YOUNG farmer Ben Hartwich has been voted top of the class by his peers, winning a prestigious award at Sydney\u2019s Royal Easter Show.<\/p>\n
23-year-old Ben was named National Merino Sheep Young Judge Champion, beating entries from all other states and New Zealand.<\/p>\n
In 2020, he won the Victorian title, but COVID lockdowns and restrictions meant the national title wasn\u2019t decided until earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Ben grew up at Ballyrogan and works full time on his family farm, along with his father and brothers.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s the fourth generation to work at the farm Mount Challicum – which has a commercial flock of around 12,000 sheep along with a Merino stud.<\/p>\n
Ben was modest about his win when he spoke with the Advocate this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t too fussed on winning but it was a good experience,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI won the state title before COVID and then you get nominated for the national finals. It has been delayed. We were going to New Zealand in 2020 and then Brisbane in 2021 but COVID stopped those obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ben said judging is based on a number of factors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way the sheep stand and the size of the sheep and the type of wool, evenness of wool, that sort of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been around sheep on the family farm my whole life so I\u2019ve got a bit of experience,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
“I’ve been judging at local shows. I\u2019ve grown up around it and it is an interest of mine,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think mum is a more excited (by the award) than I am,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ben said he is in debt to his father who has taught him a lot about the industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve learnt a lot off dad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve always been sheep farmers. I\u2019m always looking for ways to improving things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The competition at the Royal Easter Show brought together the best young Merino sheep judges aged from 15 to 25 from each state and New Zealand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
YOUNG farmer Ben Hartwich has been voted top of the class by his peers, winning a prestigious award at Sydney\u2019s Royal Easter Show.
\n23-year-old Ben was named National Merino Sheep Young Judge Champion, beating entries from all other states and New Zealand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[31],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ben-Sydney-show-22.jpg?fit=503%2C1280&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-j2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1180"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}