About Kismet Stud

Today Kismet joins approximately 800 – 900 mixed aged ewes along with up to 300 ewe weaners annually producing over 1,500 stud lambs. The best 200 ewe lambs are retained in the Stud allowing us to reach a high standard in our breeding ewes. We also keep approximately 500 – 550 flock rams for sale during the year.

Our remaining ewe lambs make good dams when crossed with the likes of Dorpers for the prime lamb industry. We are also finding the White Suffolk Merino Cross ewe lambs are being kept in flocks to be joined to meat sheep sires to produce prime lambs.

Because of irrigated pastures, ram lambs are still well grown out for Autumn joining and care is taken to select correct structure for easy lambing over young ewes. We only use the top genetics with good muscling and sound confirmation, with a strong emphasis on fine shoulder settings for ease of lambing.

History of Kismet Stud

The Kismet Foundation White Suffolk Stud was established in 1987 with the purchase of 15 Suffolk ewes which were joined to Kismet West’s PHAR LAP Poll Dorset ram. Five of the best sons were kept and joined to 200 Kismet Poll Dorset ewe weaners. From there, an Elouera ram was purchased from John Treasure in 1989 – 137/89 (Reg 250)(A-1-1).

In 1992, a stud ram was bought from BP LG & AM Schofield at “Gearloch” 164-90 (twin)(Reg 625)(B-1-2). Detpagrove LTG 2026T WS (A-1-1) was purchased at Melbourne Royal for $3,000 in partnership with Gearloch in 1993. Then sons of the above rams were used for a period. Following this the two sons of a Kismet ram sold to Ces Peterson (Pine Tor) were purchased back; (both rams had done well at Dookie Field Days, placing 1st and 3rd).

The next ram was bought from Felix, 182/95, which received champion at Canberra, Cowra and a 1st at Melbourne Royal Show. The semen from Vortex, 188/96, was used in 1998, resulting 38 lambs from 30 ewes. Also, in 1998 a ½ brother of the Vortex ram (188/96) was purchased from Mark Yates. This ram is breeding well.

Kismet purchased Penrise 61-99 (T) at the 2000 Melbourne Royal Show for $2750.00. The first crop of lambs are just being born (June 2001) and are showing great potential.

Click here to view our Sire History with photos.

The Story of Kismet Stud

Kismet White Suffolk and Poll Dorset Studs

Kismet White Suffolk was founded in 1987 (Flock 33) using 200 of our best Poll Dorset weaners. We used 5 rams which were out of Suffolk ewes joined to our top Poll Dorset rams. Since then we’ve selectively purchased top genetics with a keen eye on muscling and early maturing progeny to get the best possible results for our clients. We currently join over 800 ewes plus hoggets (around 200) which gives us over 1000 stud lambs to pick our flock rams and replacement ewes from. This ensures all our rams are structurally sound with clean points, good muscle and wool and plenty of length. This also enables us to produce a quality line of commercial lambs (being all meat sheep) which generally go onto make super exports or a top pen at our local market. Our most recent over the hooks line dressed out at 56% meat yield.

With the desired weights of the export lambs coming down we are finding that a more middle of the road meaty ram with a quick maturity but still maintaining as much length as possible (without sacrificing muscling) is the more ideal ram. This given the producer the option of selling early as a trade weight or going onto an export lamb up to (30kg dressed) if the incentive is there.

Presently we are keeping about 300 rams for sale each year which kicks off at our Spring Ram Sales in late September each year. We will be presenting about 100 White Suffolks and 30 Poll Dorsets which are our better scanning (Stockscan) rams with the best growth. The rams are paddock reared so they tend to be hardy and only get better as they mature.

We have 6 points on the ABC OJD table so they are available to go anywhere in Australia. We will help with delivery where needed at no charge and will always guarantee our rams to do the job.

One important point not to be overlooked is the ease of lambing of our White Suffolk ewes since we always use fine shouldered rams with a good neck extension which is especially important over maiden or small ewes.

The White Suffolk is well suited to joining over wool sheep breeds as they clean up the points on lambs which leads to better presentation in the sale yards.

All our sole rams are stock scan assessed with figures on the day. Our rams are assessed at 8 months of age which is more appropriate as to better reflect what your lambs will look like at a similar age.

We continually get positive feedback from clients who either do well at their local markets or get impressive prices over the hooks.

Graham Wilson
Kismet Stud

The Southdown Experiment

In November 2013 Kismet purchased two top Southdown rams from the Chandpara Southdown Stud near Kyneton Victoria, and was purchased for $2550 (tag no. 171, sire was Clifton Downs 241-10, New Zealand) and $1600 (tag no. 149, sire was Chandpara 123-11) along with two stud ewes. We joined the rams to 60 White Suffolk ewe producing 108 lambs.