Publication Date

2012

Publisher

Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia

City

Perth

ISBN

978-0-9871479-1-2

Abstract

The national sheep flock is a mere 40% of the size it was at its peak in the early 1990s. Some would say that it is on the verge of losing its critical mass for survival into the future. Others would see it already as a niche market industry, especially in regards to wool.

Farmers in a recent survey gave two key reasons for either quitting sheep or reducing the flock size: “sheep do not pay” or “the work involved in sheep is unacceptable”. We believe that sheep do pay — and they don’t have to be hard work.

The sheep enterprise on a farm may not always compare favourably in income with alternative enterprises, notably cropping, but sheep simply do not have a negative income. More importantly, as the percentage of the farm in crop increases over 60–70%, overall farm profits tend to decline. More to the point, for many farm businesses sheep are needed for reasons other than profit — risk management and grazing management to name a couple.

Many farmers view the work associated with sheep as a major disincentive to keeping sheep. The work is physically hard, dusty, repetitive, boring and seen as inappropriate but it simply need not be like that. There are many ways to make the job of running sheep much more producer-friendly.

This guide is designed to assist you in the thought processes required to improve labour efficiency associated with your sheep enterprise.

Number of Pages

72

Keywords

sheep

Disciplines

Agricultural Education | Sheep and Goat Science

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