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Challara

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Property Name: Challara

Location:

The Challara Merino Stud is a part of a family farming business on ‘Wilandra’ which is located 22km south of Badgingarra (200km north of Perth) in Western Australia.

History:

Wilandra farm was initially scrubland and was established by Ron Wilkinson in 1960. Ron had grown up on a farm 8 kilometres from Tammin and came to the area in 1953. While establishing the farm, Ron worked as a shearer for local farmers for seven months of the year to pay for the necessary machinery and fertilisers.

People:

In running a family owned enterprise, Ron and Peter take a conservative but innovative approach. They have concentrated on developing a mixed farming enterprise which also includes beef and feedlot cattle, cropping and grain-fed lambs.

In 1992, Dr Jim Watts started classing the Merinos using the SRS® Breeding System. Due to the amazing progress achieved Ron and his family registered Challara Merino Stud in 1999. Ron and Peter have continued to innovate in order to improve their genetics. Challara is proud to be part of the Merino Select program from Sheep Genetics Australia. This involves gathering Breeding Values of particular traits to improve genetic progress. In 2011 the Merino Select breeding values were used in Challara’s ram sale for the first time.

Sustainable Production:

Sustainability has been a high priority for the Wilkinsons. They have invested in clay spreading to increase the production of the land and also use minimum tillage on the soil in order to conserve moisture, preserve soil structure and improve cropping yields. Due to the genetic progress achieved using the SRS® Breeding System, Challara ceased mulesing in 2011. Challara also employs management techniques to minimise the use of chemicals on the sheep. As well as shearing twice a year, they time their shearing and crutching so as to minimise the risk of flystrike. They also use natural selection by breeding sheep which are more resistant to flystrike.

Benefits of SRS®

Challara Merino Stud uses the services of SRS® founder and sheep research scientist, Dr Jim Watts, to class its flock. We have seen amazing advances since starting to use the SRS® Breeding System as follows:

1. There has been an obvious reduction in fleece rot & body struck sheep through natural selection.

2. Our lambing percentage used to average 85%, now it is 100-110% and we are looking to improve this further. 3. Challara now measures all of our flock’s traits and we are seeing evidence of improvements with wool length, wool density, worm resistance & carcase traits.

Contacts:

Name: Ron & Deanna Wilkinson, Peter Wilkinson

Ph: 08 96 529062

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.