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
LATEST NEWS
Awarded 2006 RASV Young farmer of the Year - see media releasesCLICK HERE
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LOCATION
The ICON Poll Dorset stud is located 5km west of Hamilton, Victoria, in 700mm rainfall country.PHOTO GALLERY >>Click Here
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.For the 2006 and 2007 lambing 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
Rams are sold privately on farm from late October each year with Lambplan figures.
SEMEN SIRES
Icon 56.07 is easily the best son of Linton (NZ) 247.03 that we have bred. His pedigree is unique in that he is virtually unrelated to the majority of Poll Dorsets in Australia. He has tremendous thickness right through his body and a fantastic hindquater. His sire Linton 247.03 has bred extremely well in NZ and a half share was bought by the owner of his Sire (Adelong 3.01) Neville Greenwood.
Sale Rams at 13 months of age
Icon 298/07 at 12 months
Sire: Linton (NZ) 514/00
Pwwt 14.5 Pfat - 0.3 Pemd 1.2 C+ 186
Run 15/03/2008
EVENTS
We will have a stand in the Sheep Marquee (Site 194-196) at Hamilton Sheepvention on the 1st Monday and Tuesday of August each year. Please come and see us.
Sheepvention PreviewPHOTO GALLERY >>Click Here
