What’s happening just to the north of Kyneton when the patter of tiny feet can be heard, the dust rises in the heat and a bigger than usual contingent of white utes can be seen driving through town?
The annual first cross ewe sale is happening, that’s what! And happen it did last Friday when around 9000 ewes were yarded and sold by Kyneton Associated Agents.
The top price of the day during early bidding was a pen of 129 ewes bred at the Sandridge property owned by the Younger family in central New South Wales.
The Younger sheep have gone through Kyneton yards for at least 25 years and always fetched, if not the top price for day day, pretty well close to it. But this is the last time. The Youngers have sold their property so the bloodline sold at Kyneton on Friday was the last.
The ewes made $364 a head and as selling agent Kieran McGrath said, they were born in a dust bowl but spent the last seven months in the Kyneton district. And that’s where, as the Sandridge sheep have done in years gone, gained their saleyards worthy bloom. They were sold to a client through Landmark Leongatha.
But a quarter of a century’s history aside, the star of the day was Amanda Foley of Rochford whose pen of 139 first cross ewes won her the Geoff Keech Memorial Award for the Best Presented Pen. Geoff Keech was a livestock agent who often sold and bought from the Kyneton yards. In his memory, local agents began the award which has been presented annually since 2006. Amanda purchased the ewes at Kyneton last year.
“They’ve been well shorn well and fed well, they’re a credit to her,” Kieran McGrath said.
“She’s looked after them well and this is the result.”
Amanda’s ewes were sold to a Landmark Kyneton client for $345 a head.
