Farmer Writes: wool price is very disheartening

We managed to get all the ewes shorn here last week in a single day. Having a team of top-class shearers doing the job speeds things up.

At 50c/kg, the current price of wool is very disheartening, considering the true cost of removing the wool is somewhere in the region of 90c/kg.

Is it time we as commercial farmers started to look more into the wool-shedding breeds such as Easycare, Dorper or Exlana?

The traditional breeds were originally bred at a time when the wool industry had a very clear purpose in the economy, with wealth commonly calculated by how many sheep you owned. The Hundred Years’ War between England and France was even partly fought over it.

Now wool is a by-product with very little value. Wool breeds are looking more and more out of sync with what we as commercial farmers require in a world that has more options when it comes to clothing itself.

Creating this material is costing us farmers and, while someone will make gains at the end sale point, it most certainly is not us.

I am now preparing my ewes for the upcoming breeding season. One topic that is often discussed is the use of ewe lambs in a breeding programme. It has often been suggested that it would be easier if they were left until they are hoggets to breed from.

I find that breeding from my ewe lambs allows me to exploit their reproductive potential and it has also been well documented that ewes mated as lambs will have a higher lifetime production than ewes that are mated for the first time as yearlings.

At the same time, I have to factor in that ewe lambs have lower conception rates, give birth to fewer offspring, produce less milk and are more likely to experience problems at the time of birthing, resulting in extra supervision at lambing.

In addition, there may be sacrifices in their own growth rate. Ewes that are bred early may not catch up in weight until their second or third mating if not properly looked after.

Weight is a more important consideration than age when deciding if and when to breed ewe lambs. Ewe lambs should achieve approximately two-thirds of their mature weight before being bred. For example, lowland ewes that on average have a mature weight of between 65kg and 70kg would need to be on average 45kg when mated as ewe lambs.

At the moment, my ewe lambs are averaging 44kg but as this is an average weight, I am considering introducing meal to give the lighter lambs extra help reaching their target weight for breeding.

I have found that the extra lambs produced by my ewe lamb flock have effectively replaced the number of ewe lambs retained each year. This year, as numbers have reached my target of 1,200 ewes (including replacements), I am considering only keeping the ewe lambs that go in lamb as these will more than likely be the most fertile.

I will make a final decision on that after all the ewes are scanned in the new year.