Leroy Mac's Merino baby blankets produced in Lexton by McErvale farmers

Rod and Rebecca McErvale fell in love 14 years ago, Rod with more than 100 years of farming family history behind him and Rebecca without a day of agricultural experience.

In 2008, the McErvale family purchased a factory premises in Ballarat, Victoria, which they leased out to a knitting business.

At the same time, the couple came across some locally-made children's knitwear which was made mostly out of cotton and some wool, and felt inspired to celebrate Australian Merino wool in their own way.

It took the couple about 12 months to get a feel of how the business, named Leroy Mac, was going to operate.

The business started with baby blankets and has now expanded into a range of children's knitwear products, which includes bedding, hats and scarves.

With her roots in the city and a love of business, Ms McErvale said she wanted to find a way of value-adding to Mr McErvale's enterprise.

"I'm still not 'the farmer's wife' and I'm never going to be, but this is a way that I could contribute," Ms McErvale said.

"I love it, and we've been really lucky."

Only fleece from sheep from two to two and a half years old is used on Leroy Mac's products.

"No pieces, no locks, no crutchings, just pure fleece wool," Mr McErvale said.

Understanding the grubby nature of young children, the McErvales knew their product had to be machine washable, but finding a wool processor which provided a superwash treatment (preventing it from shrinking or felting in the washing machine) was almost impossible.

The superwash treatment was the only thing stopping Leroy Mac products from being made entirely in Victoria.

"Once we worked out we had to go overseas, we then had to find someone who would do our small batch, and then also guarantee what we sent over is what we got back with a DNA test," Mr McErvale said.

Four years into the search, the couple was at its wit's end trying to find a wool processor.

"Our woolbroker couldn't help us, they said "you won't get it done," he said.

While sitting at a wool sale in Melbourne, the saving grace was a man who Mr McErvale knew from his childhood.

"I told him about the headaches we've been going through and he said "leave it with me", and in about two months, we had wool on the wharf going off to Italy," he said.

The wool processor in Italy, Safil (now Suedwolle), processed bales of greasy wool into ready-to-knit yarn.

Safil was a game changer for Leroy Mac, agreeing to process small batch numbers and meeting specific requirements, but there were some problems along their journey which weren't so easy to iron out.

Batch requirements and freight times and costs added pressure to the process, and often caused months-long delays if something went wrong along the way.

After six years of using Safil, the McErvales found they could get more of the process completed in Victoria, when the Wangaratta Spinners recommissioned an old spinning machine.

This allowed them to have greasy wool processed to tops by The Schneider Group in Italy.

Last year, 26 bales of wool were processed by Schneiders.

"Now within a couple of weeks, it's spun, dyed to our colours and at our knitters," Mr McErvale said.

"Only about a third of our fleece wool is currently being used, so we've still got the capacity to ramp it up a bit more if we want to."

Adjacent to the business, the couple also owns a separate business called Yalong Yarn, keeping Leroy Mac recognisable as a children's knitwear business.

Yalong Yarn sells small batches of superwashed yarn, and is entirely made in Victoria.

"Changing over to Wangaratta Spinners for our later stage processing has opened up so many more opportunities for future business growth " Mr McErvale said.

Testing is already underway for a batch of automotive fabrics, as well as pipelines being created to produce woollen jeans and moleskin fabrics, all from the wool off their sheep.

"If we didn't have the capacity and knowledge of the people at Wangaratta Spinners we wouldn't have ever bothered trying to further our horizon," he said.

He said after they started they realised there were "people out there that would and they had a real belief in what we were doing and in the wool industry".

In the future, the couple would like to be knitting their own Leroy Mac products.

"We'd love to have a premises with our own machines, but the finances and knowledge to get it up and running is a long way off at the moment," Mr McErvale said.

5500 head of sheep are spread over three farms between Lexton and Beaufort in an area just under 900 hectares.

The family started a pasture establishment program five years ago after purchasing a neighbouring farm.

Running a closed livestock program which excluded all other livestock and only allowed rams on the main farm, the McErvales turned to sowing phalaris and cocksfoot to level off the ground.

However at the end of 2019, two years into this program, nearly all of the farm was burnt out and with it, 300 head of young stock.

To recover, more crops were sown over the following two years and stock numbers have increased, along with 80ha of pasture regrown.

Growing phalaris and cocksfoot is something the McErvale family has been doing since the 1960s - saying it is the key to soft, fluffy fleece.

"On our light, highly erodible soils we need a grass that gives great ground cover and a strong root mass to protect our most valuable assets," Mr McErvale said.

"Without our soils we can't run our sheep."

Mr McErvale described sheep and wool as a "lean" business.

"You can cut back and run on the very bare minimum for a couple of years until you get over whatever is happening," he said.

"And in the last 30 years of wool growing, there've been a lot of lean years."

Somewhat unheard of in most parts of WA, Mr McErvale said one of his paddocks was waterlogged last year, and has only dried up in the past six months.

"Last year was the toughest year I've ever done, I would rather have a drought than last year, it was that bad," he said.

"We had six inches of water sitting on a lot of our low country.

"We've got some lambs that (dealt with) had that setback last year and they still haven't picked up yet."

The waterlogging meant that no wool from last season was sent to be processed for Leroy Mac products, due to a lack of visual appeal.

One of the farms tends to be a few degrees warmer than another one of their paddocks in Waterloo - to their advantage.

"It's the warmth in winter that gives us a head start at Lexton," Mr McErvale said.

His lifelong career in wool is linked to an extensive history which began during the Ballarat gold rush in the early 1850s.

In 1853, Mr McErvale's great-great-grandfather was employed to take care of the sheep at Carngham Station.

"We're not sure whether it was because he was a vet, or renowned for his animal husbandry," he said.

From then on, the McErvale family laid deep roots in the area and has been raising sheep and growing wool ever since.

The couple has two children, Maddison, 9 and Isla, 7.

Whether the fifth-generation of Merino farmers will continue through the girls is uncertain for now.

"I'm not going to force them," Mr McErvale said.

"Maddison was in the tractor with me slashing phalaris grass until 5:30pm the other night."Isla is more interested in animals, I'm hoping she'll be a vet.

"It used to be that the definition of child cruelty was to leave them the family farm," Mr McErvale said, jokingly.

And who is Leroy Mac?

It's short for Leroy McErvale.

"Leroy was the name of our pet Merino lamb when my wife and I got together."