to produce heavy cutting, large frame, and highly fertile ewes," Mr Persse said.
