2026 Ram Sale

Thursday November 26th 12:30pm

Golden period for sheep breeders only just beginning

We are very excited that this long overdue turnaround for the sheep industry is set to reward our resilient sheep breeder clients with very strong returns in the years ahead. A global shortage of protein and a diminishing ewe flock worldwide is likely to sustain these record prices for the foreseeable future.

We celebrated 100 years of Romney ram breeding in 2025 and as we look forward to the 2026 ram selling season we can’t wait to offer you this year’s terrific line-up of rams across all our breeds.  

“The role of superior genetics has never been more important for you to capture these exceptional returns available”.

The rams we are breeding today are designed to maximise fertility with exceptional lamb survival and growth rates, while minimizing labour and drench requirements.

“At Meadowslea we haven’t done a lambing beat for 35 years, completely eliminating lambing and bearing problems, and permanently changing the mothering ability behaviour, and body condition of our ewe flock.”

Wool recovery driving demand for Romney based genetics

The recent recovery in wool prices has surprised everyone in the sheep industry. The remarkable strengthening of the market in the last 12 months saw the South Island strong wool indicator for the 2025/26 season open at $3.25/kg and close at $7.70/kg! 

The Romney breed has made remarkable production gains in the last 30 years, now matching or outperforming the composite breeds, while delivering far superior wool weight and quality, higher survival, and better longevity.

With fertility levels generally now high enough in most sheep flocks in NZ, introducing more Romney influence looks set to increase as sheep farmers look to capture more returns from wool and improve survival, longevity, and structural soundness in their flocks.

2026 ram lineup

Romneys continue to lead our genetic gain with this year’s record scanning at 194%. With tailing still to complete the twin blocks tailed to date are achieving outstanding survival with around 190% through the pen. These undrenched Romney ewes were set stocked at lambing and left totally unshepherded for 6 weeks. We tag them and take DNA as they come down the tailing chute to establish parentage and ensure no human intervention during lambing.

It is great to see wool $ is back to more than paying its way, and also plays a strong part in survival, ensuring lambs are born with a thicker pelt and skin. All our sale rams have fleece weights and micron tests available while wool quality and colour are high on our selection list.

Worm Resistant Kiki South Romneys In 2020 we were the biggest purchaser of ewes from the dispersal of the Kikitangeo worm resistant stud Romney flock in Northland. Stud master Gordon Levitt had spent 40 years selecting sheep that could push through a worm challenge undrenched and we have continued this policy at Meadowslea.  The Kiki South lambs we are producing are required to push through a worm challenge totally undrenched for the season. Many of them struggle and are culled and only those that can handle the challenge are taken through to become either ewe replacements or sale rams.  We retain the highest worm resistant rams as outcross sires for our Meadowslea Romneys ensuring strong worm resistance is being maintained.

We have made significant production gains with these Kiki South sheep and the last two seasons they have scanned over 200% with much improved growth rates and survival in our unshepherded system.

Romdale We again have an outstanding line of Romdale Rams on offer. We lease top performing Perendale rams from Blair and Hamish Gallagher’s Rangiatea stud and mate with a selection of top Romney ewes to produce these deep bodied meaty rams with heaps of hybrid vigour, survival and get-up-and-go!

Perendale x Texel x Romney This exciting breed has been established by mating our first cross Romdale ewes with our own top performing Texel x Romney rams. The resultant progeny is                 ½ Romney, ¼ Texel, ¼ Perendale, and this is a mix that ticks a lot of boxes for strong performance in hill-country. The influence of the Texel delivers significant increases to the Romdale weaning drafts, and the extra hybrid vigour gives a lift in scanning percentages and body condition.

Texel x Romney We have another strong line-up of first cross ½ Texel x ½ Romney rams, as well as a number of ¾ Romney X ¼ Texel rams on offer. We lease top fertility Texel ram lambs and mate to carefully selected Romney stud ewes to ensure feet and shoulder structure is correct and maximise the powerful hindquarter from the Texel. Clients are achieving outstanding weaning drafts and lamb weights from this breed while enjoying easy lambing and good mothering ability.

K. Romney This breed is performing very strongly for clients with many reports this year of outstanding lamb survival in some of the worst of the southern storms. The breed base is a Kelso composite ram mated over strong-bodied stud Romney ewes, and we say the resultant progeny are the “best of both worlds”. They carry extra fertility genes originating from the Finn, extra milk from the East Friesian, with strong growth and meat yield from the Texel. Combine all that performance with the proven structural soundness, good feet and longevity of the Romney and results are outstanding.

K.Maternal  This composite breed delivers outstanding performance from a four-breed cross that includes Texel, East Friesian, Finn, and Romney. We have added more Romney to the mix to strengthen bone, feet and structural soundness. The body shape of these rams is perfect for hogget mating with exceptional clean shoulders and narrower head ensuring easy lambing with great success over Merinos as well.

Terminator Our hill-bred blackface terminal sires are incredibly popular, breeding lambs with outstanding survival, high growth rates, and exceptional yields. The background of this breed started with Perendale type hill ewes, bred with a selection of various black face breeds, as well as the Texel. These ewes were turned out on hard hill-country totally unshepherded and the resultant female progeny formed the basis of a hardy, tough, high survival terminal breed. We have further developed them adding more dark face genes and latterly the Hampshire in the mix to add even more hybrid vigour and carcase quality. These blackface sheep that are bred entirely unshepherded on hill-country for 20 years give no feet trouble and have strong survival and longevity genes meaning we have no hesitation guaranteeing them for 3 years.

The Terminator rams carcase scan with very good muscle, have naturally high fat levels, and are all ranked for IMF as well. They will lift your survival to tailing, increase your weaning drafts, and give you the option of achieving bigger weights later in the season. They are achieving great results for clients from high-country Merino and Halfbred properties through to intensive early finishing country.

NZ’s biggest Ram Sale at Meadowslea on Thursday November 26^th offers existing and new clients the chance to secure rams at the very top of the Meadowslea breeding programme with a choice of over 350 rams across 8 different breeds.

The simultaneous online and on-farm Helmsman sale format through the Yourbid platform enables those unable to attend in person to have the same opportunities to buy.

Registration is now open at www.meadowslea.co.nz with full videos and catalogues coming soon.

Ram Order form – in order to help us catalogue the right mix of breeds to offer in the sale please give us an indication of your ram requirements so we can meet all our clients needs

We will also have rams available for private treaty in the weeks following the ram sale.

Accommodation Available – we have rooms available at the local Kimbell Hotel and Motels. This is free for our clients on a first-in-first-served basis so please click the link below if you would like to stay and enjoy our hospitality

We are looking forward to catching up with many of you in the next few weeks and hosting you all on Thursday 26^th November!

Kind regards and all the best for the season ahead

David and George Giddings