Stud #33
Doonkami Australian Whites
The History of Doonkami
The White family purchased “Tucka Tucka” property, situated on the Macintyre River between Yetman and Boggabilla, in 1905.
In the early 1920’s “Tucka Tucka” was divided between the three sons. The southeast portion was passed onto my Grandfather “Alan White”. After returning from World War 1 he channelled his energy into water conservation schemes and to this day we still have the swamps and lagoons that he created.
In 1924 Alan built a substantial brick home on a stone ridge and named his portion of land “Doonkami” which is the aboriginal meaning for “On a Rise”.
A Shorthorn cattle herd was the main enterprise on the property which bred and fattened the progeny. Together with the breeding enterprise, contracts to supply bulls to northern properties “Canobie”, “Chatsworth”, “Rocklands” and “Brunette Downs” were in place and continued until 1963.
Alan also ran a Border Leicester sheep stud for a period of time.
Alan fathered four daughters with his second youngest daughter Robin eventually taking on “Doonkami” with her husband Ken McIntyre. They ran the property from 1960 until late 2006 where they retired to Goondiwindi. They continued with the Shorthorn Breeding operation that Alan ran and also moved into a small amount of cereal cropping. They had a strong passion for horses where they bred and used Doonkami as their prefix for their Australian stock horse progeny. This passion is still strong today as I’ve continued breeding ponies at Doonkami.
Ken and Robin had 2 children, myself Jenni Baker, and younger brother Ranald. In late 2006 my husband Bob Baker and I moved back to Doonkami to take over from my Parents. Since this move has taking place Doonkami has seen some major changes moving into more farming country, mainly Dryland cotton, and also the push into Australian White Sheep. In 2012 our son Scott and his wife Hannah joined the operation.
We are now currently running a Stud and a Commercial Australian White Flock along with continuing the Shorthorn Herd and cropping operation. In better seasons we will also run some backgrounders.