TWO WAYS: MERINO SHEEP

54 MERINO SHEEP

LEE TOWLE, GUNNING, NSW

Meet Lee Towle and John Hickson. They are both sheep farmers, but at very different ends of the scale. Lee rears her small flock on a grassy paddock in the Southern Highlands in New South Wales, while John runs his vast mob on his large grazing property in the north of the state. They share their stories of how they cope with the ups and downs of breeding, feeding and succeeding with merinos.

8000 MERINO SHEEP

JOHN HICKSON, BOOMI, NSW

LEE TOWLE, GUNNING, NSW ʻʻI swear I could see a twinkle in his eye. Our very own Father Christmas, who arrived at dawn on Christmas Eve, driving a ute and trailer filled with young merino wethers and a gaggle of grandkids. He pulled up, got out and opened up the back of the trailer. His grandchildren started making whooping noises and the sheep catapulted themselves off the trailer into the long grass. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing, except for us. Co-captain and I, in yesterday’s clothes, with bed hair and not a slurp of tea between us, looked shellshocked as we watched the sheep scatter at speed. Despite negotiating this delivery for four months, we hadn’t yet installed fence lines. Our small flock—our new tool in the plan to rejuvenate the land, this grassy paddock we called home—had arrived. We count the boys every day. We subconsciously cast a quick glance to gauge their demeanour whenever we walk past a window. We know EXACTLY how many sheep we have on our place. Apparently this is not normal on the larger sheep farms. I’m standing at the ag shop, waiting to talk to the livestock person. I’m here because I have read that I need to worm test and drench my sheep. And I want a bale or two of lucerne and something called licks because I’ve read that sheep don’t thrive on standing hay alone. The owner, trying to get a handle on the provenance of me and my sheep—how many, my skill level, experience at drenching and, actually, being around sheep at all—is asking me questions. ‘How many sheep?’ ‘54,’ I reply. The one thing I truly did know.

He looks at me. Given my vagueness in every other area, my sureness here was unexpected.

‘54 wethers,’ I repeat. Finally, he decides it’s easier to throw the information at me and see where it lands. I did not disappoint. I took home a worm test kit, a bale of lucerne, a lick and a brochure on sheep runs.

Some time later, I am doubled over in pain, trying to catch my breath, gasping. I had just outrun a flock of 54 sheep. It was drenching day and I had hoped to lure the sheep into the yards with a biscuit of hay. We had hand-reared four of the sheep, and they liked to stick to me, especially when I had a biscuit of hay. They came close. The other sheep then decided they wanted to be close. And suddenly we were all running like mad towards the yards, with me just in front of the pack. That was a lesson, I thought, as I sucked in lungfuls of air, clutching onto the rail.

I recomposed myself for the task at hand. Armed with a spray-gun attached by a tube to a backpack of worm killer, I knew what I had to do. I knew where the gun had to be placed, I knew how to hold the head and I knew speed was important, but the only animals dewormed that day were myself and my Co-captain.

Over time, the boys have accepted me, or rather, my bucket of treats. Who am I kidding? It was only ever the treats. But our trips to the yards are now casual strolls along a drive, or across paddocks, like something out of old Europe. As they eat out of my hand I sneak a deep inhalation of their heads. The smell of unwashed wool, lanolin and musk immediately centres me, and connects me to my heart. Unless I smell a top note of cypress and then they are busted for having been in the tree lots.

After watching them for the past few years, I see they lean into each other. I think they do this as an act of reassurance. I find the act of leaning into these gentle souls satisfying, sustaining and reassuring too.

Daily visits and conversations mean I now get to lie down among the grazing flock, listen to them mow my grass, snuffle at my clothes or face, and see up close their fat woolly bodies, hooves and faces. I am utterly charmed by them.

I feel a sense of achievement at having earned my flock’s trust. I now select my flock according to who will produce a special fleece. I know stuff. I have acquired skills and knowledge far beyond anything I ever thought relevant to me. My flock have become my support as we adapt to this new life. Looking out the window to see my woolly sentinels rousing themselves for the day is affirmation that we are rural and on an adventure that is fantastically different to what we had originally planned. ʼʼ

The wool industry can be a pretty traditional place and, for many of us, change happens one funeral at a time.

Our family has grazed merino sheep to produce wool for generations. When I came into the industry in the 1990s as a decision-making adult rather than a kid on the back of Dad’s motorbike, labour was cheap, chemicals were effective, mulesing was the norm and we were blissfully unaware of the effects of our grazing management on the environment.

Now things look different. We have chemical resistance and residue problems, we have a consumer who is much more environmentally and ethically aware and we run our sheep in very different ways.

The fundamental shift for me began when I attended a ‘Grazing for Profit’ school in 2003. My eyes were opened to a more holistic approach to running a business that worked for you, your animals and your environment. This approach not only accounted for short-term profit goals, but also longterm environmental goals, animal welfare goals and personal goals, such as having a holiday. Our next journey had begun.

At the school we were shown the deleterious effects that animals can have on grassland environments when they are continuously grazed. Since that time we have been running a time-control grazing system (cell grazing) where animals are run in bigger mobs on smaller areas of land for short periods of time. We also now run a certain number of stock per 100mm of rain. This, combined with careful observation of paddocks, means that we are only running the number of stock we have grass for.

We have also altered our breeding: instead of only breeding sheep to produce more better-quality wool, we have placed emphasis on producing an easy-care animal that is better suited to our environment. Through all these changes we are seeing results. And, while we haven’t had to wait for a funeral, it has taken time.

After a long campaign of selecting animals that are less prone to flystrike, we have recently stopped mulesing and have also greatly reduced the reliance of our enterprise on chemicals and labour.

The results, from a grasslands management perspective, are notable too. Where we once had bare paddocks that were slow to recover even after rain, we now have a proliferation of native grasses throughout the farm. We were able to maintain groundcover through the recent drought, which allowed the grasses to leap back into life when the rain finally came. These native perennial grasses

ʻʻ can be a powerful environmental tool, actively sequestering carbon dioxide from the air and putting it in the soil.

There is now interest in trying to measure how much carbon can be captured in grazing systems. If it can be captured and measured, the sequestered carbon has the potential to provide both a positive environmental outcome and another source of income. Regardless, increasing carbon levels in the soil is a worthwhile thing to do. It increases water infiltration and storage capacity of the soil, which makes land more drought resilient and improves water catchments below.

We are making progress in our objective of producing a fibre that the consumer really wants, while improving our natural environment. There have, of course, been many challenges—the usual poor market conditions and long dry periods where we have had to destock; however, the most difficult challenge to overcome is the mindset that wants to take you back to that position of safety from where you have come.

We have found that to stay the road we need clear objectives and constant encouragement from a few others who understand what we are trying to achieve.

Twenty years ago we thought of ourselves as woolgrowers. Now we see ourselves as managers of a natural ecosystem that is producing the most environmentally friendly fibre.

We have a long way to go, but the future looks bright and we are confident that we are on the right road. n

JOHN HICKSON, BOOMI, NSW

Photographs Em Callaghan, Annabelle Hickson