About Us
SALTBUSH White Dorper stud has been built a strong foundation of high quality breeding stock since its establishment in 1997 as one of the first White Dorper studs in Australia.
The stud is located at Spear Creek station on the edge of the Flinders Ranges at Port Augusta and is typical of rangeland country in pastoral South Australia, having a mix of native bush and grasses with less than 250mm rainfall.
Typical of most country over the past few years, Spear Creek has been in a severe drought.
Owners of Saltbush Livestock Pty Ltd, Jamie McTaggart and Scott Herde, are both 4th generation pastoral livestock producers who found the outstanding performance of the breed while trialling small mobs of commercial and full blood White Dorper sheep. This influenced a complete changeover from a 5000 head Merino breeding flock to a maintenance free meat sheep flock with White Dorper crosses from Damara, Merino and White Suffolk ewe bases.
The drought has reinforced the value of the breed being able to produce with very little inputs even in a dry time, with lambing percentages in excess of 123pc in extremely dry conditions in 2007 and breeding stock being able to rear good lambs without supplementary feeding. The Saltbush stud is run under commercial conditions. We don’t think it’s reasonable to present fed up sheep to commercial producers.
All rams are presented in commercial condition so they are ready to perform immediately when they get on the job.
At Saltbush White Dorper stud performance recording was becomming an important selection tool although visual appraisal is still given highest priority at the stud. Visual appraisal and conformation are most important in sheep selection and performance recording comes after structure and shedding ability are assessed.
