About Pemcaw

Pemcaw is located east of Dunedoo on the Talbragar River in the central west region of New South Wales. Pemcaw is in a 600mm rain fall area of both winter and summer rain. The property Pemcaw totals 1500 Ha and runs 2500 stud and commercial ewes plus Shorthorn cattle.

Our commercial property “Maroubra” located at Carinda in the north west of NSW runs 3500 commercial Poll Merino ewes plus Shorthorn cattle.

Pemcaw was established in 1896 by William Armstrong and has been owned and operated by the Armstrong family since its foundation. Pemcaw was based on Peppin bloodlines that exhibited some of the best wools of their time. Pemcaw is still renowned for having bright and stylish wool.

In 2013 Pemcaw employed Michael Elmes as the new stud classer. Michael’s experience with stud and commercial merino enterprises will help us continue to breed a balanced profitable merino that will capitalise on
both wool and sheep meat markets.

From 1982 John Coy was the stud classer. He classed the Pemcaw flock for 29 years and to most in the industry he needed no introduction. John will be remembered as a legend of the Merino industry who had a passion for big bulky sheep and left his legacy in the studs and Flocks that he classed.

Breeding Objectives.

The key profit drivers we recognise to help increase your on farm profits are:

• Fertility
• Carcass
• Wool cut

There are common links between these key breeding objectives. Through proficient classing and objective measurements we can produce well balanced, high performance sheep to suit a wide range of farm enterprises.

To measure the performance of our flock we collect body weights and fleece weights of our ram lambs, ewe lambs, hogget ewes, reserves and sires.

To better understand the breeding cycle of our ewes and pasture management we implement the techniques learnt through the Life Time Ewe Management course. This has helped shorten our joining period and increase the percentage of twin conceptions, which is having a positive effect on the overall fertility of our flock.

Our Poll Merino Stud has a focus more towards a plainer, long staple sheep with a naturally meaty carcass that is achieving higher weight gains for faster finishing lambs.

We sourced our genetics from Moorundie Park with the purchase of 120 ewes in 2007. These ewes were joined to sons of Willemenup Sir Winston out of top Pemcaw ewes. We built our numbers by joining pure Moorundie Park rams to Pemcaw ewes that displayed nourished, white stylish wool. This has proven to be a very successful cross and enables us to develop a unique type that is characterised by quality long staple, 19µ-20µ wool with superior carcass traits. We now join 450 Stud Poll Merino Ewes