The Huge Wool Market and FGF5(S), page-13

From memory there are about 120 million sheep shorn for wool in Australia each year. This is down form about 160 million when the wool floor price was in operation about 20 years ago.

Sheep, generally speaking, are selected for specific traits.

Meat and X-Bred sheep are bred for domestic consumption (fat lambs) but also produce broader wool (used for knitwear, jumpers, billiard tables, hats, etc.), e.g. British meat sheep (Dorset, Border Leicester, South Suffolk, etc.).

Export quality fat lambs are typically the result of mating a Merino ewe with a long-wool ram (e.g. Border Leicester) with the resultant x-bred ewes then mated to a short-wool meat breed (e.g. Poll Dorset or Suffolk). The resultant progeny from the second cross have high lambing percentages and grow rapidly to heavy weights, i.e. fat lambs.

There are also African, Middle Eastern, etc. fat tail meat sheep which naturally shed their wool (which is short, coarse, and not valuable) in the paddock so they don't have to be shorn.

But basically we are interested in Merino wool ranging from superfine (18 micron and lower), medium fine 18 micron and broader) + some dual purpose breeds which produce reasonable fat lambs and broader micron wool (21 to 26 micron) e.g. Bond, Polwarth, etc.

A superfine staple wool is normally about 85 or longer. Fine or medium micron wool is upto 120 mil or more in length. I sold some 16 micron wool recently for $17 a kilo 'greasy' which equates to about $26 or so clean (after it been through the scouring process). The finer the wool the higher the price. Superfine sheep you might get about 4 kg from. Broader (western plains) sheep you might get 6 or 7 kg.

The minimum combing length for merino wool (for suits, etc.) is about 65 mil.

Sheep are usually rotationally grazed (moved to fresh paddocks on a regular basis so as to break the worm larvae cycle). This reduces the need to drench them for worms down to about twice a year. They are also brought in for lamb 'marking' and for shearing (although shearing may be coordinated with one of the two drenches where possible).

So, if possible, sheep are typically handled 2 or 3 times a year normally so daily FGF5 treatment is out of the question.

But if CSIRO, or whoever, in conjunction with CDY could produce a drench or injection which could be used quarterly, half yearly, or yearly to successfully do the business every merino/wool grower in the country would be into it in my opinion.

In fact it may well put them in a position to shear twice a year if the sheep had access to sufficient nutrition to produce an extra 50 percent of the growth that they do now. (Mind you it may also blow out the micron count a bit but I guess we could live with that).

Anyway, just to kick the conversation along, have a think about that.

Donos