Earnscleugh Station Stud was founded in 1988 and encompasses a 22,000ha sheep and beef operation in Central Otago.

There are 25,000 Merino sheep and the families are Ultrafine, Superfine/fine, Medium, Inverino™, Mermax™ and Smartsheep, their 1/4 bred type with SX Fine Wool genetics. There are also 1100 cattle on the property as part of Angus, Earnscleugh Composite and Hereford studs.

All stud sheep are polled, with the exception of the 13.5-micron Ultrafine flock. All other Merino studs have a focus on fast early growth, moderate mature size, good wool cut but not over-woolled, muscle & fat, and fertility.

Footrot is a major problem in the heavy, wet mid-altitude tussock country and on irrigated paddocks. For this reason, they joined the SX Fine Wool Breeding Group, to breed sheep resistant to footrot.

Earnscleugh also have rams in the NZ Benchmark Progeny test and their cull rams are joined with culls from other studs and footrot challenged — this work is to help improve the accuracy of footrot breeding values.

Stud sires are run on an irrigated paddock - if they get footrot are culled.

Conservation and the aim of becoming carbon neutral are very important too, and also to the companies that buy their wool.