The national awards were announced at a function in Cromwell last month.
Mr McElrea said they won the district competition for the breed in March and the Otago/Southland final in April.
"The secret is the quality of the Perendale, their size, and the evenness of the mob and also the quality of wool," Mr McElrea said.
They have a 800ha property near Edievale and run 4000 Perendale ewes (including 580 stud ewes), as well as 1400 hoggets including 250 ram hoggets, and 580 stud ewes.
They sell about 120 rams a year.
In addition they run 80 breeding beef cattle and 70 rising two-year-old heifers and 70 calves for fattening and to keep the pastures topped.
They employ stock manager Alister McNaughton, which allows Mr McElrea to work on other projects, including the couple's recently acquired grocery shop in Tapanui.
About 300ha is cultivated land and the balance is steep tussock country, rising from 300m to 650m above sea level.
"Perendales suits our farm, as they have a good constitution, are healthy, have good fertility, are good mothers and are ideal for running in tussock country.
"The stud ewes run together with the commercial mob for most of the year to give them that pressure," he said.
"They cope well with that."
He believes in feeding his sheep well, although as future breeding stock, the ewe hoggets get priority.
"It starts at the previous mating, feeding ewes well so they are in good condition to conceive and then they milk well and can rear good lambs."
They lamb in September and last year achieved an average of 134 per cent at weaning and scanned 164 per cent.
"This year we have just finished scanning, which was 171 per cent, and all going well, we are expecting about 140 per cent lambing at weaning."
Although he expects heavy snowfalls each year, there is a lot of natural tussock shelter in gullies, which is ideal for the sheep.
"I might go around them every second day at a distance.
"If they have trouble lambing I get the lamb out.
"The wet dries are tagged to go to terminal sires later."
Scanning was used to identify twins and repeat single offenders also went to terminal sires.
Scanning was also a useful tool to track the success of the stud rams, Mr McElrea said.
He uses black face Dorset Down rams as terminal sires.
The rams are put out April and the first lambs are expected in at the end of September.
The sheep are shorn three times in two years: a pre-lamb shear, and then again the following March and then in January.
He expects about 5kg of wool a year per stock unit.
About a third of the lambs are killed at weaning at about 16.8kg.
Mr McElrea said 69 per cent of the lambs killed had the combined leg, loin and shoulder threshold to meet Alliance's yield payment requirements.
About 750 Perendale lambs are sold for capital stock.
An eye is kept on worms by using fecal egg counts.
"Perendales have got a natural tolerance and resistance to worms, so our commercial ewes are rarely drenched.
"Although our young stock are drenched, we try to keep that to a minimum.
"We did a drench resistance test in all the drench families about four years ago and are going to do another this season.
"We have no drench resistance to any of the drench families."
The couple plan to continue developing their property by cultivating and fencing further tussock areas.
Mr McElrea said once they did that, they could increase stock levels from the current 6500su to about 7000su.
"We will keep our cattle about the same but run another 500 ewes.
"We intend to get our lambing percentage up without compromising everything else."
He is also planning to introduce electronic tagging to the stud this coming season to make recording easier.
The couple have two children, Sean (12) and Emily (10).
When not farming, Mr McElrea is a cub leader, a member of the West Otago A&P Society and the local motorcycle club and also does fundraising for various groups.
He is also a Perendale Society councillor for Otago.
The couple recently bought the Tapanui Four Square grocery shop.
Mrs McElrea said she was looking for another business opportunity as there were limited opportunities in West Otago for women.
They each spend a couple of days at the shop.
"It was originally difficult to juggle things but we have now got a system and we have very good staff so it is a team effort," Mrs McElrea said.