Wool Production
Australian sheep are responsible for the production of a quarter of the world’s wool, a figure of over 450 million kilograms. Factors that influence production levels include: methods of harvesting wool, sheep husbandry and the health of the land.
There are approximately 114 million sheep in Australia that produce more than one quarter of the world's total wool.
Most Australian Merino flocks are shorn once a year. On average, an adult Merino produces four to five kilograms of greasy wool each year.
Sheep husbandry
Important wool characteristics are influenced by breeding, nutrition and husbandry. Good sheep husbandry involves:
- Correct stocking rates to reduce effects of dry periods.
- Drenching programs that minimise the incidence of scouring and dung stain by reducing the worm burden.
- Correct tail docking, mulesing and crutching to eliminate dung and urine stain from the fleece.
- Sensible grazing of the property to avoid areas of heavy grass seed or burr contamination.
- Correct application of jetting fluids and dips to eliminate fly strike and external parasites, such as lice, ticks and itchmite.
Shed management
Shed management is important for quality control of the wool clip.
The wool producer is responsible for:
- An adequate work facility.
- A clean shed free of contaminants.
- AWEX approved wool packs.
- Full information to the wool classer on the mobs of sheep to be shorn.
The wool classer is responsible for:
- Ensuring each fleece is carefully skirted.
- Separating cast fleeces from the main line.
- Supervising shed staff to ensure lower lines and oddments are correctly prepared and bales are accurately pressed.
- Preventing contamination occurring during shearing.
Both the wool producer and the wool classer must sign the Classer's Specification to confirm that the clip has been prepared to the AWEX standards.
Wool harvesting
There are three methods of wool harvesting:
- Traditional shearing
- Robotic shearing
- Biological wool harvesting
Traditional Shearing
Experienced shearers remove the fleece from the sheep in a series of rapid actions.
The fleece is left flat on the shearing board for a wool handler to collect. The fleece is thrown upwards and outwards onto a wool rolling table for skirting and classing.
Shearing is organised in a number of ways depending upon the property and the number of sheep to be shorn. A smaller property would normally employ a shearing team (including shearers, wool handlers and wool pressers) and the owner would do the wool classing using their owner/classer AWEX classification. On larger properties and pastoral stations it is common that a shearing contractor would be employed to provide all the necessary staff including the wool classer.
Robotic Shearing
Research started in 1974 at the University of WA on sheep-shearing robotics.
The robotic project was terminated in the early 1990s. Utilising some key patents from the project, AWRAP licensed SLAMP Ltd to develop a simplified Loading and Manipulating Platform (SLAMP).
Coupled with automatic sheep loading equipment, it helps a shearer to remove a fleece in slightly less time than traditional shearing and requires much less physical strength.
Biological Shearing
Bioclip is a biological process for removing the fleece that has been available to wool producers since 1998.
The science behind Bioclip was developed by the CSIRO Livestock Industries unit over the last 20 years.
Sheep are fitted with a retaining net and given a single vaccination of a naturally occurring protein, which causes a natural break to occur in the wool fibres. A week later the fleece is shed as a whole inside the net, and is removed by hand - in a process known as doffing.
The wool begins to grow again after 24 hours. The sheep can be marketed within seven days of treatment.
The process minimises sheep stress and eliminates the labour of traditional shearing, reduces variability in wool fibre length, increases carding yield and hauteur and decreases wool lost as noils during combing.
Skirting and Wool Classing
Skirting involves removing all inferior wool from the fleece and is important for good clip preparation.
The fleece is then rolled up an presented to the wool classer.
Shorn wool is classed into five main categories:
- Fleece - the bulk of the wool from the body of the sheep.
- Pieces - coloured and frib or sweaty edges from the fleece.
- Bellies - wool from the belly region of the sheep.
- Crutchings - wool from the tail section of the sheep, which may contain urine or dung stains.
- Locks - short wool created by the mechanical shearing process.
Any wool that is of poor colour, shorter, weaker or unusual is separated from the main lines.
The wool classer will describe lines of wool using bale descriptions such as AAAM, AAA PCS and BLS.
The classing of wool is described in the Code of Practice for the Preparation of Australian Wool Clips, published by the Australian Wool Exchange.
Some wool producers use on-farm fibre testing equipment to more accurately class wool before it leaves the farm gate.
Decision-making
Wool producers have to make decisions about how many sheep to run on their property. This decision is based on many factors, including:
- Real raw wool prices;
- Current wool supply;
- Long-range forecast for wool production and prices;
- Long-range climate data;
- The outlook for alternative land-uses, such as meat sheep, beef cattle and cropping; and
- Off-farm income sources.
Cost of production
Cost structures are key determinants of business returns for producers and they influence decisions on enterprise type (wool, grain, beef, mixed).
ABARE's annual survey of wool producers provides data on costs by farm type and by region. Enduring major costs include fertiliser, shearing, handling, land and building set-up, and labour for animal and pasture work.
There is also substantial variability in returns and profitability among wool enterprises within each region. Some producers operate profitably even when wool prices are low. The top 25 per cent of wool specialists, ranked on rate of return, made farm business profits many times the average enterprise (ABARE 2001).
AWI invests in RDI projects that aim to increase the profitability and sustainability of Australian wool production.
Adopting new technologies
The priority placed by wool producers on reducing costs by using R&D innovations will vary among individuals. This reflects farm features and other demands on time and money. For many producers, change could be limited to a few basic decisions such as type of enterprise, pastures and grazing, and genetics.
Researchers contend that such cost-of-production differences mainly arise from the ability of lower cost producers to use science and technology in managing and developing their enterprises.
Business success factors
More realistically, a range of factors will influence cost of production of wool. In addition to the natural features of each property, wool business success factors have been identified to include:
- Focus on the wool enterprise but with a total business approach.
- Planning with active risk and asset management.
- Leadership and decisions made consultatively.
- Managers allocating time to manage and seeing opportunity.
- Farms managed sustainably while keeping stocking rates at high levels.
- Early adoption of innovation with focus on value added to business.
- An active market focus.
Threats to cost structures and viability
Current wool production cost structures are based on productivity of usable grazing land (often assisted by with fertiliser), on availability of effective sheep health treatments and more generally, on family farming arrangements.
AWI invests in RDI that can address some of the major issues that could impact on wool production costs over the next five to 10 years. For example:
- Internal parasites currently cost the wool industry about $220 million a year in lost production and deaths. This could rise to $700 million a year as worm resistance to drenches spreads.
- External parasite treatment and animal welfare issues are escalating.
- Availability of skilled labour is uncertain, especially shearers.
- Land degradation and salinity threaten stocking rates and production in many areas and are engendering community concerns.
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