Ram auctions are not what they used to be

I came away from the 2025 South Island Premier Ram Auction last week thinking the result was indicative of the state of the sheep industry.

The auction had 112 rams catalogued. Some had been withdrawn and a percentage were passed, good rams but no home for them.

The auction is advertised as a premier sale and it attracts entries and buyers from all over the country.

The largest catalogue of 40 was Perendales and an entry from the Snowdon Stud from Darfield topped the sale with the bid of $19,000, from a Dannevirke stud.

Their average price was $3562, $100 higher than last year for the 24 sold which was four fewer than last year.

There were mixed results for the 12 other breeds that followed and as I sat ringside with a long-serving member of the Gore A&P Society we reflected on bygone days.

It is now a one-day auction but we harked back two or three decades when it took three solid days of sales, such was the scale of the industry.

Romneys ruled the sheep empire and peaked in about 1991 when at the 34th stud ram fair, 318 stud rams went under the hammer from 75 vendors.

In that era, when top rams fetched $20,000-$35,000, the pavilion was packed with buyers from the north, vendors and the public.

The event had created quite a highly charged atmosphere of big price expectations.

Often in the gallery were South American buyers from Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.

The flock book also recorded other sales made to Japan, Kenya and large consignments to stud ewes in Canada and 1000 to China, to name a few.

Romneys and their wool were wanted.

Eight stock and station agencies operated in Gore and most had stud stock agents specialised in that livestock class.

Today, only one of those agencies is left and only one stud stock agent, based at Winton, to service most of the South Island.

In the 1960-80s, countries with large sheep populations were South Africa, Australia, Russia, New Zealand and some in South America.

Since the late 1980s, we have seen our flock numbers drop by two-thirds to 20million and the other countries have a similar story.

Unfortunately, our very well-bred Romney with crossbred wool specifically bred for the market requirements — whiteness, staple formation, tensile strength, as well as its other virtues — is saleable at an uneconomical price.

But, unfortunately, nobody knows how to turn the nylon oil tanker around.