Faded hues blanket the Donnan family’s 6,000-hectare property near Willangie, Victoria and paddocks swirl with dust and tumbleweeds.
”We forget how nice it can look,” Joel Donnan says. It’s not always like this: as summer recedes and the cooler months approach, their country between Sea Lake and Birchip in the Mallee will transform. “If we’ve had good early rain, the whole joint just goes boom and it’s green.”
Joel is a fifth-generation farmer who has sheep breeding in his blood. He and his wife Lauren, along with their three children — Leni, Arlo, and Rudy — live in his great-grandparents’ home that they joke has remained unchanged for 150 years, with his parents living two kilometres down the road.
When we visit, the Donnans are celebrating 40 years of breeding White Suffolks. Anden Stud, established in 1989, has expanded to also breed Ultra-Whites, Suffolks and Poll Dorsets. Joel took out one of the industry’s top honours last year when he was named Prime Lamb Producer of the Year at the Australian Sheep & Wool Show (“a tick for staying good at the job,” he notes).
Over the past five years, Joel has refined operations at Anden, narrowing joining times to an intense two weeks to allow for efficiencies out the other end: “Two weeks of flat knacker where every lamb lands at the same time,” he says. And that gives him extra time to do things like advancing the stud’s sustainability efforts by measuring methane emissions relative to feed inputs. “It’s a way of pushing the boundaries,” he says. “We want to be ahead and do the right thing for the industry.
Joel was heavily involved in the stud growing up, and became a decision-maker after taking a short break to complete an apprenticeship in landscape gardening. "Mum and Dad said I couldn't go straight onto the farm after school," he says, "so I went to Swan Hill, an hour away from the farm." Staying close was important — he insisted on being home for weekend footy and farm work.
These days, everyone and everything he cares about is right here at Anden Stud. Though he often misses bath time, books, and bedtime, he still makes an effort to spend one-on-one time with each of his children—even if that means them joining him on afternoon jobs, opening gates or cleaning troughs.
The Donnan kids are impressively handy and seem likely to be the sixth generation to make a life on the land here. Seven-year-old Arlo has no trouble mustering sheep a couple kilometres into the yards and three-year-old Rudy much prefers working stock over going to kindergarten. It’s a source of pride for their parents. "My kids are good at sports and that's amazing,” Lauren says, “but watching them learn real-life skills hits differently for me.”
