Parkdale

Property Name: “Parkdale”

Location: Parkdale is located on the Collie Road, a 25 minute drive from the thriving city of Dubbo in Central West, NSW

History & People:

The Mudford families have been farming and grazing in the Gilgandra and Dubbo areas in the Central West of NSW for 100 years. Don and Pam Mudford registered the Parkdale Merino Stud in 1990 after breeding rams for the families’ properties. They have two sons and two daughters. Robert and his wife Meg live at Birrimba Station (Enngonia NSW - between Bourke and Cunnamulla) where he owns with Scott 53,000 acres conservatively carrying 5,000 breeding ewes with surplus feed being agisted out to cattle when seasons permit. Scott manages 3,000 acres at Weona Park (Collie NSW) which is used for finishing surplus sheep from Birrimba. He also manages the farming side of operations at both Weona Park and Parkdale. Tammy was Parkdale’s Stud Overseer - she has a good eye for detail and keeps operations running smoothly, currently is a vet nurse and A.I. technician in Dubbo and soon moving to Western Australia to further her experience in A.I. work. Sarah after completing Year 12 at Dubbo Christian School commenced work as a vet nurse at a local Dubbo veterinary clinic.

Sustainable Production:

Parkdale merinos and poll merinos are bred on SRS® breeding principles. They have the great advantage of being bare-breeched and therefore do not need to be mulesed. The sheep are plain bodied and virtually free of skin wrinkling.

Parkdale is a well balanced property of 6,000 acres with a mixture of open soft black soils to red clay and red loam slopes. Shade timber has been left for stock and the property is watered by ample ground tanks and several bores to supplement water requirements. There are also two creeks that traverse the property adding shade timber and watering points to the already well watered paddocks. The property is managed on a rotational grazing system where country is spelled regularly to allow for natural grasses and herbages to establish.

Benefits of SRS®

Parkdale has developed a remarkable stud flock of merino and poll merino sheep bred on SRS® selection principles. The sheep are plain-bodied and often bare-breeched, are not mulesed and produce deceptively high fleece weights of very soft wool.

The sires have exceptional length of body, solid bone and fit the desired "triple wedge" shape. Necks are long and the faces very open. Parkdale SRS® Merino Stud ceased mulesing in 2004. Fertility is rising rapidly with some mobs reaching lambing percentages of 130% to 160%. Parkdale has 2,000 stud ewes with an average wool cut of 8kg per adult ewe at an average of 19.6 micron. The Stud ewes are shorn each 8 months. During 2010 we will be moving to shearing each 6 months (such is the long staple of the Parkdale sheep). Parkdale stud ewes, after a natural mating at 1.5% of Parkdale sires, had an average of 128% of lambs from ewes joined in 2009. We sell 250, both poll and horned rams annually. Parkdale sheep are renowned for their long, well aligned staple, high fertility and fecundity.

Contacts:
Name: Don, Pam & Scott Mudford
Address: “Parkdale” MS4, Collie Rd, Dubbo 2830
Website: www.parkdalesrs.net.au
Ph: 02 6887 6266
Mobile: 0428 876266
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Name: Robert & Meg Mudford
Address: “Birrimba” Mitchell Hwy, Bourke 2840
Ph: 02 6874 7565
Mobile: 0428 876282
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