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History of Rosewood
The stud principle of Rosewood, David Sainsbury, has sheep breeding in his blood. Both his paternal and maternal grandparents had properties in the Yass region breeding merino sheep and he grew up helping on these properties. Since 1988 he has owned wool producing properties and in 1995 purchased the 600 acre property known as Rosewood and proceeded to successfully produce a high quality and even superfine wool flock. In 2005 he decided that wool production on a small property was no longer financially viable. Having used a poll dorset ram over cast-for-age ewes to produce fat lambs for sometime he decided to start a poll dorset stud focusing on producing rams for the local conditions that will produce the type of lambs demanded by the current meat market.
Initially using a Springwaters ram, Rosewood has since built on the genetics of the other highly successful studs of Hillden at Bannister and Tattykeel at Oberon and, most recently, Abelene Park at Tamworth. These studs are renowned for producing rams with ‘tremendous fleshing through the loin and hind quarter’. Rosewood is consistently breeding rams that are fast growing, structurally correct, well-muscled sheep with well developed loin and hind quarters and with smoothness through the shoulders for easier lambing. Foundation stud ewes were purchased from Springwaters, Hillden, Rosemary Hall and Gererdan Studs. Careful and stringent culling of the ewes over the years have resulted in a consistent, even mob of ewes that are excellent mothers and ‘good-doers’ in the local conditions.