25/08/2026
Meet our Breeders – Nick Fazekas - Rising Tally SheepMaster, York.
Sheep have been part of my life for as long as I can remember.
Originally from South Australia, I am now the fifth generation of my family to farm in Australia. My mother’s family, the Lawsons, were among the early settlers of Padthaway in South Australia’s South East, and sheep have always been an important part of our family’s farming history.
After completing university, I spent around four years working with the McTaggart family and Nonning Pastoral in the Gawler Ranges of South Australia and around Port Hedland, gaining valuable hands-on experience with both sheep and cattle.
I then moved into the agricultural services industry, spending approximately 14 years with IAMA, Wesfarmers, Landmark and AWB before joining Elders. I have now been with Elders for more than 17 years, holding a number of roles across client management and the national retail business.
In 2019, I took on the role of State General Manager for Elders in Western Australia. It was during this period that my wife Fiona and I purchased our first farm in early 2020, in the Dale/Beverley region, around 130 km from Perth.
Although I had worked with Merinos for most of my life, it was after purchasing the farm that I started looking more closely at alternative sheep breeds. I became particularly interested in the SheepMaster, developed by Neil Garnett. What really caught my attention was the easy-care, low-maintenance nature of the breed — no shearing, no crutching and significantly less labour, while still producing a productive, fast-growing lamb.
The SheepMaster’s ability to produce fast-growing, early-maturing and fast-finishing prime lambs, combined with its adaptability to different environments, really appealed to me. Having lambs that can thrive through the cold, wet and frosty conditions we can experience from May through to August in our part of WA was another major attraction.
The more I worked with SheepMaster, the more impressed I became. The combination of easy care, fertility, growth, early maturity and prime lamb production makes the breed a very compelling proposition for a commercial sheep producer.
That interest has grown into Rising Tally SheepMaster.
In 2024, together with fellow breeder Trevor Flugge, I was fortunate enough to purchase a share in Hercules, a ram with exceptional attributes and a genetic package we were very keen to introduce into our program. We now have Hercules progeny on the ground at Rising Tally and have been extremely impressed with what we are seeing. The lambs are showing excellent growth rates, early development and, importantly, the genetic traits and overall type that we are looking to build into the Rising Tally flock.
Our focus at Rising Tally is simple — produce SheepMaster genetics that make sheep easier to manage, more productive and more profitable.
After a lifetime around sheep, I’m more excited about the future of the industry and the potential of SheepMaster than ever.
