ANDREW Rentsch has swapped flying as a commercial airline pilot for producing prime lambs at Penshurst. And he has no regrets.
In fact, Andrew says farming and being his own boss beats the pants off his old job - where at one stage he led 50 pilots.
- AT A GLANCE
- Who: Andrew Rentsch
- What: composite lamb breeding with a Coopworth base
- Why: productive pasture increases prime lamb productivity
- Where: Penshurst
- Report: KATE DOWLER
Andrew and wife Jane, who have two children - Jacob and Daisy - farm with his parents Marcus and Val.
Their Coolibah property is 950ha, situated in the reliable Penshurst district where rainfall averages 675mm.
The main enterprise is sheep and they run 2500 Merino ewes and 2500 Coopworth-based composite ewes.
Andrew returned to the family farm in 2001.
He had worked as a pilot with Kendell, which was closely associated with Ansett. After Ansett collapsed, Andrew, then 28, considered his options.
"I'd always thought I'd like to come back farming, but it was a matter of when," he said.
"My friends went to Virgin, so I could've easily done that, but at the same time a block of land came up next door, so it was a good time to move."
Since returning, Andrew has concentrated on lifting the farm's productivity though pasture improvement.
Marcus is a Southern Grampians Shire councillor and until recently was mayor.
"I walked out of the office when Andrew came back and said 'there you go, it's all yours', and I never liked office work anyway," Marcus said.
Marcus inherited 200ha from his parents and made major improvements, adding laneways and plantations to make the farm more manageable.
Although willing to give Andrew and Jane a good shot at making decisions, Marcus remains heavily involved.
Of the 2500 Merino ewes, 1500 are joined to Merinos and 1000 are mated to White Suffolks to produce prime lambs. In the Merinos, which are now based on Fernleigh-bloodlines to boost body size, the Rentschs aim for 20 to 21-micron wool, cutting 5.5kg/mature ewe.
They are moving Merino lambing from winter to spring so lambs have a better chance of thriving. "We aim for 100-110 per cent lambing percentages with Merinos," Andrew said.
Lambs sired by White Suffolks and the composites are finished on summer crops and sold shorn in February-March via the saleyards.
The Chrome-bloodlines Coopworth-based composites lamb in July-August. This flock's lambing percentage is now 130 per cent.
"We're aiming for tight-skinned lambs and moving into more composites, rather than Coopworths which have very strong wool," Andrew said.
Ewe lambs are joined at nine months and 45kg, producing a lambing percentage of 87 per cent. Wether lambs are sold shorn and dress out at 22-24kg.
While the Rentschs, like many in the district, moved into cropping when conditions were drier, they are now only cropping in order to clean up weeds before renovating the pastures.
They see prime lamb production as the most profitable future enterprise. The composite ewes produce the best gross margins but the Merino-White Suffolk lambs are also profitable.
Last year 2000 lambs sold averaged a "wonderful" $145.
This year lambs struggled with the wet conditions early, but Andrew said he'd be happy with a $120 average.
Since renovating pastures the carrying capacity has dramatically lifted from five crossbred ewes/ha to eight ewes.
Goals include building stock numbers and buying more land.
Andrew said they were lucky many family and friends lived nearby. Marcus has three brothers also farming, all with young families involved.
"It's a great place to raise kids, much better than the city," he said.
