THERE is a marked difference in today’s sheep industry to where it sat when Mal Thomson took over the family farm at the age of 24.
That was in 1989, when the passing of his father meant Mal was thrust into running the family’s South Stirlings property, Keelocking South.
Mal was in Perth at the time, working and playing football for Claremont.
He said he had to make a decision as to whether to sell the property or head back and farm it.
He decided to head home and, looking back, has no regrets in the move.
There were times, however, early on in the piece when he questioned if he had done the right thing.
“I walked straight into the period where sheep prices collapsed,” he said.
“It was a testing time; I was trying to learn how to farm and was faced with a sheep industry that looked like it had no future.
“We were running almost 14,000 sheep then and cutting 500 bales of wool, but sheep were worth nothing.
“I remember selling 2000 ewes and 1000 wethers in 1990 for a total of $1600 on farm.
“I think ewes were only worth 45 cents at the time and the wethers were $1.
“The same sheep at today’s prices would sell for $360,000.
It was a period that those who have been in the sheep industry for a long time remember well, but would like to forget.
Farmers were being paid to shoot sheep, as they were practically worthless to sell.
Mal said he tried to shoot some of his own sheep, but after doing a few, gave up.
“I couldn’t do it, I sold them for 45c rather than take the substantially higher amount the government was offering to shoot them,” he said.
Today is a far cry from those bleak years.
While cropping makes up the majority of the enterprise on Keelocking South, sheep are well and truly contributing to the bottom line.
The sheep flock makes up nearly 25 per cent of the income derived from the property.
“That would have been down as low as 10pc through the 1990s and early 2000s,” Mal said.
“We sold our wool in February this year and hit the peak of the market. We averaged just on $2000 net a bale across the whole clip of 135 bales.
“Sheep are selling for an average of more than $110 a head across everything - culls, old ewes and so on.
“It makes them a very valuable commodity at the moment.”
Mal runs the property with the help of his partner Marie, son Mitchell, stepson Rhys and full time worker Robin Cowles.
Sheep will always have a place on Keelocking South, as there are parts of the property that aren’t conducive to cropping year-in, year-out.
“I have always enjoyed working with sheep and this country is a bit fragile,” Mal said.
“Continuous cropping is not an option around here and my philosophy is that if you aren’t putting crop into a paddock then you should be grazing it with something.
“There is also always some form of income to be gained from sheep, no matter where prices are at.
“You can crop your entire farm but if you get a frost event or a drought, you could get nothing back from it.”
Mal runs 2800 wet ewes and has increased numbers recently with the purchase of a new block.
He mates 1100 ewes to White Suffolks to produce crossbred lambs and the balance are pure Merinos.
“Given we have been able to increase numbers I am now almost at a self-replacing flock stage,” he said.
“I used to buy in the ewes that were used for prime lamb production, but I have 800-900 ewe hoggets coming through each year now, so we will be fully self-replacing.”
The Thomsons have been long-term Woodyarrup clients and Mal said he is keen to keep his own ewes within the pure Merino flock.
“Woodyarrup produces good numbers of rams to choose from and we can get consistent lines of rams to suit what we are trying to breed,” he said.
“I am aiming for the finer end and we are averaging 19.1 micron across the clip, which is good at the moment because this micron is receiving a premium.
“I am mindful of keeping the kilograms of wool cut up, and I don’t want to sacrifice cut for micron.”
Mal has been pregnancy testing for the past 15 years, but this is the first year that he is separating ewes having singles and twins.
“We are only doing the older ewes and the pregnancy testing came back with 61 per cent of the ewes scanned having twins,” he said.
“This seems pretty high to me for Merinos, so it will be interesting to see what sort of lamb survival we have.”
To encourage keeping as many twins as possible, Mal is treating the twin flock as double the number of ewes.
“There are 630 that are in lamb with twins and I will run them as if there are 1200 ewes when they lamb, just to keep that condition up and give the lambs every chance,” he said.
Further to this, Mal has invested a lot in producing quality pastures that ewes go onto once lambed.
The operation crops 2400ha of barley and canola and up to 330ha of pasture has also been seeded this year.
“Putting pastures in has been one of the best moves we have made,” he said.
“I can’t see the point in growing weeds, if you want a pasture paddock then you may as well grow pasture.
“We are putting in a clover, serradella and oat mix.
“It has worked really well, both for the sheep enterprise and our cropping program.
“The nitrogen we are fixing into the soil each year is really improving our cropping yields.
“Without fail every year the canola that follows the pasture paddocks is our highest yielding.
“So we are getting a better crop and a better quality and quantity of feed for our sheep.”
Mal is also keen to embrace technology.
He was a founding member of the Stirlings to Coast grower group and keeps abreast of the latest innovations.
He sees some exciting developments coming in the sheep industry in future years and has just purchased an auto drafter that will be established within the new set of sheep yards he put in five years ago.
In his own words the auto drafter was a “few dollars’ worth”, but Mal believes its applications are endless.
He said he was looking at investing in the technology at some point, but the fact that sheep prices are so good, he was able to make the purchase two or three years faster than what he thought.
“It will be very useful for our prime lambs to keep regular, accurate monitoring of their weights so we can get them off quicker and look at the ones not performing,” he said.
“Running crossies used to be for beer money, but given where prices are now they are worth investing in.
“The next step will be putting electronic ear tags into all the sheep and lambs so that we can keep track of drenching programs, animal husbandry and overall management of the flock.
“I can see it being a huge benefit with the work we are doing with the twins. With the electronic tags we can monitor them easily and ensure they are performing.
“All I need now is to find a program that will cover my needs. That is for flock and paddock management that is stored in the cloud which can then be downloaded to all tablets in real time.
“It is out there I just have to find it.
“This will also enable us to have all the information at a click of the button for ease of management.”
Mal said the next big thing that could revolutionise sheep farming is virtual fencing.
“When virtual fencing takes off I believe I could run a lot more sheep,” he said.
“Imagine if you are running your sheep in a 60ha paddock and the virtual fencing enables strip grazing, so they will start at one end and will be pushed slowly up the paddock automatically.
“Once they get to the end they can be pushed back the other way.
“It would also have uses for crop grazing. We have tried crop grazing here but found the sheep would hammer one area and the rest of the paddock would get way ahead of that area.
“But if you had virtual fencing the sheep would be pushed along the length of the crop getting an even grazing automatically.
“All of a sudden you could double your stocking rates as long as you worked out a way of keeping the water up to them.”
Mal said that technology in the livestock industry was probably going to develop at a rapid rate in the next few years.
“Demand will drive innovation and with sheep and cattle making money, farmers will be willing to invest in technology so I think there will be some exciting things coming out in the next five to 10 years,” he said.
In terms of management and marketing of his sheep, Mal shears in February and starts lambing in May.
“As mentioned we weigh all the crossbred lambs regularly and usually the first drafts are sent off in October and then we will keep lines going through for a few months after that,” he said.
“We have a small feedlot that we can finish them off in if required.
There is not one specific buyer for the prime lambs, but in recent years they have usually gone to V&V Walsh or Fletchers.
Wether lambs are kept until they are rising 2yo, so two wool clips can be shorn off them.
“That is the big change from when I first came home, we were running five age groups of wethers,” Mal said.
“Now we are running the wet ewes and about 1800 hoggets on the place.”
