Matthew & Tanya Tonissen
PO Box 95,
Hamilton, Vic 3300
Ph (03) 5571 1797
Fax (03) 5571 1142
Mob 0417 149 805
Email:icon.chrome@westvic.com.au
Balanced Rams for the Serious Lamb Producer
Christmas Newsletter December 2009
Matthew Tonissen Sheep Classing Services
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LOCATION
The ICON Poll Dorset stud is located 5km west of Hamilton, Victoria, in 700mm rainfall country.
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HISTORY
The ICON Poll Dorset stud was founded in 2002 with the purchase of 18 stud ewes and 1 stud ram from the well renowned Wyndamah Poll Dorset stud at Swan Hill. Since then ewes have been purchased from Allendale Poll Dorset stud at Bordertown in SA and semen has been used from the best available sires both in Australia and New Zealand, including the famous Kurralea 5 star.In more recent times we have used sires from the Tattykeel Stud at Oberon NSW. Although not big fans of showing sheep we felt that for a stud to dominate the show ring the way they have the past few years, that they might have something to offer our stud. Deep bodied rams with big hindquarters, have been carefully infused alongside high ranking lambplan benchmark sires, as well as the best of our home bred rams. This move has been a great success! We continue to search Australia and abroad for possible stud sires.
BREEDING AIMS
- BALANCED EBV’s and STRUCTURAL soundness
- Rapid early growth and FINISHING ABILITY
- HIGH muscle EBV’s and HINDQUARTER MUSCLING to match
- Long THICK BODIES with clean faces
- STRUCTURAL SOUNDNESS and ease of lambing
- TOLERANCE to internal parasites
- NOT too lean
Lambplan figures are used in conjunction with stringent visual appraisal. At no stage do Lambplan EBV’s override good sound breeding practices and structural conformation. At Icon we aim to produce fast growing, early maturing rams that at the end of the day put money back into our clients pockets.
It is our ongoing policy to use Artificial Insemination and Embryo Transfer to advance our genetic progress. ET has really given us some huge gains in recent years and these days many of our “elite” stud sheep are bred via this method.
World renowned sheepclasser Sandy MacKirdy and Matt (with over 70 years of combined stud breeding experience) individually scrutinise each stud ewe annually to ensure she measures up to a very high visual standard. Stud lambs are assessed visually at weaning as we feel this is the same stage that a commercial second cross sucker lamb is generally marketed straight off mum.
RAMS AVAILABLE
Icon Poll Dorset’s has for sale approx. 30 Poll Dorset rams. They are well fleshed long rams with deep thick bodies and nice clean faces.
June/July 08 drop by leading Australian and NZ sires. Carcass Plus indexes to 196%. Priced from $500 (discounts and delivery available for bulk orders)
Inaugural Ram Sale was held on property at "Chrome", Dartmoor/Digby Road, Hamilton Saturday 10th of October 2009. Inspection was from 10:30am, sale commenced at 1:00pm.
>>Click here for more informationPrivate selection rams will be available from the 12th of October 2009
This year the number and quality of rams on offer has increased greatly on previous years. This is largely due to an extensive Embryo Transfer programme carried out in Jan 2008.
SEMEN SIRES
ICON 56/07
wwt 9.0 pwt 14.3 pfat -0.7 pemd 1.7 C+ 194
12 months of age
12 months of age
2 Years of ageIcon 56/07 is easily the best son of Linton (NZ) 247/03 that we have bred to date. His pedigree is unique in that he is virtually unrelated to the majority of the Poll Dorset’s in Australia. He has tremendous thickness right through his body and has a fantastic hindquarter. His 2009 drop lambs both ET and Natural, lambed down easily with no lambing difficulties and look like their father, displaying his tremendous carcass attributes. His Sire Linton 247/03 has bred extremely well for a number of studs both in Australia and New Zealand. Neville Greenwood from the Adelong Stud (NZ) who owns the sire of 247/03 holds him in very high regard and purchased a half share in the ram.
Sire: Linton (NZ) 247/03 x Adelong (NZ) 003/01
Dam: Icon 419/05 x Icon 269/04 x Linton (NZ) 514/00
Icon 298/07
wwt 9.0 Pwwt 14.8 Pfat - 0.2 Pemd 1.3 C+ 188
at 12 months of age
Sire: Linton (NZ) 514/00
Icon 298/07 sired by Linton (NZ) 514/00 is a very long ram displaying the attributes of his father. He has very good depth of body considering his fantastic growth features and is not long in the leg for a high growth ram. He has a smooth shoulder and typical downs type wool.
Trait Leader for growth
Sire: Linton (NZ) 514/00
Dam: Icon 153/03 x Mosley 1108/01
Icon 255/08
wwt 9.9 Pwt 13.5 Pfat -0.7 Pemd 0.9 C+ 185
Sire: Icon 65/05 x Linton (NZ) 514/00
Dam: Icon 135/06 x Tattykeel 358/04 x Tattykeel Rippa
Icon 255/08 is what we consider to be the perfect blend of high performance NZ genetics coupled together with the thickness and muscling of the Tattykeel sheep. ET bred from one of top performing ewe lines over the last few years 255/08 has tight downsy type skins on both sides of his pedigree. He has good neck extension and a fantastic outlook with tones of meat in the hindquarter.
EVENTS
We will have a stand in the Sheep Marquee (Site 335) at Hamilton Sheepvention on the 1st Monday and Tuesday of August each year. Please come and see us.
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