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Twelve different families, mothering almost 1000 stud ewes annually, to produce true medium wool sheep. |
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Collinsville is run on a commercial basis comprising of 22,000 merino ewes producing 10,000 merino wether lambs |
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Collinsville’s cropping program consists of 3,500 hectares. This consists of wheat, barley, oats, canola, peas and lupins. |
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Irrigation program is run at North Booborowie and is mainly used to background wether lambs coming into the feedlot |
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Expanding operations in agricultural and station areas, and establishing lamb feedlotting for the domestic market |
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Collinsville Lamb Collinsville merino lambs are born and bred on Collinsville’s pastoral properties 70km’s North East of Burra in the Mid North of South Australia. These animals are large framed and mature quickly grazing on natural salt bush, blue bush and native herbage and succulents in a 225ml rainfall zone guaranteeing a natural back grounding environment. This stress free environment produces a delicately flavoured, very tender meat that needs little hanging. These lambs are fattened and finished at 10 to 11 months of age through our modern and state-of-the-art feedlot facility at Booborowie, situated in the Booborowie Valley also in the Mid North of South Australia. These animals are fed cereal grain and legumes produced on Collinsville’s inland properties for a 45 day period producing meat of the highest quality and flavour.  Collinsville controls all parts of the merino lamb production line from personally overseeing the selection of lambs, transportation and butchery of these animals to Hanners & Peebles Restaurant. All our animals are naturally reared on land farmed in an environmentally sensitive way. This stress free way of life produces meat of the highest quality and flavour. The lamb is being served at two Victorian golf link restaurants in what is a true paddock to plate initiative. Fattened either in the Collinsville feedlot or on irrigated pastures, the lamb is used across the menus at the “Pebbles” restaurant at Moonah Links Golf Course, near Rye, and in the “Hanners” restaurant at Sands Golf Course, Torquay (owned by Collinsville owners Paddy and Helen Handbury). Gourmet Collinsville lamb burgers (using mince), gourmet marinated Collinsville lamb, spinach and goats cheese pizzas (using backstraps) are favorites at Hanners Restaurant, while roasts and barbecues are popular in the restaurants corporate catering. Lambs are cut to the chef’s specifications at Jamestown, crivac packed and transported to Victoria by refrigerated freight. Initially the restaurants were taking 10 lambs each per month - this has grown to 20 lambs each per month. “It is a great opportunity to promote Collinsville lamb,” Collinsville general manager Peter Whittlesea says. Hanners Restaurant chef Rodney Lewis agrees, and is rapt with the consistency of the lambs coming into the restaurant. “The Collinsville lamb has great flavor and tenderness and good fat content, and we are getting consistent quality which is particularly important,” Rodney says. Peter says consistent top quality supply of lamb is crucial to the initiative. “Our plan is to use only Merino lambs that are Collinsville blood - with Collinsville bloodlines we know what we are dealing with,” Peter says. The first shipments to the restaurants came out of Collinsville’s feedlot, a 3000-head fully automated feedlot established on Collinsville’s Booborowie property. However, with high grain prices making feedlotting unviable, more recent shipments have been fattened on the property’s irrigated lucerne country. Peter says Collinsville is also investigating the possibility of sending processed lamb into Japan. |
