Farmers advised not to shear

Press, 19 December 1981, Page 25

Farmers advised not to shear

Farmers have been advised against shearing lambs to make money out of the supplememtary minimum price scheme for wool. A Ministry of Agriculture advisory officer at Ashburton, Mr K. E. MuscroftTaylor, and the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company’s area supervisor. Mr D. Gawn, said that it appeared farmers were prepared to shear prime lambs, send them to the works after the required three weeks, and thereby obtain the S.M.P. payment for their wool. There was little money in doing this, although there could be other management reasons. ■ The present lambs’ wool price was about $2.45 a kilogram. The supplement would be a percentage of that figure based on the difference between the adjusted weighted average sale price for the most recent auction sale and the S.M.P. of 320 c a kilogram expressed as a percentage of the adjusted weighted average sale price. As an example, they quoted Ikg of greasy wool valued at $2.45. With the S.M.P., it would gross $3.06. With a 200 g pelt worth 18c, the total return would be $3.24. They set the cost of shearing, packs, Wool Board levy, and freight at $1 to reduce the net return to $2.24. An average white-face woolly lamb with a pelt with

a I.2kg wool-pull was w’orth $2.55 at present. This meant that there was a loss with shearing of 31c a lamb. In 1979, said Mr MuscroftTaylor and Mr Gawn, the farmer got $ll.lB for meat and $4.85 for the pelt. A year later, the meat was worth $14.69 and the pelt $1.44. This year, the meat had increased to $18.98 and the pelt to $2.55. All the examples involved a 13kg PM lamb with a I.2kg woolly pelt. Management considerations justifying shearing white-faced lambs were that smaller lambs usually grew better when shorn. Shorn lambs were less prone to flystrike, but more prone to pleurisy if bad weather followed shearing or if heavyweight lambs were being raised. “Shearing increased the feed demand as well as delaying drafting by at least three weeks. But on an irrigated or cropping farm where feed surpluses occur in the late summer or early autumn, shearing is probably justified,” said Messrs Gawn ■and Muscroft-Taylor. “As a general principle, do not shear lambs for the sole purposes of making money from the S.M.P. for wool. But shearing the bottom half of wether lambs for later sale is probably justified on farms with adequate summer feed.” they said.