The Cliffs Shedding Sheep Stud

“Moving shedding sheep forward”

Our next On Farm Spring sale 25th September 2024

Welcome to The Cliffs Shedding Sheep Stud Molong

Phil and Judi Thompson purchased The Cliffs farm in 2016 which is located 15 kilometres northeast of Molong in the Boomey area in central west NSW. The property located in the Bell River Valley has reliable rainfall, plentiful water, excellent basalt soils, and temperate climate.

The Cliffs Australian White Sheep Stud Molong was established in 2016 with the purchase of foundation animals from the AWSBA Flock No 11. We originally purchased 53 stud ewes and a stud ram TK 140460 from the Castlereagh stud. We then became AWSBA flock no 63 and later joined the National Australian White Sheep Society.

Our main focus is providing stud and commercial clients with good shedding unshorn sheep at realistic prices that carry black feet and points, good confirmation, and market appeal. Our sheep have a quiet temperament and are easy to handle with high fertility and easy birthing. We are fully Brucellosis accredited and all sheep sold carry full health accreditation.

The Sheep Masters

We have now invested in a second arm to our sheep enterprise under The Cliffs Shedding Sheep Stud banner - SheepMaster composites.

In 2021 we realised there was a need to improve shedding sheep. We saw a lot of sheep being sold into the market place requiring better confirmation, hybrid vigour, and shedding ability. We felt we also needed to have an open mind with the development of a composite shedding sheep, basically to replace the backbone of the Australian lamb industry - the XB ewe. Producers require a fat lamb sire as well as a self-replacing sheep, the SheepMaster composites fit the bill on both counts.

An AI program began in 2021 using purebred Australian White ewes and two SheepMaster sires Apollo and Monarch. The results of the program were extremely encouraging. The skins of the progeny are finer-haired, have better shedding ability, and have black feet, and the progeny showed no colour, better confirmation, body structure, and more hybrid vigour as well as opening up access to an enormous genetic pool.

The AI program produced two outstanding sires, The CliffMaster and Kingsman as well as some excellent ewes. These two rams continue to breed on for us at The Cliffs and their progeny has been used by other SheepMaster breeders across different states as well as commercial breeders looking to put better body and hybrid vigour in their sheep.

Our new SheepMaster composite shedding sheep are separated from our Australian Whites by genomic parentage testing and we use an electronic tagging system on all sheep for full traceability.

The new composite shedding sheep has fast gathered interest from commercial clients who are looking to maximise their returns and lessen their input costs. We also find that genuine commercial producers are not interested in the hype of one particular breed but are more concerned about the bottom line of their businesses. And at The Cliffs, one of our main emphases is the viability of our clients.

Whilst we still love our Australian Whites, our clients old and new now will have a choice when it comes to shedding sheep- Australian Whites or the next generation SheepMaster composites.

We have flock and Stud rams available for private sale along with both purebred Australian White ewes or composite SheepMaster ewes.

Our Motto at The Cliffs is “ Moving Shedding Sheep Forward”