Rose and Graham Price, Glencoe, pictured with their nine-month-old lamb’s fleece, turned to soft rolling skin genetics seeking rapid genetic gain and improved productivity in their flock. Image Price family
A shift to soft rolling skins genetics from a traditional fine wool Merino has resulted in increased fleece weights, fertility, and growth rates plus reduced fly strike for a family in a high rainfall environment.
Graham and Rose Price dovetailed their self-replacing 750 Merino ewe flock with an Angus herd of 150 cows on 440hain 875mm rainfall zone country comprising mainly granite soils at Glencoe in the NSW New England.
Graham is a third generation fine wool Merino grower and juggled a full-time off-farm job up until his recent retirement, with Rose managing the bulk of the farming operations.
The couple were keen on the philosophy and practical applications of soft rolling skins (SRS®) and looked outside the New England region for a suitable ram source.
They wanted easy care sheep that would grow faster and be more robust to lift lamb survival rates and fleece weights while maintaining wool quality.
“We liked the plain body, bigger style of sheep and the bold, crimpy and stylish wool,” Graham said.
For Rose, it came down to handle – she could feel the difference in the wool and the SRS® wools stood out for softness.
Fibre diameter in their flock ranged from 15 micron in the maiden ewes to 16 micron in the hoggets while adults averaged under 18 micron.
Seeking rapid genetic gain and improved productivity in their flock, the couple turned to Glenwood Merinos at Wellington, NSW, as an SRS® ram source eight years ago.
“What was appealing about the Glenwood sheep was the wool was very good and we felt it would be a good match with ours, which proved to be correct. Our micron became a bit finer while maintaining our wool quality,” Graham said.
At the time, their ewes were cutting an average of 3kg on an annual shearing and the couple aimed to lift both fleece weight and lambing percentages.
“Improved carcase weights were a secondary consideration but became a strong consideration once we decided we would go with Glenwood,” Rose said.
The couple had stopped mulesing in 2004 and were impressed the Glenwood sheep had not been mulesed since 2005, while the plain bodies reduced susceptibility to flystrike.
As a true superfine flock, the Price’s wool had been favoured by Italian buyers with the couple travelling to the Italian mills to speak directly with the processors.
“The Italian mills were paying premiums for the traditional short New England superfine wool and we always received very strong wool prices,” Graham said.
“But we felt production wise it was not an option for us to remain with a traditional style sheep.
“We aimed to improve the handle, crimp, and length – we stopped worrying about micron 20 years ago as the skins on our sheep were very good producing free growing wool.
“Productivity is measured through your gross margins and not by the auction price.
“The wool cut and size of the sheep were profit drivers for me as size and better fat cover means good resale value.”
The Schneider Group invited the couple to join their Authentico program, an integrity scheme building commercial quantities of fully traceable wool for export to their own specialised combing mills in Italy and Egypt.
Graham and Rose switched to an eight monthly shearing to push productivity while maintaining a 3kg fleece weight at 17 micron, and with a view to eventually move to a double shearing.
“To maintain our wool weights on an eight-month shearing, we were actively feeding our ewes through winter when they needed it and supplementing with mineral blocks to get them through on a good condition score,” Rose said.
“By going to twice a year shearing it gave us a lot more flexibility of fitting in when the shearers were available.”
The top selling line from the adult ewes last year was 17.0 micron with a vegetable matter of 0.7 per cent, had a yield of 79.9 per cent, 99.6 per cent comfort factor, 81mm staple length, staple strength of 44 N/ktex and had a clean sale price of 2912c/kg.
The top line in the lambs last year was 15.7 micron with 0.4 vegetable matter, had a comfort factor of 99.7 per cent, 91mm staple length, staple strength of 40 N/ktex, and a clean price of 3429c/kg.
Glenwood Merinos principal Norm Smith and sheep classer Trevor Nicholson identified rams suited to the summer conditions on the New England and classed the couple’s maiden ewes.
With ram selection based on positive fat and body length, the injection of Glenwood genetics resulted in increased growth rates in the lambs.
“The lambs were big and strong, and we saw our lambing percentages lift along with better mothering ability,” Graham said.
“In the past, under 25 per cent of our ewes were a body condition score of 2.5-3 at joining and at pregnancy scanning averaged less than five per cent multiples.
“Multiple pregnancies increased to 20 to 25 per cent on the Glenwood genetics with lamb marking in the adult ewes increasing from 75 to 100 per cent.”
Shorn pre-joining, the ewes were pregnancy scanned into singles, multiples and dries with the empties culled and the multiples preferentially fed.
“This year we jetted the lambs when we weaned them in January – we never jet the grown sheep and had just two fly blown ewes out of 1000 this year,” Graham said.
“Last year was incredibly wet but we had no fleece rot – they handled the high rainfall very well.”
To counter the barber’s pole worm burdens in the New England, the couple used Barbervax monthly for the past five years, a vaccine providing an alternative to drench-based control.
Rose said monthly monitoring using faecal egg counts led to increased production in the grown sheep.
Although Graham and Rose made the hard decision to disperse their flock of 1800 sheep in May 2023 due to health concerns, they rate the sheep flock well above cattle for gross margins.
“Merino sheep are a versatile enterprise through good and bad seasons, with two sources of income and they do well in this environment,” Rose said.
Their wether lambs were either fattened or sold as stores online.
“We did sell some wethers locally and the purchaser found there were no fly problems,” Graham said.
“We found Norm Smith very approachable and passionate about his sheep – if he is making genetic gains then you will be making genetic gains. It was a real pleasure to do business with him.”