Australia Short Of Millions Of Sheep

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31085, 14 June 1966, Page 7

Australia Short Of Millions Of Sheep

Australia is short of sheep—the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation reports that a further 30 million sheep are needed to graze existing improved pastures, and another 20 million sheep will be required to replace drought losses in New South Wales and Queensland.

Dalgety and New Zealand Loan’s new service reports the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation as saying that the quickest way to build up breeding flocks was to retain ewes beyond the normal culling age of five to six years. Approximately 20 per cent of the nation's lambs were lost at birth buttrials at Gilruth Plains, South Western Queensland, showed that the reproductive performance of flocks increased with the age of the oldest ewes up to nine years.

Longevity of sheep varied from region to region as did the survival rate of lambs. Tests indicated that the proportion of ewes failing to lamb would fall as the casting age rose up to five years and would change little thereafter. The proportion of ewes bearing twins would rise with the casting age up to 10 years but would rise only slightly after inclusion of ewes older than seven years. Retention of ewes and wethers was an important economic decision for graziers as the wool cut a head in breeding flocks commonly fell after two to three years of age. The extent of this decline depended upon the locality and possibly the strain of Merino sheep concerned. However, the additional lambs could well compensate for the loss of wool.

The Commonwealth Bureau of Agricultural Economics believes that long-term increases in wool prices are unlikely because competition from synthetics appears to place a ceiling on the market value of the natural fibre. It says the only practical way to increase the national wool cheque appreciably in a reasonable time is by raising wool production an acre

through increased rates of stocking on improved pastures. It considers any future increases arising from average wool production a head are likely to be small by comparison. The most acute shortage of sheep is in Western Australia where the C.5.1.R.0. estimates that at least another 16m sheep are needed to stock land developed in recent years. In Brisbane, Dalgety and New Zealand Loan’s wool department manager, Mr J. T. H. Michod, said sheep numbers at present were at least 30 per cent down compared with this time last year because of adverse conditions. This represented a loss of more than seven million sheep in Queensland. The company’s senior wool valuer in Sydney, Mr Stuart Davis, said sheep numbers in New South Wales were down by 17j to 20 per cent because of the drought. This meant a drop of more than 12m in the State’s sheep population.