The dispersal sale of 140 wool-less Wiltshire sheep and 224 Low Cost Easy Care sheep is the final act of a 13-year study by AgResearch scientist Dr David Scobie into easy-care, low-maintenance shedding sheep.
Their sale offers sheep breeders the chance to access the genetics.
The project followed a 1997 AgResearch prediction that the costs involved with growing and harvesting wool would exceed the value of the wool grown in the foreseeable future.
Seeking cheaper ways to farm, the challenge was to develop a wool-less sheep and also to develop a low-maintenance sheep.
Scobie and his colleagues came up with a blueprint for a sheep that would cost less to run – a sheep with no wool on its head, legs, belly, or breech and with a genetically short tail – the Low Cost Easy Care sheep.
A short tail would do away with the stresses of tailing and a sheep with bare points would reduce flystrike and dags, would eliminate the need for crutching and belly crutching, and would dramatically reduce labour requirements at shearing.
“Lambs bare of wool in these regions were also heavier at weaning. We also found sheep with bare breeches were five times less likely to get flystrike.”
Dr David Scobie
AgResearch
There was a fair degree of scepticism from many in the industry and Scobie recalled suggestions it would be the ruination of the New Zealand wool industry.
However, he bit his tongue, took the comments on the chin and got on with the job.
Bare backsides were probably the trait that interested farmers most, to reduce dags and the risk of flystrike, he said.
“Okay, it might not be rocket science, but back in 1997 we didn’t know that could be done genetically.”
Heritable (70%) and visible on a new-born lamb, short tails were the easiest trait to identify and introduce into a flock, he said.
Mate two sheep with short tails and you get lambs with short tails.
“Use ram hoggets for mating and lamb ewe hoggets and the progress is ridiculously fast, to the point where lambs will soon no longer need docking.”
One trait Scobie did not have in the original blueprint was the length of bare skin under the tail.
“We have seen lambs where the wool grows to within 30mm of the anus – a high-risk place to grow wool.
“This is also highly heritable (60%), easily seen in the lamb, and rapid selection progress can be made to reduce the risk of dag formation.”
However, two things AgResearch failed to predict would happen in the model sheep were that they would wean more lambs that have better growth rates.
The lambing performance of the Low Cost Easy Care sheep, which have less wool on their backs, is well ahead of industry averages.
This season, the Low Cost Easy Care ewes weaned 177% (lambs weaned, ewes mated) at an average weaning weight of 30.7kg.
In 2007-2008 Beef + Lamb NZ levy payers funded research to identify the extent animals with bare breeches and bellies were present on ram breeders’ properties.
During that time Scobie found ewes that grew less wool on those parts of their bodies weaned more lambs.
“Lambs bare of wool in these regions were also heavier at weaning. We also found sheep with bare breeches were five times less likely to get flystrike,” he said.
“Hybrid vigour would explain a bit of this, but when you are not using protein and energy to grow wool, you can use it to gain weight and fight off parasites.”
The second alternative was a sheep that did not have to be shorn at all. A flock of Wiltshire sheep were selected for decreased fleece weight.
Selection was so effective the Wiltshire lambs no longer need shearing, because they have shed all their wool by January.
“This season the hoggets had lost much of their fleece again by September,” Scobie said.
“We only shear them for research purposes. You wouldn’t shear them at all on a commercial farm and their winter coat would all moult by mid-summer.”
Of 1984 Wiltshire lambs weaned during the flock’s 13 years at Winchmore there had been only one case of flystrike, he said.
“Between these two flocks we have markedly reduced risk of flystrike.”
This year the Wiltshire ewes weaned 118% (lambs weaned, ewes mated), with their lambs averaging 30.6kg.
After writing six refereed papers in science journals and giving more than 10 conference presentations in NZ and Australia, Scobie admits to a feeling of sadness about dispersing a research flock that was created from the drawing board to the field and fine-tuned over more than a decade.
He has lost count of the number of talks and field days presentations he has given up and down the country.
The project had made a valuable contribution to sheep breeding and developments in Sheep Improvement Ltd, he said.
A number of sheep breeders had adopted the principles and concepts, including Avalon with Ultimate, Cheddar Valley Station with Snowline, and also the Bohepe.
“We are proud to have been able to see this through and into the industry,” Scobie said.
“The research is finished, the flocks are no longer needed. Now we have to get on with something new.”
That something new will include studies on the science underpinning lustre in crossbred wool and several projects involving footrot and internal and external parasites in the fine-wool breeds.
