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Contact UsThe Border Leicester production system
The Border Leicester production system is an Australian prime-lamb breeding approach that uses Border Leicester rams over Merino ewes to produce productive first-cross Border Merino females. These ewes combine the Merino’s resilience and adaptability with Border Leicester maternal traits—including fertility, milk production, size and mothering ability—creating a strong foundation for consistent lamb production across a range of farming environments.
The Border Leicester production system follows a structured crossbreeding pathway: a Border Leicester ram is joined to Merino ewes, the resulting first-cross ewes are retained as maternal breeders, and those ewes are then joined to terminal sires such as Poll Dorset, White Suffolk, Suffolk or Texel rams. This enables producers to capture the strengths of each breed: Merino hardiness in the base flock, Border Leicester maternal performance in the ewe flock, and terminal-sire growth and carcase traits in the final lamb crop. The model can help producers target improved lamb survival, lamb growth and market-ready carcase outcomes, while retaining the flexibility to choose genetics suited to local climate, feed availability, enterprise scale and target markets.
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