Grant Toole is dedicated to his fine Merinos

This is Grant Toole's belief, and the lifelong woolgrower is getting more passionate about his breed as the years go on.

And it's understandable - he comes from a line of Merino growers, and his dedication to the breed would make those before him proud.

Mr Toole and his partner Karin, Killoola, Peel, run a property which has been in his family for generations. It was bought in 1966 by his grandfather Trevor Toole.

"My grandfather and father were diehard Merino growers," he said.

"Dad had a stud, Jack Toole and Sons, which was based on Koonwarra stud blood."

But this family property is only the beginning of what keeps him busy each day.

He owns a property at Parkes, where he runs a 1000-head feedlot, offering a custom-feeding service as well as feeding his own animals to export.

He also leases a 1600-hectare place at Warren and a 3500ha property at Nyngan, where he runs his Merinos and cattle, as well as growing barley and oat crops.

If that's not enough, he has also run Toole and Cummins Shearing for the past 22 years, carrying out shearing, crutching and scanning in the Bathurst region as well as further afield.

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It was 2000 when Mr Toole bought some Koonwarra ewes of his own and began running them on leased blocks, and finally bought the family farm in 2010.

Before the drought hit, Mr Toole was running 10,000 ewes on his properties, but now is running around 3000 Merino breeders and 500 cows of various breeds on his properties.

He started buying from Peter Moore, Blink Bonnie Merino stud, Tarana, almost from the beginning.

"He had more of a Roseville Park-type (Dubbo) sheep," he said.

"I look at the type and style of the wool, and he has SRS style. The rams at Blink Bonnie were affordable and still are. He has a really good selection of sheep, and spends big money on his sheep. He gets the results I like."

Last year Mr Toole bought the top-priced ram at the Blink Bonnie sale for $3500 for his Spartan Pastoral Company, as he has for the past three years.

"You are better off spending more money on a ram. You can spend $3000 on a ram, and you get 300 lambs and his fleece from him. I also double join, so I get double use of the ram for the money I paid."

Mr Toole said he looks for a nice medium to large framed ewe, weighing between 65 to 75 kilograms.

Mr Toole is very specific about what he wants in his wool.

"When I'm selecting sheep, I am looking for pencilly, parallel fibres in the wool. When I open the fleece, I won't buy rams with cross fibres because they are the secondary fibres, and they are the broader fibres. By buying the pencilly-fleeced sheep, you are getting finer wool. It means there are more primary follicles than secondary follicles."

Mr Toole shears his ewes every eight months, getting between five to five-and-a-half kilograms of the 17.5 to 18.5-micron wool each shearing.

"They grow about 80 millimetres of wool in eight months," he said.

Joining starts in the last week of September for 12 weeks. Mr Toole then scans 12 weeks after joining to find those who got in lamb on the first cycle.

He scans again eight weeks later, with any dries rejoined straight away.

As the ewes begin to lamb, the rams are put back with the mob, and then taken out on June 15.

Mr Toole gets between 150 and 170 per cent average lambing rates at weaning.

Lambs are weaned at 12 to 16 weeks old and put onto cereal crops.

Depending on the season, he sometimes keeps his wethers until they are between 18 and 24 months. They are put on crops with access to barley feeders.

"I get two or three shearings off them, getting between $70 and $90 a fleece, and then sell them straight off the board as a prime wether," he said.

He said he bought some Merinos from Western Australia, shore them as a lamb and then hogget, and sold them in April for $250 a head at Dubbo.

As far as where his beloved Merino industry is headed, Mr Toole said the wool market had been feeling the pinch recently.

"But you've got to look at the average," he said.

"You can't look at it over one or two years - you've got to look at it over a decade. You've got to have the passion to ride out the lows."

And he's got that in droves.

"You've got to remember that even in a drought, you've got this animal that is producing wool, and can be sold into wether and mutton markets," he said.

"[Compared to other breeds], where someone else can run one ewe, I can run two; they cut six kilos, I cut 11; they get one lamb but I get two. A sheep eats 3pc of its body weight, so the bigger the sheep you've got, the more it eats."

He's not showing any signs of slowing down.

"Running Merinos is labour intensive. You've got to be able to work. For me, I learned to work from my grandfather and my dad."