Facts and figures on sheep and wool

About the wool industry
About the sheep meat industry
About sheep
Food and nutrition
Breeding and reproduction
Sheep health
About wool
Shearing
Packaging and transport
Wool selling
Wool processing

About the wool industry

• The main sectors in the wool industry are: wool producers; wool brokers; wool buyers; wool description firms; wool processors; manufacturers; retailers.
• There are between 4 and 5 million sheep in Queensland.
• Queensland produces about 20 million kilograms of wool a year - just 6 per cent of the national wool clip (630 million kilograms).
• There are approximately 76,000 sheep and wool producers in Australia and 2000 of those are in Queensland.
• Sheep and wool producing properties vary in size from 400 to 100,000 hectares.
• Approximately half of all sheep and wool properties have less than 1000 head, the other half have between 1000 and 50,000 head. Sheep and wool properties average 1700 head of sheep.
• Sheep and wool properties in Queensland are located in districts receiving 250 to 750 mm of rain per year.
• The majority of Queensland wool is produced in the western pastoral zones, stretching from Cunnamulla in the south through to Julia Creek in the north.
• The Merino breed makes up about 90 per cent of the sheep flock in Queensland, compared to 75 per cent of the national flock.
• Other sheep breeds found in Queensland are British (such as Border Leicester, Dorset Horn, Suffolk), European (such as Texel, Finn and East Friesian), African (such as Damara, Awassi, Dorper) and Australian (Corriedale, Coolalie, Poll Dorset).
• The majority of Australian wool produced is Merino wool with a fibre diameter of between 19 and 24 microns.
• Most wool between 15 and 24 microns in fibre diameter is made into clothing. The rest is used for other textiles such as blankets, insulation and furnishings.
• Australia is the world's largest producer and exporter of apparel wool, producing about 28 per cent of total world production (used for making clothes and knitting yarn).
• National raw wool exports reached 481 million kg clean in the 1999 to 2000 season.

About the sheep meat industry

• Australians eat about 320,000 tonnes or 17.8 kg per head of Australian grown lamb and mutton each year.
• Australia produces 327,000 tonnes of mutton per year and Queensland produces 6 per cent (10,200 tonnes) of the total.
• Most of the lamb that is consumed in Queensland comes from interstate.
• Australia is the world's largest exporter of live sheep, exporting around 5 million sheep in 1999, principally to countries in the Middle East.
• Australia is the second largest exporter of lamb and mutton after New Zealand. New Zealand produced 56.7 per cent and Australia produced 36.7 per cent of the world's lamb, mutton and goat exports in 1998.
• The breeding of prime lambs for meat usually incorporates breeds other than Merinos. These breeds maximise meat production rather than wool production. These are listed on the web site www.aussiesheep.com
• Methods for selling sheep include: in the paddock; saleyard auction; auction by description (through computer aided livestock marketing - CALM); over the hook (on carcass weight after the animal is slaughtered) through CALM, livestock agent, direct to an abattoir; private contract.

About sheep

• A newborn sheep is called a lamb until it is weaned (i.e. no longer drinks from its mother). It is then called a weaner. When it is nearly one year old it is called a hogget.
• A female sheep is called a ewe. A male sheep is a ram. When a ram is castrated (i.e. the testes are removed) it is called a wether.
• A young ewe having her first lamb is called a maiden ewe.
• Lambs drink milk from their mother for about five months before they are weaned.
• Sheep do not have upper front teeth instead they have a dental pad (i.e. a flat hard gum area).
• Sheep have 32 permanent teeth. Eight lower incisors, no upper incisors, 12 molars on the top jaw and 12 molars on the bottom jaw.
• Sheep are aged by their teeth and are referred to by the number of permanent incisors that have erupted. A two-tooth is about 1 to 1.5 years; a four-tooth is about 1.5 to 2 years; a six-tooth is about 2 to 3 years and an eight-tooth or full-mouth sheep is about 2 to 4 years. Once all eight permanent incisors are fully erupted the sheep can also be referred to as 'aged'. Once teeth are lost or broken, they are referred to as 'broken-mouthed'.
• The condition of sheep's teeth varies considerably according to their diet and the type of country they live on. Therefore aging sheep by their teeth, especially once all teeth have erupted, is very unreliable.
• Sheep are ruminants and so have four stomachs. The first is the largest and is the rumen, the second is the reticulum, the third is the omasum and the fourth is the abomasum.
• Sheep are cloven hoofed, which means they have two toes.
• A typical Queensland adult Merino sheep weighs about 45 kg. Lambs weigh about 4 kg at birth.
• Merino sheep have horns on rams and some ewes. When rams do not have horns, they are called Poll Merinos.
• Sheep have tails but these are docked (cut off) when they are 1 to 3 months old. Tails that are not removed become soiled with dung and can attract blowflies, which can harm the sheep.
• Many Queensland flocks run both wethers for wool growing and ewes for breeding and wool production as well as the associated rams and lambs.

Food and nutrition

• Adult sheep eat between 1 to 4 kg of food per day, depending on the moisture content of the food.
• The number of sheep that can live on a pasture depends on the quality of the pasture and the rainfall it receives. In some very dry or poor soil areas each sheep may need two or three hectares of pasture. In very good conditions with irrigation, each sheep may only need a quarter of a hectare.

Breeding and reproduction

• The gestation period (i.e. duration of pregnancy) for ewes is five months.
• Merino sheep lamb only once per year. Usually this is during spring, although it can be timed for autumn to fit with the availability of good pasture.
• Merino sheep usually have only one lamb although twins are not uncommon, especially in mature ewes. Other sheep breeds are more likely to have twins and triplets.
• Rams are usually mated (joined) to about 50 ewes (ie 2 per cent of the group of ewes to be joined).
• On commercial sheep properties in Queensland, mating typically occurs for about 6 to 10 weeks.

Sheep health

• Queensland sheep are affected by relatively few diseases.
• Queensland sheep producers spend around $3 million per year on veterinary drugs such as dips (to treat external parasites) and drenches (to treat internal parasites).
• The fleece on a sheep protects it from the environment. It keeps it cool in temperatures of 45 degrees and over in central western Queensland and warm when the temperatures fall to minus 10 degrees around Stanthorpe in southeast Queensland. Woollen garments give people similar environmental protection.
• The main worms affecting sheep in Queensland are barber's pole worm and black scour worm. Detailed information worm control can be found on the Wormbuster web pages
• Blowfly strike occurs when a certain type of blowfly lays its eggs on a sheep. When the eggs hatch and turn into maggots they eat the flesh of the sheep causing it to become sick and perhaps die. Wool that is stained or diseased and moist can attract blowflies.
• Sheep can become infested with several types of lice. The most important of these is the sheep body louse, which is host specific (ie it can only live on sheep). When lice feed on the surface of the sheep's skin they causes intense itching. The sheep rubs against trees and fence posts and bites at itself in an attempt to alleviate the itch. This rubbing and biting severely damages and devalues the wool.
• Blowfly strike and lice infestations are usually treated with pesticides, some of which are becoming more environment-friendly and safe to handle.
• Non-chemical management based on the principles of integrated pest management is also applied to prevent blowfly strike and louse infestations.

About wool

• Wool fibres are mostly made of protein with a small amount of fat, calcium and sodium.
• Wool fibres differ from other fibres because of their chemical structure; this affects texture, elasticity, staple and crimp formation of the wool fibres.
• Wool fibres naturally group together as they grow from the sheep's skin. These groups are called staples and contain many thousands of individual fibres.
• Each adult Merino sheep produces about 4.5 kg of wool per year in Queensland.
• Queensland wool has an average fibre diameter of 21 microns.
• Merino sheep usually have white wool, although they can have a variety of coloured markings.
• Coloured Merino sheep are removed from commercial wool flocks because the coloured wool can not be dyed with the white wool and is seen as a contaminant in white wool flocks. Coloured Merino wool is used by home spinners and in the craft and cottage industries.
• Queensland Merino wool is grouped under the following four types:

Super fine - greasy fleece weight (GFW) 3 to 4 kg, fibre diameter (FD) 19.5 micron or less, adult body weight (BWT) 35 to 40 kg

Fine - GFW 3 to 5kg, FD 19.6 to 20.5 micron, adult BWT 35 to 40 kg

Medium - GFW 4 to 6 kg, FD 20.6 to 22.5 micron, adult BWT 40 to 50 kg

Strong - GFW 5 to 7 kg, FD 22.6 or more microns, adult BWT 45 to 55 kg.

Note: Use of advanced sheep breeding selection systems will produce sheep with higher fleece and body weights than the average figures given above.

• The most important characteristics of wool in determining its value are:

Fibre diameter - thickness of the wool fibres measured in micrometers, also called microns (1000th of a millimetre)

Yield - the percentage of clean wool remaining after grease, dirt and vegetable matter have been removed

Staple length - the length of a staple of greasy wool in millimetres

Colour - indicates the whiteness and brightness of the wool

Staple strength - the force required to break a staple of wool, measured in newtons per kilotex.

Shearing

• Most sheep are shorn once a year.
• Sheep are shorn using a mechanically driven handpiece, powered by an electric or diesel motor.
• The shearer moves the handpiece through the wool and the fibres are cut near skin level by the action of a comb and cutter, similar to hair clippers.
• It takes around three minutes for a shearer to shear a sheep.
• Experienced shearers can shear around 150 sheep in an 8 hour working day.
• A very good shearer can shear up to 200 sheep per day. This equates to shifting 10 tonnes of sheep a day and the wool off these sheep will weigh nearly a tonne.
• Jackie Howe holds the record for shearing sheep. He shore 321 sheep in 7 hours, 40 minutes using blade shears on Alice Downs near Blackall, Queensland in 1892.
• It would take 67 000 shearer days to shear the entire Queensland sheep flock (10 million)
• It costs a sheep producer approximately $3.70 to have a sheep shorn. This includes all shed costs (ie shearing, skirting, classing, pressing).
• It costs around $37 million to shear the entire Queensland sheep flock.
• Once the shearer shears the sheep, the first shed-hand (the rouseabout), picks the fleece up off the shearing board and throws it on to the wool classing table for the second shed-hand (the woolroller), and wool classer.
• The wool roller removes the seedy, short and inferior pieces of wool from the edges of the fleece (called skirting) and rolls up the fleece ready for classing.
• The wool classer assesses (classes) the skirted fleece and places it in the appropriate wool bin.
• The wool presser takes the wool from the wool bin and presses it into wool bales.
• It takes about 50 skirted fleeces to fill a wool bale.
• Once pressed each bale must weigh a minimum of 110 kg and a maximum of 204 kg. Most wool bales weigh in the range of 170 to 190 kg.

Packaging and transport

• Wool packs are now made from nylon. In the past they were made from polyethylene or jute. Loose fibres from these packs caused contamination of the wool in the bale.
• Wool packs cost approximately $9.50 each.
• Queensland producers spend around $2.4 million each year on wool packs.
• It costs an average $10 per bale of wool to transport it to sale.
• It costs approximately $2.5 million per year to transport the Queensland wool clip from farm to sale.
• Approximately 50 per cent of Queensland's wool clip is transported by rail, the other 50 per cent by road.

Wool selling

• The majority of the Queensland wool clip is sold at the wool selling centres of Sydney, Newcastle and Melbourne.
• Most wool is sold by open cry public auction.
• Other methods for selling wool include sale by tender; private treaty; forward contract; and direct to mills.
• Sale by Sample is a method in which a mechanical claw takes a sample from each bale in a line or lot of wool. These 'grab' samples are bulked and a sample of not less than 4 kg is displayed in a box for the buyer to examine.
• A core of wool is also extracted from the bale and sent to a laboratory for measurement of fibre diameter, yield, vegetable matter, length, strength, colour.
• The results are displayed with the sample and available in sale catalogues so that manufacturers are able to predict accurately the processing performance of the wool they buy.

Wool processing

• Wool first reaches the manufacturer in its greasy state and passes through many processes before it reaches the consumer.
• Most wool is processed through one of two systems referred to as worsted or woollen.

The worsted system

• This system processes long wool (ie twelve months growth of 60 to 110mm) that is low in vegetable matter (ie less than 5 per cent). This process produces smooth yarns that are made into clothing fabrics.
• The first stage in the worsted system is scouring (ie the wool is washed and dried).
• This is followed by carding (ie the wool travels between two rollers with pins), which separates the fibres and starts to align the fibres parallel to each other and also removes most of the vegetable matter. The wool coming off the carding machine looks like a soft rope and is called a sliver.
• After carding the wool goes through a gilling machine where a number of slivers are blended together.
• Next is the combing process where the wool is combed to remove short fibres (noils) and remaining vegetable matter.
• At the end of the combing process the wool is in a continuous sliver of parallel fibres called a wool top.
• The wool top is then drawn down to a minimum of about 40 fibres in cross-section and spun (twisted) into a yarn.
• The worsted yarn is a strong smooth yarn consisting of parallel fibres about 70 mm in length.

The woollen system

• This system processes shorter wools that are usually 45 mm in length or shorter.
• The woollen process generally produces heavier fabrics than the worsted system. These are used for outer-wear (jackets and coats) and also for blankets and bulk knit jumpers.
• The first stage of the woollen process is scouring (ie the wool is washed and dried).
• If the wool has more than 5 per cent of vegetable matter in it, it is carbonised (ie treated with acid, heated and passed through rollers to crush the now carbonised seed etc) to remove the vegetable matter.
• The wool is then carded to separate the fibres.
• From the carding machine the fibres are drawn into a sliver of randomly arranged short fibres.
• This sliver is then twisted (spun) into a yarn.
• Woollen system yarns contain randomly arranged short fibres so are not as strong as worsted yarns. These yarns are also rougher or fluffier in appearance, as short fibres tend to stick out of the yarn.

Last updated 18 April 2005