The largest and most important industry in Australia is the raising of sheep, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland being the chief sheep-raising states. Although Australia only grows 27 per cent of the world’s wool, it produces over 60 per cent of the world’s Merino wool, which is the best for making high quality cloth. Our Merino wool is eagerly bought by other countries.
In 1975-76, of the 583 500 tonnes of greasy wool exported, 198 000 tonnes (or 34 per cent) went to Japan. In 1979,11 per cent of the wool was bought by France, 10 per cent by the USSR and 9 per cent by Italy. The wool buying of these countries is constantly changing.
The average fully grown Australian sheep now produces 4.3 kg of wool, whereas John Macarthur’s best ram cut only 1.5 kg.
Sheep Breeds:
There are three main groups of sheep in Australia:
1. The Merinos;
2. The English breeds, which can be grouped into –
(a) The longwool breeds like the Border Leicester, Lincoln, Leicester, Cheviot and Romney Marsh;
(b) The shortwool breeds like the Southdown, Dorset Horn, Ryeland, Dorset Down, Suffolk, Shropshire Down and other Down breeds;
3. The hybrids which have resulted from crossing the Merino with the English breed. Some of these sheep are now distinct breeds, like the Corriedale and Polwarth, but many of them are hybrids of various kinds, like the crossbred and comeback.
In 1977 there were about 122 035 000 sheep in Australia, but when we look at the numbers of each breed, we can easily see which are the most important-
Distinctive features of the Merino are the folds of neck wool and the large curled horns of the rams, the ewes being hornless and the wethers having small horns. This breed originated in Spain about 250 years ago and spread to France and Germany, South Africa and North America. It was brought to Australia in the earliest days of the colony, and John Macarthur was the first to begin improving the breed. Merinos quickly followed in the tracks of explorers, spreading to Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland.
When the Riverina was opened up for settlement, fine-woolled Merinos were obtained from Victoria and Tasmania, but they did not stand up well to the great heat and the attacks of blowflies. The Peppin brothers were squatters who owned a lot of land in the south-western Riverina including what is now the Wanganella Estate.
The Peppins went in for stock dealing and breeding, and since large numbers of sheep passed through their hands, they began to select bigger sheep with stronger fleeces that did not open up along the back and allow fly strike. After about 15 years they produced a distinct strain of Merinos, and all the sheep which have come from those flocks are now called Peppins.
At the present about 50 per cent of Australian Merinos are of the medium-wool Peppin type, which is suited to the dry interior. Therefore Australian Merinos fall into two distinct groups—the Peppins with bigger bodies and stronger wool, and the non-Peppins with small compact bodies and finer wool.
The Merino is the only sheep breed which is grown solely for its wool. This wool is dense, rather short with very thin or fine fibres. The wool fibres also have little twists or crimps in them which interlock in the spinning process. Spinning quality is shown by a number which represents the diameter or the thickness of the wool fibres measured in microns. A micron is one thousandth of a millimetre.
The wool of English Longwools usually measures about 34 microns, but the wool of Merinos varies from 23 (strong), 21 (medium), to 19 (fine wool). The number of crimps per centimetre of wool fibre is a good indication of the fineness of the wool. When the crimps are very small and close together, the wool fibre is very thin or fine. Nutrition as well as strain determines the fineness of Merino wool, the wool becoming finer as nutrition becomes poorer.
The body of a Merino has poor shape; it is angular and narrow. The neck may be a “ewe neck”, the legs are too close together and may be crooked, the back is not straight, while the ribs are not nearly as well sprung as in the English breeds. In spite of its poor shape the Merino is very hardy and stands heat, cold, hunger and thirst better than any other breed.
In this breed an attempt has been made to combine the high wool quality of the Merino with the larger frame of the English longwools. Mr J. Little first produced the breed on his New Zealand property, “Corriedale”, by crossing Merinos and Lincolns, and inbreeding the progeny until the type was fixed. There should be no horns in either sex, but small horns sometimes appear on the rams. The face is broad with wool from the poll to the eyes.
The back is level and broad, the legs are set wide apart, and the hindquarters are of good shape. The wool is not as fine as comeback wool, but is usually better than crossbred wool and varies between 27 and 29 microns. This is a large docile sheep which fattens quickly, giving good mutton, and is therefore a dual-purpose breed. The Corriedale is a sturdy sheep and the ewes bear big lambs.
The ewes are bold and will protect their lambs, and, since twins are common, it is not surprising that lambing percentages of 110 to 120 are obtained. The chief disadvantage of Corriedales is that the woolly covering causes more trouble with grass seed, and therefore some growers in the drier districts choose breeds with less wool around the face and legs.
This is a sheep which results from crossing a Merino with an English breed. The commonest crossbreds are Border Leicester x Merino.
This is not a breed, but is a hybrid obtained by mating crossbred ewes back to Merino rams. The wool is much finer and more valuable than crossbred wool.
This is a breed which originated in Victoria at the close of the last century. It is an inbred comeback, and therefore has 75 per cent of Merino blood. The fleeces are heavy and vary between 24 and 26 microns.
The breed is popular in Victoria where it is useful in areas which are too cold for Merinos and where grazing is poor. The Polled Polwarth is also gaining in favour.
This is the most popular English breed in Australia. It probably originated from a cross between the English Leicester and the Scottish Cheviot. It is a large sheep with a very broad chest and good hindquarters, and the rams pass these characters on to their lambs.
The legs are long and free of wool, while the face is white, free of wool and has a distinctive Roman nose. The wool is strong—averaging 34 microns—but it is long; ewe fleeces average 6.3 kg and ram fleeces 8.6 kg. The Border Leicester is an early maturing breed which fattens fairly quickly.
The chief advantages of this breed are that when crossed with a Merino it gives a good fat lamb, but if the lambs are not sold as suckers they have a good sale as weaners. There is a constant demand from Victoria for the ewe weaners as mothers for fat lambs. The Border Leicester is a long- legged sheep with clean points which gives less trouble with grass seeds.
The Down breeds give better lambs than the Border Leicester, but they need improved pastures, and the Down breed weaners do not sell well if carried past the lamb stage. The Border Leicester is popular because the lambs do well on natural pasture, but it may become less popular as more improved pastures are sown.
These are the most useful of the other long-wool breeds because they stand up well to cold, wet conditions, having come originally from the wet Romney marshes of Kent. They are very resistant to foot rot and are useful for crossing with Merinos to produce lamb or mutton.
Romneys have a topknot of wool and no horns. The face and legs are covered with white hair, but the legs are rather short. This is a very woolly sheep (fineness varies between 25 and 34 microns), which makes the breed unpopular where grass seed is a problem.
This is the largest and heaviest breed of sheep, and also the oldest English breed. The wool is very long and strong (44 microns), the sheep does not produce the best mutton, and the breed is losing favour in Australia. It is important because it was used to produce the Corriedale and Polwarth breeds.
The Leicester has been used to improve other English longwool breeds. Smaller than the Lincoln, it is hornless, and has a better shaped body. The wool is shorter than the Lincoln’s, but finer, with an average fineness of 38 microns. It is used to produce mutton carcases when crossed with Merinos.
This Scottish breed is a small sheep with a head free of wool like a Border Leicester. It has a very woolly fleece and crosses well with the Merino and with other breeds like the Romney Marsh. It is a hardy sheep and is said to stand cold very well and to mature fairly quickly.
Most of the short-wool English breeds come from the south of England Downs region and are therefore called the Down breeds. In all of these breeds the wool is almost useless, but they have earlier maturity than the long-wool breeds, and therefore their chief use is as fat lamb sires.
This is the most important of the short-wool breeds. It is a small sheep with grey wool on its face and legs. The head is very broad, causing some lambing trouble in the crosses. Southdowns do not cross well with the Merino, but do combine well with crossbreds.
The Southdown mutton is tender, juicy and fine-grained, and has a good flavour. This breed is quick in maturing, but is not as early maturing as the heavier short-wool breeds like the Suffolk.
The Dorset Horn is the earliest maturing of all sheep breeds. Both sexes have long horns, and the face and legs are white. The quality of the meat is high, but not so high as that of the Southdown. The chief value of the breed in the eastern states is that the rapid maturity of the lambs enables them to benefit from the short spring growing seasons of the drier districts.
The Suffolk is a large sheep with a black face, a head free of wool, and rather long black legs. The breed, originating from a cross between Norfolk horned ewes and Southdown rams, is hornless in both sexes. These sheep are very early matures and good breeders, so that lambs can be ready earlier than any others except Dorset Horn lambs. The black hairs make them unpopular with some owners.
This is a white-skinned breed with better quality wool than any of the Down breeds. It has fairly good conformation and is said to be hardy. It has not gained in popularity in New South Wales.
Sheep Husbandry:
In raising sheep the landowner must carry out a number of routine procedures according to a timetable.
The climate of a district governs this timetable, for climate determines:
1. Whether feed will be available for lambs in autumn, winter or spring;
2. When it is warm enough to shear with safety;
3. When it is too hot to mate rams;
4. When the grass seeds are most troublesome;
5. When blowflies will be at their worst;
6. When rains can be expected to cause the hatching of worm eggs.
The time of shearing is the most important date to be fixed in the sheep year. Shearing begins as early as May or June in the warmer parts of Queensland and occurs later as one moves south. In the colder parts of New South Wales and Victoria, sheep are usually shorn in October or November.
Dipping always follows shearing because the skin parasites are more easily killed when the wool is short. Other procedures have to be timed according to the local climate.
Ewes need good feed just before lambing and for some time after. The season when this feed is available usually decides the time of mating. Lambing occurs one hundred and fifty days or five months after mating. Sheep breed best in the autumn months, but they can only be mated then if there promises to be enough spring feed for the lambs. Spring lambing is popular in the colder parts of New South Wales and Victoria and in some western areas, the sheep being mated in April-May.
In any district with a Mediterranean climate and winter rainfall, sheep may be mated in February and March and the lambs dropped in July. This can only be done if the winters are mild and the summer temperatures not too high to affect ram fertility.
Autumn lambing leads on to good winter feed in some districts, but it requires an October-November mating. This means that the pregnant ewes may not have enough summer feed.
All mating should be completed within as short a time as possible (not more than six weeks) and two or three per cent of rams must be used. Flushing is the practice of putting all breeders onto good feed two or three weeks before joining them, and has been shown to increase the percentage of lambs born.
Six weeks before ewes are due to lamb they should be crutched and wigged and put into a lambing paddock where they can be kept undisturbed and where they have good feed. At nine weeks and at three weeks before lambing they may be vaccinated to prevent entero-toxaemia or pulpy kidney.
As soon as lambing begins, the ewes should be visited regularly, and help should be given to any ewe needing it. Losses may occur from cold, wet weather, foxes and from pregnancy toxaemia if the ewes have not been well-managed during their pregnancy.
From three to six weeks after lambing all lambs should be marked, a task which consists of three operations. Ear-marking is the cutting of a registered mark in the right ear of ewe lambs and the left ear of ram lambs, special ear-mark pliers being used for this purpose. It is common practice to put an age mark in the other ear so that the age of a sheep is easily seen during drafting and culling.
Ram lambs which are not to be used for breeding are then castrated, after which they are known as wethers. The final stage of marking is the docking of the tail at the second or third joint, a clean sharp knife being used.
Tails are removed so that the crutch may be kept dry and is then less likely to be struck by flies. Lamb marking is best done in one corner of a well-grassed paddock where the danger of infection from dust is much less. Losses may follow from the use of rusty or dirty knives, dusty yards and from infected teeth of stockmen.
Lambs are commonly weaned at four to five months of age, although recent studies have shown that it is possible to wean them at very much earlier ages, provided that good feed is available to them. Lambs are weaned by separating them from their mothers and putting them into sheltered paddocks with good water supply, and young green feed such as improved pasture.
The great danger of this period is worm trouble, for weaners seem to be very susceptible to worm attack. The most reliable indication of approaching worm trouble is when weaners stop putting on weight at the correct rate. Merino weaners should gain about 750 g each per week. If they fall to a gain of 450 g per week on good feed, a worm burden should be suspected and steps taken to remove it.
If a man breeds sheep on his own property, then each year he has more ewes added to his flock, and he must class these and decide which ones he will keep for breeding. Unless the worst ewes are culled out of the flock, the average fleece weight of the sheep will not increase and may even go down.
Since the wool is so important, it is not usual to class sheep and cull them until they are carrying at least nine months’ wool. On some sheep studs the sheep are not classed until they are in full wool.
There are two ways of classing sheep – The owner or a classer may yard up the sheep and judge them as they come through a race, excluding all aged or undersized sheep or any with obvious body faults such as undershot jaw, devil’s grip, narrow shoulders, bad leg faults or ewes with bad udders.
Sheep are selected which are in good health and which seem to be carrying the greatest amount of wool of uniform quality. Sheep are culled for kempy hairs on the face, legs or thighs, for light mushy wool or for black wool which opens up too much, thus admitting moisture. This kind of classing is done from the appearance of the sheep, and is called subjective classing because it depends on the subject or person doing it.
The other method of classing sheep is to weigh their wool. Of course this must be done at shearing. Fleece weighing results in twice the improvement gained from subjective classing, but takes up a lot of time and effort. The best idea is to combine these two methods, first taking out the sheep with obvious body faults, and then weighing the fleeces of the remainder.
In some sheep areas sheep must be drenched periodically to protect them from the attacks of worm parasites. In doing this they are mustered, brought to the yards and put through a race about 76 cm wide. In yarding sheep for drenching, classing or any other procedure, much time and effort can be saved if the sheep are always put through the receiving and holding yards and the check pens by the same route.
The sheep must be packed tightly in the race and then dosed with the drenching gun, inserting the nozzle in the side of the mouth in the interdental space between the incisors and the molars. After drenching, sheep should be moved quietly away to pastures.
The commonest place where blowflies strike is the breech region where the wool is wet by the urine and faeces. Breech strike can be controlled by crutching, which is the removal of wool from the backs of the legs, the breech and over the tail.
Sheep may be crutched by using hand shears in the yards, or they may be taken through the shearing shed and the shearing machines used to do this work. Crutching is usually done before mating or lambing. March and July being the two commonest times chosen.
The owner arranges with a shearing contractor to arrive with his team of shearers on a certain day, but long before this day comes the owner must be preparing for it. The shearing shed must be put in order, shearers’ huts cleaned, firewood gathered, and other preparations made. The sheep have to be mustered and sorted into groups so that they will go through the shed in uniform lines of ewes, weaners, wethers, lambs and rams.
If rain threatens, the sheep must be put under a roof, for shearers will not shear wet sheep. The size of a shearing team depends on the size of the shed. Sheds are described according to the number of shearing stands where the shearers work.
In a four-stand shed, the following people would be needed:
1. The contractor (who may also do some shearing);
2. Four shearers;
3. The cook and perhaps a cook’s offsider;
4. The classer, who is employed separately;
5. The presser;
6. One or two wool-rollers who pick up fleeces from the board and roll them after classing has been done;
7. A rouseabout or general handyman;
8. The expert who looks after the engine and keeps the shearing cutters and combs sharpened.
A shearing shed with the roof removed so that we can look inside it. Sheep are first taken from the yards and driven up a slatted ramp into the sweating pens, where they should be kept for several hours at least. In the shade of these pens the sheep calm down and are then easier to hold.
From the sweating pens the sheep go to the catching pens, of which there are usually two in a four-stand shed. As a shearer finishes a sheep he puts it down a chute which takes it to one of the counting-out pens; then he walks across the board and selects another sheep from the catching pens.
Meanwhile a picker-up lifts the fleece from the floor of the board and takes it to the classer’s table where he throws it so that it falls on the table and lies spread out. The fleece is then skirted, and all the burry face, belly and leg wool, together with the urine-stained wool, is picked off. The remainder of the fleece is then inspected by the classer, rolled up and put into one of the wool bins near the classer’s table.
The presser takes the wool from the bins, puts it into the press and bales it. A bale must weigh over 90 kg, so that at least 25 average fleeces would be needed to fill it. The presser then brands each bale of wool with the name of the property, the class of wool, the sex of the sheep and the number of the bale. If there are no other letters it is understood that the bale contains Merino wool, otherwise letters such as XB (crossbred) may be added.
The shearing of lambs is a little different, since the wool is so short that it will not stick together and cannot be picked up in the usual way. The fleece is picked up by a nut-cracker-like device of two boards joined by a leather strap across the ends. The fleece is gripped between these boards and thrown onto a canvas mat for classing.
The shearer’s day is divided into four runs of two hours each, and shorn sheep are counted out after each run. An average shearer can shear sheep at the rate of one every two or three minutes, but catching sheep and changing cutters and so on wastes time. A good shearer can shear 120 sheep in a day.
Special Problems:
The attacks of blowflies cause serious yearly losses in sheep, and in some districts fly strike is almost the worst single problem. Bright green flies of the genus Lucilia are called primary strike flies because their maggots are able to penetrate the skin of healthy sheep. Once a wound is made, the secondary strike flies are able to lay their eggs and make the attack more serious.
Blowflies will not lay their eggs or maggots in dry situations; it-is always moisture which attracts them. Urine wets the wool and attracts flies, and so it is not surprising that 85 per cent of all strikes occur round the tail in the breech region. Sometimes rain is the cause, leading to body strikes on the shoulder and along the back. Wethers are sometimes struck in the pizzle region, and sweaty secretions around the bases of the horns may lead to head strike in rams.
One way of meeting the blowfly problem is to breed from plain-bodied rams, for sheep with plain non-wrinkled bodies are less liable to be struck. Great care in making sure that the tails of lambs are docked correctly will reduce fly strike later on, while crutching at least once a year is a sound practice.
Skin folds and wrinkles in the crutch region are inclined to hold moisture and attract flies, and many ways of removing these wrinkles have been tried. The Mules operation involves the removal of two strips of skin on either side of the vulva and down the backs of the thighs in ewes. The wound heals quickly and stretches the skin tightly, rendering these sheep much less liable to fly strike.
Some owners prefer to put sheep through a machine which jets them with a liquid insecticide, but this only protects sheep for several weeks. Sheep which have been struck must be treated properly, the first need being to shear off all the wool around the struck area. The wound can be swabbed with a powerful insecticide like Diazinon or Lucijet.
The ked, or sheep tick, and similar parasites live on the skin of the sheep, which they bite, causing intense itching, and destroy the fleece. Sheep with open woolly fleeces are more liable to attack than Merinos.
In spring the female ked lays a pupa once a week for three months, attaching it to a wool fibre some distance above the skin. Because of this, most keds are removed during shearing, but those that remain must be killed by the use of an insecticide.
Some growers favour the new practice of taking sheep straight from the shearing shed through a chemical fogging machine which kills skin parasites, but the more usual practice is to dip all sheep about six weeks after shearing.
By law all affected sheep must be dipped, but in New South Wales and Queensland stockowners are not compelled to dip sheep if they are clean. Arsenic solutions are still used in dips, but the insecticide Diazinon is now more popular.
If dipping is to be done, it must be done properly. The sheep should be in good condition and a clean muster should be made. The sheep should not be dipped when thirsty, and all of them should be dipped at one period of time, preferably in the early morning of a warm day. Each sheep should stay in the dip for 30 seconds, and all sheep should be left to dry out in clean shady paddocks and not moved away until dry.
Many plants in Australian pastures can cause seed trouble, but probably the worst are the spear grasses, Noogoora burr, barley grass, burr trefoil and the corkscrew grasses. Seeds of these plants have spines or hooks which make them stick to the wool, reducing its value. Seeds also get into the eyes of sheep, causing irritation and loss of condition.
Other seeds even penetrate the skin and enter the body. By good pasture management stockowners can lessen the problem by the control of seeding—lambing can often be timed to avoid the period when seeds are known to be bad. Wigging is the removal of wool from around the eyes; this not only prevents the sheep from becoming wool blind, but helps to prevent seeds entering the eyes.
Foot rot is caused by certain bacteria which are transferred onto the ground from the feet of affected sheep. Healthy sheep pick up these bacteria, which cause decay of the soft tissues inside the hoof. This disease spreads rapidly in wet seasons, and it is expensive to treat a large flock.
The hooves of affected sheep must be pared away and dressings applied. The spread of the disease may be halted by making all sheep walk through a foot bath of copper sulphate solution, but it may take many treatments before the disease is brought under control. Romney Marsh sheep are almost immune to this disease.
The liver fluke of sheep spends part of its life inside the bodies of certain fresh-water snails. Later it leaves the snail and becomes attached to vegetation alongside the stream. Grazing sheep may swallow the flukes, which travel from the intestine up the bile duct to the liver.
As the flukes grow in the liver the sheep loses condition and may die. Fluky sheep may be treated by drenching them with carbon tetrachloride, but it is essential at the same time to kill the snails in the streams and swamps by spreading copper sulphate in the water.
Mature worms inside sheep lay eggs which are passed out with the faeces onto the soil. Under the right conditions these eggs will hatch and develop into larvae which attach themselves to leaves of grass. Reinfection occurs when the grass is eaten by other sheep. There are many worm parasites of sheep, but three of them are more serious than the others.
The barber’s pole or stomach worm is about 2.5 cm long and has red and white bands around it. It lives only in the sheep’s fourth stomach, or abomasum, where it sucks the blood. The loss of blood weakens the sheep and makes it anaemic, the gums and skin of the eyes becoming pale.
A swelling under the jaw called ‘bottle jaw’ is a sure sign of infection by this worm. This parasite becomes serious after spring and summer rains. It is controlled by drenching sheep with Nilverm or any of the thiobendazole chemicals three weeks after rain.
The black scour worms are pink, very slender, and only about 6 mm long. They are found only in the runners or small intestines. These worms are very hard to see, but are visible if scrapings of the intestines of dead sheep are spread over a piece of glass and held to the light.
Sheep affected by these worms fall away in condition and develop black scours though they do not show any signs of anaemia. The parasites are dangerous in the cooler months of the year, but can be killed by drenching sheep with drugs like Nilverm, Morantel or one of the Benzimidazole drugs.
The nodule worm is white, about 12 mm long and has one end bent round like a pot-hook. It is found only in the colon where it forms nodules varying in size from a pinhead to a marble. Although this parasite causes no anaemia, sheep lose condition and develop a humped-back appearance, while their droppings are soft and blood-stained. Sheep attacked by this parasite never fully recover, and so every effort should be made to prevent infection.
The adult worms emerge from the nodules to lay their eggs in spring and summer, but the eggs and larvae only develop if there is warmth and moisture, for coldness and dryness kill them. When eaten by sheep, the larvae enter the wall of the colon and form nodules, emerging when mature to lay their eggs.
The worms are not killed by the drench as long as they are in the nodules, so it is necessary to drench several times to catch the batches of worms as they emerge. It is essential to drench affected ewes to prevent them from spreading the worms to spring lambs. Nilverm or the Bendazole drenches are the most useful for these parasites.
Pregnancy toxaemia, or twin lamb disease, may occur in ewes just before they are due to lamb. Affected ewes become listless, lie down and eventually die. The disease is likely to occur if ewes which were in prime condition during early pregnancy experience a shortage of feed later on.
The young lamb inside its mother grows very slowly at first, but in the last few weeks it grows very rapidly and needs a lot of food. If the ewe is not well fed at this stage, she turns some of her own body fat into food for the lamb. This places a strain on the ewe’s body, and her brain and liver may be affected.
The disease may occur if:
1. A ewe is carrying twins,
2. Ewes are sent on a rail journey in late pregnancy,
3. Ewes experience a shortage of feed when heavy in lamb.
Pregnancy toxaemia should not occur if good feed is available to ewes during the last eight weeks before lambing.
This disease is caused by bacteria which are always present in the small intestine. When sheep are on lush feed these bacteria may multiply rapidly and produce a poison which kills the sheep. Affected sheep lie down with the head turned towards the flank.
When convulsions occur the head is thrown backwards and death follows quickly. The disease can often be halted by moving sheep onto dry pasture, but a series of injections with vaccine will prevent outbreaks.
When drought strikes a district, stockowners have to decide when to begin hand feeding sheep and what to use as food.
Well-grown sheep in good condition can lose 25 per cent of their weight without dying. Therefore the rate at which sheep are losing weight gives an idea of when feeding will become necessary. Weight changes in sheep can be estimated by eye in regular inspections, but a more certain method is to weigh sheep.
Body weight is determined by marking and weighing a few representative sheep of each flock weekly or fortnightly for short periods so that weight changes can be seen. When sheep begin to lose more than 450 g per head per week, the owner should start hand feeding well before 25 per cent of weight is lost.
The question of what to feed may depend on whether the drought is partial or severe. In partial drought (which is experienced every year on native pastures of the tablelands) the sheep may have a fair amount of dry feed, but this is not very digestible and sheep cannot eat much of it. Small rations of grain will provide the sheep with energy and a small amount of protein to supplement the natural feed.
In total or extreme drought there is no feed at all, and the only feeds of any use are carbohydrates or energy feeds which will keep the animal alive. Sheep need about 20 MJ per week to keep up their energy supplies. This would be provided by 2 kg of wheat or 4 kg of lucerne hay. For pregnant ewes this allowance should be increased by half for safety.
Progress in the sheep industry will come from a wider use of the following practices:
1. Choice of breeds best suited to local conditions. As better pastures become available, sheep breeds will change.
2. Provision of better pastures.
3. Improved management of pastures.
4. Better classing methods, including fleece weighing.
5. Progress in controlling sheep parasites.
6. Better methods of sheep breeding, and use of high quality rams.
7. Progress in timing of sheep operations to suit the needs of the district and market requirements.
8. Improved methods of sheep handling.
9. Methods which make for greater efficiency in reproduction.