South Australian Member Profile

THORPE PARK SUPERFINES

Operating a Superfine Stud is a lot different in South Australia than the traditional superfine areas of Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania.  For one there are not all that many fine wools in this state let alone superfines, so one can feel a little lonely at times as far as the industry is concerned.  Even the brokers don’t know much about the tradition of superfine wool.

My grandparents came to Mt Pleasant SA in 1949; Granny was a Doctor and Granddad a WW1 Veteran who was bored at not having a farm after a five year break in the states South East.  He and his brother settled on Kangaroo Island after WW1 and ran Collinsville blood merinos.  On settling with his share of the KI sheep, they had a boat ride and came to Mount Pleasant in the Adelaide Hills approximately 50kms from Adelaide.

The sheep however did not like the 26 inch rainfall and were affected with water stain of all colours.  Shearing twice a year was trialled, did not work so granddad went extreme and decided superfines were the go.  Off to Victoria he went and bought 200 ewes and some rams from “Wurrook” and we have been running them ever since 1959.  The stud was formed soon after and rams were bred for sale and breeding.  Gradually the Collinsville sheep disappeared and the property was 100% superfine.

South Australia as you know is renowned for the big strong woolled merino.  So bringing in “little fine wools” was something out of the box, and we still get the questions today about why we have them.

Over the years the demand for the superfine in SA has decreased dramatically, there are pockets of them in the state with most rams being bought in Victoria, so these days we really only breed our own replacement rams  and don’t have too many about other than worker rams.  In the 1990s we moved our purchases to the “Glenara Stud” and have been very happy with them, the reason for this was to stay as true to the saxon as we could.  The Glenara rams have done very well in Mt Pleasant; we did try a “Sierra Park” ram in the 60s but found that grass seeds were a problem for him, which was unfortunate.

Middlethorpe Park

We have 720 acres at Mt Pleasant and shear about 2300 sheep a year including lambs, with a base of 18-1900 through the autumn, lambing is in late May and shearing late October, just beating the grass seeds.  The breakup is about 650 ewes, 400 wethers, 500 hoggets and 200 2 yr old ewes plus a few extras.  Also with a few Poll Herefords to terrorize fences.  All our land is grazing and we cut meadow hay, occasionally cropping a paddock in the improvement cycle.

The hardest thing is maintaining staple strength, especially on the young sheep.  The summers here are hard and the ground can bare up fairly well if the spring is unkind, so the seasons break can be a killer to the strength.  I have taken the tack that I would rather keep this as high as I can so sacrifice the micron to do this, can’t seem to have both it seems at the moment.  To get 35-40 Nkt means pouring the feed in at the right time, but can mean going from 18 micron to 18.5-19.0 micron for our clip.  In recent times it has been the right decision.   Keeping good water to them is also important, and as I write we have hit 5 inches for the month of July and the dams are full for the first time in about 6 years.  Not bad considering the biggest 2 were dry for most of the summer, they hold about 3 years of water so the drought has affected us in its own way.  We have not had a spring for awhile either.  The long summers also mean 70% is about the best yield we can hope for.

At this stage we select sheep the old fashioned way; I have been trying to go for a clean faced, pigment free animal with a long staple and bright white fine wool.  Body size has also been important.  We have been able to reduce micron marginally and increase wool cut doing this.  I know that in shed testing is not far away, but feel that with the wool industry at a very interesting stage, that is not great and costs ever increasing, I am holding back as long as I can, as stated wool test results are looking ok so not rushing.  I feel very frustrated as we all do no doubt how in the last 20 years shearing costs have doubled, production costs have increased enormously, we have all these things we have to do yet the per kg price has not matched these increases. 

Thorpe Park Bale

The above quoted microns may sound strong for you traditionalists but keeping it down is hard, we bring the sheep from Victoria and they grow straight away.  Over the last decade I have been trying to find a happy medium with micron, Nkt and fleece weight and sheep size.  Where we might lose in micron we gain in the sale yard with the animal.  The mulesing issue will change things again as will have to plain them up a little, but this will reduce fleece weights for a time until things can be sorted.  At this stage intend to mules for as long as can and will use pain relief.  Did not mules last years lambs initially, a dry spring and summer made life easier but decided not to let them see a spring so did them, only the rams not done so will see how it goes.  I feel very strongly on this issue, that we are letting ourselves in for a lot of trouble if we cease mulesing before a decent alternative is found.  This is one topic that opinions are mixed I know, I have just wool classed a clip where they only tail stripped last years lambs and have never seen so much stain, this at a place that has plain sheep and only 2 inches of rain for the year.

                                                       

Alistair with pet lambs.

 

The 1990s were not much fun for us as wool prices were not good, we have seen a lot of sheep go in the Hills to vines and a lot of fat lambs taking over.  The temptation to follow has been there, but I am a traditional person who loves the superfine sheep and intend to keep on breeding them for as long as I can.  As I mentioned earlier SA is a strong wool state and as a professional Wool classer I have seen a lot of this type of wool and I always love shearing time handling pure white soft VM free wool.  It always reinforces the need to keep it coming.  I have however bought a Suffolk for the old ewes; they put out a good fresh lamb.

My name is Nick Seager, I am the third generation to have the superfines and hope that my son Alistair can be the fourth.  There are a lot of hurdles to clear before he gets to that point but no more than from each generation, one of my biggest challenges was to get my father Michael out of his traditional drenching habits, from about 5 times a year back to 2, pre summer and late summer, we all have the same challenges ahead and hopefully the superfine wool industry can stay strong for a long time yet.  As we know it’s the best wool in the world and it’s nice to know that some is coming from South Australia.