As the newly elected president of the ADBA I would firstly like to thank John Nadin for his past five years in this role. John has been a great leader of Council and I hope to continue his good work. John will continue on as Vice President and I wish to acknowledge Rhys Parsons, Don Mills, Greg Hall and Darren Gurnett for their continuation as Councillors. We say goodbye to Allen Kelly after his many years on Council and thank him for his contribution. There is currently a vacancy, so should you feel the desire to gain better knowledge of how the association is run, have your say on how the association is run or feel it’s your time to contribute, please contact Cameron Hills to register your interest, alternatively I would be pleased to have a discussion about the role with you. Continue reading →

Vale Bill Mildren - Sheep classer stalwart Bill Mildren passed after a long illness on June 9 aged 81. Although Bill had no official capacity within the ADBA he was a founding advocate of the Dohne and worked with many Dohne studs over a 20 year period including; Uardry , Koonik , Calga , DD, Havelock Park , Stirling , Glenaroua , Kardinia and Macquarie. Bill gave his lifetime to serving the sheep industry. Continue reading →

The National Promotions Committee wishes to apologise to the Kelly family of Glen Holme Dohne Stud for the incorrect information that was printed on page 11 in the current Dohne Journal. The incorrect sire was printed in the graph and the CV should have read minus 0.8 better than the average. Continue reading →

The initial phase of the evaluation will see the wether and ewe progeny separated at weaning. The wether progeny will be grown out, shorn and slaughtered at approximately 10 months of age. They’ll then be evaluated for growth rate and carcass traits - eye muscle, fat depth and evenness, intra muscular fat, meat to bone ratio and meat eating quality. Ewe progeny will be carried through and shorn post-12 months of age so that data surrounding fleece traits can be measured as accurately as possible. In the second phase of the evaluation, the maiden daughters of the sires will be joined and reproductive data will be collected, measuring their reproductive performance. For commercial sheep enterprises, reproductive performance is key. This reproduction focused evaluation will provide accurate data to speak to the Dohne’s ability to produce a very high percentage of lambs of exceptional quality. Continue reading →

This sire evaluation will give the ADBA a chance to validate and give numeric credit to the breed’s Australian Sheep Breeding Values (ASBVs) of individual sires from across Australia as well as within flock breeding values (FBVs). As all the progeny will be DNA’d the Genomic data collected will be invaluable. Sire evaluations commenced in 1989 and have primarily focussed on the evaluation of Merino sires over Merino ewes. This is the first trial in Australia and possibly the world where Dohne ewes are used to focus on evaluating commercial Dohne values. Continue reading →

An excellent face to face ‘think tank’ meeting was held in Adelaide from Monday 22 to Wednesday 24 February, with the Western Australian councillors attending by using the zoom platform. Zoom has been used regularly over the past year for council and subcommittee meetings. Councillors welcomed Darren Gurnett to his first Face to Face meeting and looks forward to working with Darren on Council matters. Thank you to Cameron Hills for once again organising this annual meeting and assisting in the provision of a well run and successful two days. Results and details from this meeting will be forwarded to members shortly. Continue reading →