If you visit Bilbrooke at Walcha there is a high chance you'll be greeted by an old Corgi called Happy and led to the sheep yards where a father and daughter duo are hard at work.
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It might not seem all that unusual but at the heart of the changes being made on this sheep operation is 12-year-old Claudia Kirton.
The young sheep enthusiast was just 10 when she decided to enter the spring lamb show in Tamworth in 2019 as a distraction from a cyclone clean up and drought battle.
She staked her claim in the industry by winning the title of the champion pen of lambs and hasn't stopped since.
"I've got my own mob of sheep that I breed from; I reckon there would be about 20 or 30," she said.
"In 2018 we had a heap of poddies so I kept all of them because I couldn't sell any of them and I just decided that I should breed off them so I've got two paddocks down there and I just breed off of them."
"She made about $3000 out of her lambs last year," her father Angus joked.
"Last year we had mastitis ewes that were in my paddock to look after and let's just say a few of them didn't end up having anything wrong," she added.
Despite beginning at The Armidale School (TAS) this year, she travels an hour each way everyday, rather than boarding, so she can continue to help out on the property.
"Claudia is a very calming influence in the sheep yards," Angus said.
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"She is a great help, she is awesome to have around. She will board but not yet."
The Kirtons run a traditional second cross fat lamb operation, mainly using Poll Dorset rams, and aim to turn sheep off to Fletchers yielding 35 kilograms. They were very passionate woolgrowers, breeding ultrafine Merinos, but made the transition to run meat sheep on the heavy basalt country in 2018.
They currently run about 2300 ewes however they have plans to reach a breeding flock of 4000 to 5000.
Their sheep have access to self-feeders and were currently putting on 300 grams a day.
At 27c/ daily ration, Angus said it was a worthwhile return on investment.
"We do feed our ewes to lamb so they lamb on feeders, they have hay racks and access to a grain ration mix," he said.
"Our lambs are basically trained on feeders...and once we have weaned our lambs the lambs will go straight back onto feeders and within a day the whole lot are eating again.
"They go back into the paddocks that they came out of where they lamb down so they know where the water is, they know where the feed is, they know where they like to muck around.
"They don't have a check at all at weaning time, the real check that we have is when we split up their mate groups...that's when they probably get a bit distracted for a couple days up and down the fence but they settle down pretty quickly.
"I know you can do it on grass a lot cheaper but when it's pouring rain for a couple of weeks, these are still going forward."
Joining takes place for six weeks in mid March with lambing from the middle of August to the end of September. Around 25 per cent of joined ewes were maidens but they were still able to achieve a scanning rate of 137 per cent.
Claudia is now preparing to enter the inaugural autumn lamb show and feature sale at TRLX on February 22, which was created to service New England lamb producers in the heart of areas like Walcha and Guyra.
The event will also honour saleyard legend John Korsman who tragically passed away last year by awarding the John Korsman Memorial Shield to the champion pen.
Pitt Sons agent Andrew Bloomfield said the response to the inaugural event had been strong and there would be good suckers available.
"We are based in the New England with most of our work and come the other show in September we have got no lambs left," he said.
"It's been very difficult to participate in that sale in the spring so we thought, why not give all the New Englanders a chance to give it a crack.
"The season hasn't helped the last few years but it's that timing that really only allocates the opportunity to the guys off the Plains."
Lucy Kinbacher
Raised on a cattle property at Biggenden, Lucy Kinbacher has spent 10 years working across metropolitan, regional and rural publications in both Queensland and NSW. Lucy has been the editor of the Queensland Country Life and North Queensland Register since 2021.
Raised on a cattle property at Biggenden, Lucy Kinbacher has spent 10 years working across metropolitan, regional and rural publications in both Queensland and NSW. Lucy has been the editor of the Queensland Country Life and North Queensland Register since 2021.
