THERE are bigger questions facing Australia’s sheep industry than just dry seasonal conditions and El Nino.
Some of these include where is the prime lamb industry is heading and what’s to happen with the old ways of traditional first-cross ewe breeding.
Will the Border Leicester/Merino first-cross ewe, deemed as the “mother” of our prime lamb industry, become an animal of the past and make way for a new type of meat sheep production base?
These were questions posed by John Bullock, “Hill Head”, Well-ington, the breeder of the $161 a head top-priced first-cross ewes at the Narromine special store sheep sale on Wednesday last week.
Mr Bullock readily admits to being a member of the “old school” of traditional first-cross ewe breeders.
It was about four years ago when he was asking what had happened to the big lines of cast-for-age and younger unjoined Merino ewes that used to make their way to many regional store sales years before the “great drought”.
He, like many first-cross ewe breeders would snaffle up those genuine breeder lines for replacements within their flocks to produce all those “mothers”, year-in, year-out.
In the end Mr Bullock, like so many others, began to breed his own self-replacing Merino flocks to produce the ewes he joined to Border Leicester rams.
But the traditional first-cross ewe paternal dominance of the Border Leicester was being challenged.
Among drafts of the 40,000-plus first-cross ewes marketed at Narromine and Forbes last week was an increasing number of White Suffolk/Merino ewes.
“Whether it’s because they are cheaper or breeders see more potential in being a step closer to a prime lamb, White Suffolk/Merino ewes are increasing in numbers at these store sales,” Mr Bullock said.
Dubbo stock agent Colin Hood of Christie and Hood, said while there would always be a market for the first-cross ewe as “they make the best mothers year-in, year-out”, he believes there are quite a number of lamb breeders that were quite happy to take the White Suffolk/Merino first-cross ewe as a breeder.
“I believe it is slowly increasing, mainly because they are cheaper,” he said.
As well, many Merino breeders were selling surplus ewes scanned-in-lamb to the White Suffolk, and second-cross lamb breeders were accepting them.
As the South African Dorper and White Dorper, plus the emerging Australian White breeds gather even further momentum and inroads to the prime lamb breeding industry, Mr Bullock believes there was now a “mish-mash” of product coming onto the market.
“I think we are at a turning point in the sheep industry,” he said.
“Wool hasn’t done much in a long, long time and I really don’t see it doing a lot until oil gets too dear and the world looks for an alternative source for clothing.”
With lamb, Mr Bullock said there were interesting times ahead and he’s not sure where things will flatten out by the end of the next decade.
“But one thing for sure, there will be a bigger mix of sheep on the market than what there has been in the past.”