Ashaig farm owner George Fletcher (80), of Cromwell, was five when his family moved from Wyndham to a sheep and beef farm in Heriot.
The family registered its Glendhu stud in 1971, first focusing on Dorset Downs and then introducing a separate stud arm breeding Coopworths.
On retirement about 13 years ago, George kept a Coopworth flock on about 80ha of the farm in Heriot, launching Ashaig Farm stud.
It gives me an interest ... I’m just the boy now," he laughed.
The two Coopworth studs run independently of each other and on separate farms. Different sires were used at both studs.
The family used to sell rams at Otago Coopworth Breeder’s Club events in Balclutha and then Gore.
But as club membership dwindled, they decided to sell rams on farm.
About 100 Coopworths rams and about 50 Dorset Downs rams would feature at their third annual sale on Monday.
The day you buy your ram is one of the most important days of your life in farming," George said.
The right ram could improve a flock and result in more lambs, more meat and more income.
Farmers needed to establish their breeding objectives, such as improving lambing percentages or getting more lambs away at weaning, and buy a ram that would help achieve that.
An initial breeding objective for the Glendhu stud was to improve ram fertility.
When that target was achieved, the focus shifted more to growth, meat and survival".
Some of his Coopworth flock had the highest growth rates for the breed in New Zealand.
We are doing alright with the meat but we are looking for sires with higher survival."
The search for rams to meet his breeding objectives was becoming more difficult because there were fewer farmers breeding purebred Coopworths.
His own stud selection process included culling ram hoggets by eye, looking for faults such as black spots impacting wool quality and lack of bone.
Consequently, some hoggets which had good figures in the Sheep Improvement Limited (SIL) database were culled.
If they’re not right, we don’t keep them," he said.
SIL data was used to determine the second round of selection.
About a quarter of the rams born made it through to the sale mob.
