WESTERN Australian sheep and wool producers wanting to boost profitability and give their business the high of 'riding on the sheep's back' flocked to the Wheatbelt on August 11.
On Thursday, Australian Wool Innovation's (AWI) WA woolgrower network - The Sheep's Back - hosted its highly anticipated biennial Sheep Easy event in the Williams Town Hall.
Sheep Easy shared innovative technology and research to implement onfarm with more than 180 producers and industry stakeholders from across WA's southern farming region.
The Sheep's Back project co-ordinator Andrew Ritchie said - as its name suggested - Sheep Easy's focus was on making sheep management easy for producers.
"To make sheep management easy we need both research and access to information, as well as farmer innovation," Mr Ritchie said.
"Farmers help make their own life easier by definition."
He said it was important to expose people to research, but also to expose researchers to the people.
"Researchers need to get exposed to the people they are working for, so they can make sure their work is well-rounded.
"This event was a great opportunity for like-minded people to network and share ideas.
"The sheep industry has sort of been the poor cousin for a while, but it is a very profitable space and has been for more than five years."
Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development senior principal scientist Richard George was the first guest speaker to address the audience, discussing the future challenges of stock water.
He presented statistics on the impact of drier winter and summer seasons, as well as the related industry-wide issues these issues had created.
Mr George also covered options for setting up improved water security onfarm and shared research into desalination and deep drilling to help access increased secure water supplies.
"Richard told us we need to invest in our dams and understand water variability more," Mr Ritchie said.
"The rising in water tables is a potential resource if it is not saline or if we are able to get some salinity technology to work at a price."
AWI industry relations officer Ellie Bigwood then gave an update on AWI's genetics program before AWI Pingelly Merino Lifetime Productivity (MLP) site manager Bronwyn Clark briefed the audience on the MLP project.
"Bronwyn Clark gave us the tip of an enormous project," Mr Ritchie said.
"As well as that there were a few tip bits including: some rams do all the work in joining while some ewes conceive to multiple matings.
"So there's clearly a two-way street and if your sheep are in good nick then you are nearly guaranteed to get them pregnant."
Following the presentations and morning tea, participants rotated through four 35 minute presentations headlined by CSIRO senior principal research scientist Hayley Norman, the Murdoch University team including research officer and PhD candidate Sarah Bulmer, associate professor - biochemistry and nutrition Caroline Jacobson and sheep researcher Amy Lockwood, Nutrien consultant agronomist Sam Taylor, DPIRD research officer John Paul Collins and Stirling to Coast Farmers Smart Farms co-ordinator Phillip Honey, as well as producers James Jefferies (Duranillin), Craig Lubcke (Darkan), Paul Milne (Williams) and Paul South (Darkan).
"Hayley Norman spoke about energy being the limiting factor in summer feed and how the animals are quite selective," Mr Ritchie said.
"She demonstrated that by saying they were selecting different varieties of saltbush, but also she gave quite a neat recommendation of how to set up a saltbush.
"Sam Taylor's message was to treat pasture as a crop.
"He gave some nifty nitrogen rules including one kilogram of nitrogen grows 15 kilograms of dry matter on average, but it can range up to 30 kilograms depending on the conditions.
"John Paul Collins and Phil Honey also gave some great tips for setting up technology and knowing what problem you are trying to solve before you go down that path.
"They also shared a few case studies on water solutions.
"Meanwhile, Murdoch University spoke about mob sizes to improve survival of twins, the importance of fat percentage as a function of maintenance energy required and potential foetal losses in hoggets."
The second half of the afternoon featured outdoor demonstrations with Eagle Eye Engineering, Clipex and Harvestair and a trade exhibitor displays circuit with AWI, AxisTech, DPIRD, NUMNUTS, Kojonup Agricultural Supplies, LIVEStock Pricing and Rural Data Management Services
Keynote speaker for the event Tim Leeming, Paradoo Prime, was unable to attend the forum due to COVID-19 restrictions, however he presented via video conference.
Mr Leeming discussed Precision Lambing for the modern farm, which included building precision into reproduction by shrinking pregnant ewe mob sizes and paddock sizes and using natural shelter to maximise lamb survival.
"Tim spoke about his new model of precision lambing and how much data he collected," Mr Ritchie said.
"He was achieving about 11.5 lambs per hectare - that is a pretty awesome function rate."
To conclude the forum WA sheep farmers Andrew Scanlon (Arthur River/ Wagin), Braden Johnston (Nyabing) and Murray Hall (Brookton) headlined an Innovative Farmers' Panel - Driving Production in Variable Rainfall Climates.
The farmer panel spoke about their sheep enterprises and highlighted what changes they had made over time.
"The panel's universal themes were use of benchmarks, production techniques and technology and they all used the word 'exit strategies' as a reason," Mr Ritchie said.
"They needed to have exit strategies to deal with poor seasons, which was music to my ears because years and years ago we ran a course that taught people to build exit strategies for their livestock, so they were regurgitating what they have heard from us before."
The overall response The Sheep's Back received about Sheep Easy 2021 was "overwhelmingly positive".
Mr Ritchie said organisers were happy with how it turned out with farmers travelling from as far as Quairading to Manypeaks to Bridgetown, Frankland River and Northam.
"Farmers love hearing from other farmers," he said.
"All the speakers seemed to receive really good responses and reviews.
"I believe the sheep industry should have its own conference and this was my budget way of achieving that outcome.
"I received a message saying we should run the event every year, which unfortunately we can't do as there are not always new things in the space every year and funds are limited."
