Wool's being bred into a thing of the past

BY JON MORGAN

Kakatahi farmer David "Tex" Matthews is fed up with waiting for wool's fortunes to turn around.

"If people aren't going to use wool, I can't see any point in growing it," he says.

He is building up a flock of woolless sheep on his 1800-hectare farm in the steep hills beside Whanganui's tortuous Parapara highway.

Strong wool prices have been at historically low levels for most of the past decade, and although the industry is making a concerted effort to improve carpet and textile sales, the returns to farmers show no signs of moving. Mr Matthews is only one of what woolless-sheep breeder Joe Adams suspects is an increasing number of farmers willing to turn their backs on wool.

Mr Adams, who has a 220ha stud in the harsh hill country at Hihitahi, south of Waiouru, has bred what he calls a "never-shear" sheep by crossing two breeds that shed their wool - the wiltshire and the dorper.

"The years when crossbred wool was a high-value commodity are long gone," he says. "Now, there's little return for a lot of work."

Mr Matthews bought 26 rams from Mr Adams to put over his romney-perendale ewes this year. Added to the rams bought in the previous three years, he now has 60. He expects that by the end of the next season, they will have provided him with 1800 ewe lambs that will be the foundation of a woolless flock.

He has 7000 ewes and last year had a $27,000 profit from wool after paying the shearing costs. But that fell when the cost of extra shepherding labour and lice and fly dips were taken into account.

Up against that he puts the extra meat the wiltshire-dorper crosses are adding to his lambs. The crosses have a meat yield he has measured at 46.9 per cent in a small trial, giving an advantage over his regular lambs of an estimated $5 a lamb.

"If you put that across the 5000 lambs I've got to sell, there is an extra $25,000. That's good enough for me."

The only flaw he can see is whether the store market will recognise this extra value and pay him a premium, but that is a minor worry.

"With the money I'm making out of wool right now, my feeling is that I would be doing just as well with woolless sheep," he says.

As he builds up the flock and the need to shear diminishes, he expects to encounter a couple of years where the cost of shearing won't be covered by the returns from the wool. But once he is through that and into woolless sheep - they will have a winter saddle of wool that is shed in summer - he can see only benefits.

"People aren't using wool now," he says. "When was the last time you saw someone in a Swanndri? It's all stuff from recycled milk bottles.

"Wool is a great product - I still wear it - but I'm going to let someone else harvest it."

Even if wool lifts in price, he cannot see the farmer's return rising. You can bet your bottom dollar the cost of getting it off will be shooting up there right behind it. Shearers have held back their costs, largely in sympathy with farmers, I suspect, and they deserve a pay rise."

At Hihitahi, Mr Adams says his crossing of wiltshire and dorper aims to produce the best of both breeds. "I want a never-shear sheep that is very competitive in the production of a meatier carcass and at the same time retains the advantageous traits needed for successful production."

The wiltshire, a horned sheep in England, has mixed with other breeds in New Zealand. It has lost its horns and kept its shedding trait, but gained a longer fleece. It also has a "mediocre" conformation, he says.

To rectify this, he has gone to the white dorper, a South African breed developed from the dorset, an English meat breed, and the persian, a North African sheep that sheds its hairy coat. The dorper is a meaty sheep that sheds its fleece, but, because it comes from a warm, dry climate, it is prone to foot problems.

Mr Adams' farm rises from 740 metres to 940m above sea level.

Mt Ruapehu is close by and long winters with heavy snows are usual.

"It is a good testing ground," he says.

He describes his three-step process. "Step one is to select stock with potential to achieve the never-shear ability. Step two is to prove that the sheep are hardy and survive New Zealand's harshest climate." The third step is to produce a high- yielding meat sheep.

He has a discerning eye after 30 years of experience in selecting pedigree breeding stock.

"Shape is vital," he says. "Better conformation means more meat per carcass. The old saying, 'Meat weighs and pays', is very apt."

After a countrywide search in 2004, he chose wiltshires from a South Island farm with a similar climate, then a year later bought dorpers from several farms. Both are rare breeds in New Zealand but are increasing their numbers.

The resulting progeny have, "interestingly and fortunately", the best traits of both breeds, he says.

The lambs are noticeably meatier than the pure wiltshire and are born with the dorper's thick, hairy coat that helps them survive the cold spring. Along with the wiltshire's shedding gene and its hardiness, the lambs have inherited the dorper's vigour, but none of its foot problems.

They have a high lambing percentage and high survivability. Lambing for this year's crop of 160 ewes was 150 per cent at birth and 142 per cent at docking.

Further selection is reducing the length of the wool down to four centimetres.

Another noteworthy aspect is that with less time spent on dagging and shearing, sheep are not put under the kind of stress that can reduce weight gain. It is a cost that is often overlooked, he says.

Hihitahi neighbour Peter Valentine has used Mr Adams' rams for the past three years over a small proportion of his 8000 perendale ewes. "It's been a bit of an experiment not knowing whether they would survive in my cold climate or not. This is the first year I have quite a number of halfbreed sheep on the ground."

He says he is "reasonably confident" that he is on the right track. The halfbreeds don't have wool on their bellies and few dags and are noticeably heavier than his purebred perendales. He expects they will need no dagging or crutching and just an annual shear producing one kilogram to 2kg of wool.

He will try a three-quarter cross, but is not sure whether that will be going too far, taking too much wool off his perendales and putting them at risk in the cold winters.

The reason for the change was to make life easier. "I started shearing as a 14 to 15-year-old in 1975. I'm still shearing, but I'm getting on," he says. "If I had to pay for shearing, there'd be nothing in it. So, I said, 'Let's give this a go for five years and if it's a disaster, I'll get out of sheep completely'. I'm trying to survive until I can make a decision."

At Kakatahi, Mr Matthews' long- term goal is to have a flock that doesn't need shearing.

"If wool stays in the pits and people are looking around for woolless sheep, here I am. If can make them work on my rough hills, then people might say, 'Those things could be all right'.

"I'm getting in early and in a large way. If wool makes a comeback, it's not going to break me. It will be far easier to breed wool onto a sheep that it will be to get it off."

- © Fairfax NZ News