Charollais sheep dream leads to stud success

The Ponsonby family, who own the Charollais Sheep New Zealand stud at Tuapeka West, were pleased...
The Ponsonby family, who own the Charollais Sheep New Zealand stud at Tuapeka West, were pleased with the outcome of their ram sale in Gore last week. These are two of their Charollais 2-tooth rams which they chose to retain for the stud. PHOTO: PONSONBY
After viewing photos of Charollais sheep 20 years ago, Peter Ponsonby knew he wanted to import the breed and establish a stud.

Now two decades on, he was delighted with the success of the stud’s 10th ram sale in Gore last week as it indicated an increasing interest in the breed as more farmers were starting to realise what he already knew back then.

There were 89 rams offered for sale and eight were passed in. Two rams sold for $3600 each, while the average was $1365, which was up on last year.

Fifteen rams made more than $2000 each. Five of those were sold as stud sires, two to the North Island.

Commercial farmers were also prepared to pay as much as stud breeders, as they realised the value of top sires that had good production figures and structure, he said.

Mr Ponsonby was pleased to see more buyers than at last year’s sale, particularly in light of current economic conditions.

The Charollais breed is a specialist meat sheep, with easy birthing, fast growing and early maturing lambs.

It first became available in Australia about 10 years ago and the family then imported semen and embryos to establish a stud in partnership with Alexandra consultant Murray Rohloff.

They bought Mr Rohloff out about three years ago.

Mr Ponsonby farms in partnership with son Matt and their wives Mary and Konica at Tuapeka West. The family also owns the Charollais Sheep New Zealand stud.

In addition to working on the family farm, Matt also manages 566ha of fattening properties for other farmers in the region.

The family has 295ha at Tuapeka West and winters about 2200 Texel/Poll Dorset/Romney ewes, which are good milkers and produce fast-growing lambs.

There are also 500 ewe hoggets and about 180 ram hoggets. The 400 stud ewes are run under commercial conditions.

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