Six-month shearing: wool value, ewes and lambs

Telling the story, and the length question

Chad Taylor: Thank you, guys. Just before we get into six-month shearing, a comment on audits being easy. They are easy when you're organised, and having Gloves organising things is what makes those sorts of things easy, so audits here are now very easy. And just a comment on what Emma was talking about, the relationships we're building with people at every turn we can. It really is critical. I think at the level of the wool story, there's a real gap in the relationships across the industry, so it's great that these people are building those stories.

We've got an amazing story to tell, and we just don't seem to talk about it very much. So being able to capture the story of the people, the landscape and the animals, and communicate that story right through the long supply chain to the brands, is a really powerful thing. It's not so much a matter of having to sharpen our act or really pull our socks up. It's a matter of just telling the story that's there to be told. That's a great opportunity, and I think that's the space the ZQ guys are filling very well, so thanks Emma and Matt, that was great.

Six-month shearing. It is a shame that Emma couldn't do this; it's her trial. I'm more than happy to take you through the results we found here in her absence, but it is a shame she couldn't be here in person to talk us through it. Credit to Emma for pulling this information together.

The first question that usually comes up with six-month shearing is length. How do we get the length, what do we do about length, what sort of length do we need? I think this little diagram puts it into perspective for most people. Our sheep in 12 months were out to about 120 mils, so that was too long. As soon as we get past 90 mils we start to lose value per kilo, so price drops off once we get past 90, as it does if we come in shorter than 70.

So by shifting from 12-month shearing at 120 mils, we're cutting it roughly in half, and we're now producing roughly 65 mils in six months. In terms of cents per kilo, we're much closer to that sweet spot in the market between 70 and 90 mils. Instead of being 30 mils too long, we're only five mils short. So the wool we're producing is actually of higher value, partly because of the length, partly because of the tensile strength, which is significantly stronger, and also the vegetable matter. They're all improved by cutting it off at six-month intervals. That's really the long and the short of the length story, but if you've got any questions just sing out and we'll handle them as we go.

The other benefit we found by shearing more often is that we had 8% more wool. So on top of the increased price per kilo due to length, vegetable matter and tensile strength, there's actually 8% more of it. When I did the numbers, shearing was about seven bucks this year and crutching roughly two dollars, so we had a five-dollar gap to make up. With 8% more wool of a higher value, when I did the figures we were about two or three bucks in front by shearing twice a year. That was just on the wool front, so I thought that was pretty cool.

Those numbers would have to be redone with current shearing values, deducting current crutching values, but that's all easily done. Keep in mind that you can expect a little bit more wool, and we found with the length of our clip that it was a higher price per kilo. The other noticeable win was a lift of 0.6 of a condition score left on the mothers, and that also equated to 12 more lambs. That to me is the big win. If the wool covers the shearing costs, the ewes are in better nick and we net 12 more lambs, it's locked into our business. It's just par for the course.

Questions from the audience

Chad Taylor: Are there any questions?

Chad Taylor: There's someone who talks about this really well, and it's a shame he couldn't join us. He talks about shearing stimulating the appetite. With the appetite stimulated they eat more, and when they eat more they produce more. It just stimulates it.

Chad Taylor: That's a good point. We didn't actually break down the clips, the 12-month wool and the six-month wool, into their categories; it was more of a group value. There were a lot more skirtings, a lot more pieces and a lot more cotted wool on the edges of the 12-month wool. Particularly when we're getting out to 120 mils and we run into a decent summer, or any sort of conditions that create a bit of cot around the edges, we produce a lot more pieces, which are lower value. Whereas just about everything goes into the fleece line when they're shorn at six months. There's not time to catch all the VM and all the problems that cot the wool. So it's another benefit on top of what we've measured that we haven't really got figures on, but it's better. And you're right, six-month wool is cleaner and easier to manage.

Chad Taylor: Dave Greig, ladies and gentlemen.

Dave Greig: No, no. Just on that, going from 12 months to six months, we went from one bale of pieces to three bales of fleece, to one bale of pieces to seven or eight bales of fleece or so. So it is a big difference.

Audience member: Are the buyers getting behind this with a contract to encourage more six-month shearing?

Chad Taylor: Yeah, absolutely, and that's the power of the relationship. We've been dealing with New Zealand Merino for a while to try and find a contract at a length that would suit our six-month shearing. As I was saying, six-month shearing is locked into our program. It's so easy to have the shearers here to shear instead of crutch, and do that every six months. It's a really neat program, but it produces that length of wool. So instead of trying to squeeze that wool through classing into a contract that's looking for 70-plus, we really needed a contract that fitted our program.

They've been very good to work with, and I think we've got to the point now where we've got a 67 mil contract. That's again coming back to the relationship: finding a brand that can work with that length, understanding our story and then putting that whole picture together. So it's early days, but that's exactly the sort of relationship we're building.

Audience member: Is there much difference in length between the six months over lambing and the six months after weaning?

Chad Taylor: No, it doesn't seem to be. We actually went to a five and seven-month split, trying to manage the length of the fibre around the lambing and lactation period, but it didn't seem to make much difference. It was more the effects of recovering from lambing, after weaning, that seemed to have as big an impact as actually lactating itself. There's a delay in the wool getting out of the skin, obviously. So we've gone back to a six-month split, and we try to stick pretty rigidly to that.

There are probably bigger variations from seasonal conditions, which is more to do with nutrition than anything else. So there are variations, and there will be every year. It's not that we hit 65 every year. Dry maiden ewes might be closer to 70 or 75 in the better seasons, and twin-bearing ewes in a tougher year might be 58 or 60 mils. We've stopped really worrying about what the length is so much. It's the process that's more important to us, because of the other benefits to do with livestock health and lamb survival.

Audience member: Does that fit in with the welfare side of things, and pushing that?

Chad Taylor: Yeah, absolutely. Again, it's the story. We haven't got to start creating it; that's our story and we've just got to tell it. An interesting point I didn't make before is that those 12 extra lambs were all due to twin lamb survival. Single lamb survival was identical between the 12-month and six-month ewes. All the gain came in twin lamb survival. So if we're talking about lamb mortality, lamb survival, feed conversion, that whole picture, six-month shearing fits very closely with it, and yes, absolutely, that's part of the story we want to communicate.

Chad Taylor: Yes, particularly when the wool's getting very long. The picture we're painting at a genetic level, whether it's non-mulesed that attracts people, six-month shearing or high reproduction, all of these traits fit together very neatly. Then capturing that story and communicating it is just another leg in that story.

Audience member: Chad, any feedback from this year on the first six-month shearing and the numbers? Does it actually work out cheaper per head at the end, when they're shearing more?

Chad Taylor: That's probably analysis we should do more closely. But I had the conversation with our contractor about six-month shearing. I said, well, what are your thoughts, this is where we want to go. And he said, look, we'd rather shear than crutch. So it's a tick in the box for this year. If they're pulling out a good shearing team to shear twice a year in good facilities, then we can't do much more than that.