About Us
Breeding Objectives
Our breeding objectives are focused around producing rams which produce profitable lambs in a range of environments.
The focus of our breeding program is to produce rams with moderate birthweight, rapid growth and muscling, worm resistance, eating quality and easy care attributes. Our goal is a BALANCED animal with superior LAMBPLAN ABSVs as well as excellent physical structure.
OUR OBJECTIVES
Our key breeding objectives here at Ashmore are around profit for our clients. The first objective is growth. A lamb that grows fast is a low cost lamb.
In this video we also unpack other important Ashmore Rams traits that help drive profit for our clients’ sheep businesses.
| Rapid Growth | Weaning and Post Weaning Weight |
| High Meat Yield, High Value Carcase | Post Weaning Fat and Muscle Depth, DNA for Lean Meat Yield (LMY), Marbling (IMF), Tenderness (SF5) |
| Worm Resistance | Post Weaning Worm Egg Count |
| Easy Care | Birth Weight, Lambing Ease, Number of Lambs Weaned, Bare Breech, Temperament |
Animal Health & Welfare
At Ashmore we have a rigorous program for animal health with comprehensive record keeping and routine testing of our sheep.
As a result, we have:
- Ovine Brucellosis Accreditation 956
- MN3V status in the Ovine Johnes Disease (OJD) Market Assurance Program Accreditation SO92
- Guaranteed footrot and lice free
A routine 6 in 1 vaccination program is administered. In 2019 we commenced vaccinating with Gudair for OJD as a service to our growing client base in higher risk areas.
At Ashmore we believe very strongly about selecting easy care animals to ensure high welfare of our animals.
Our objectives are:
- Select for excellent feet and leg structure
- Select for worm resistance
- Select for bare breech
- Select for lambing ease and moderate birthweight
Our goal is to eliminate undesirable traits so our clients can enjoy fast growing, early maturing, healthy sheep and their ewes have minimal problems during lambing.
Our History
Charles Mullen purchased land in the Wasleys area in the 1860's after moving here from Ireland. He cleared the land to plant wheat and found the tree stumps rather frustrating so he pioneered the Stump Jump plough, hence the term "Mullenising" was born which means planting crops around tree stumps. A monument to his invention stands just outside of Wasleys today.
Charles Mullen's daughter Florence, married John Harold Fischer in 1904 and purchased "Angle Farm" in 1919. Initially the property had an Ayrshire Dairy cattle stud, sheep and a transport business taking produce to Adelaide once a week on a horse drawn wagon, as well as growing wheat, barley and hay. In 1924 they won Grand Champion Ayreshire Bull and Cow at the Royal Adelaide Show.
Their son, Reginald Fischer bought neighbouring "Ashmore" and joined the two properties together. He and later his son Brian ran merino sheep, cropping and hay for many years. Brian started on the farm at the age of 14 and has been working the property ever since - over sixty years now and still going strong. This is largely due to his secret weapon, Rhonda, his wife of over 50 years.
The fourth generation Fischer, Troy, as an 11 year old convinced his father Brian to purchase a stud ram and some ewes from Allendale White Suffolk Stud in 1988. An entire suffolk stud was purchased in 1990 and further ewes were purchased to bolster the numbers, mating these to white suffolk rams. The first on property sale was held at Ashmore in 1993.
Brian continued to improve the White Suffolk offering whilst Troy left to obtain his PhD in Sheep Genetics at the University of New England. Upon return from the eastern states in 2008 Troy, along with his then new wife Nette, joined Brian to continue operating the stud, taking the genetics to a new level every year.
The fifth generation, Isabelle, Indigo and Elke Fischer have now joined the property and although still young, are a key part in plenty of activities on the farm such as tailing, shifting mobs of sheep and providing Dad, Mum and their Grandparents plenty of advice!
Pinery Fire
On the 25th November 2015, a large & incredibly fast bushfire tore through a large part of the lower mid north of South Australia. Unfortunately it burnt 100% of Ashmore and destroyed our entire ewe flock as well as all our stud rams.
A silver lining to this disaster was that a large portion of the 2015 drop ram and ewe lambs survived the fire and were sent away to a farm an hour north which had the same disease status.
We are forever grateful to Bob & Idrienne Neil of Wheetelande White Suffolk Stud for taking on our lambs for many months while we rebuilt our farm. We rebuilt our adult ewe flock within a few months from a combination of donated ewes, loaned ewes, purchased ewes as well as a large Embryo Transfer program on elite ewes donated by the top breeders in Australia.
We can never repay the kindness shown to us by the White Suffolk and wider farming community with hay and grain donations. Blazeaid were instrumental in rebuilding our fences and life long friendships remain.
