At a time when expanding and increasing sheep numbers seems dubious, Karridale woolgrowers Matt and Emma Nield have taken the opportunity to expand their Merino flock.
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The Augusta-Margaret River region's reliable rainfall, long growing season and winter feed, combined with the durability and dual-purpose nature of the Merino, are all factors why the breed is the perfect fit for the Nield family's operation on their 650 hectare leased land holdings, Blackwood Grazing.
The farmland in which husband and wife duo Matt and Emma Nield work across, along with the help of their 18-year-old son Bill, is 100 per cent leased, and has been since they made the move to Karridale 15 years ago from Boyup Brook.
In the early days of settling down by the coast, when Mr Nield was working for a local contractor, he was approached with a lease opportunity when sheep prices were low and he never looked back.
Now, with the potential for more lease land available in the next 12 months, the decision to expand ewe numbers is based on being confident the industry will turn around in the near future.
"I have faith things are going to turn around pretty quickly," Mr Nield said.
"If I buy ewes now, I think the reward will be worth it when I sell them in two years.
"We have recently leased a further 100ha."
In terms of increasing their ewe numbers, the Nields work on running stock numbers based on ewes pregnancy tested in lamb.
"We are currently running more than 4000 ewes and aim to have 4000 ewes scanned in lamb each year, which we have achieved now," Mr Nield said.
"Going forward, next joining we are hoping to have 5000 ewes pregnancy tested in lamb at scanning.
"With our additional 100ha of lease, we have purchased a further 800 Merino ewes joined to terminal sires."
The Nield's flock is made up of purebred Merinos, as well as running ewes joined to terminal Poll Dorset sires to increase carcase characteristics.
"Of the 4000 lambs we aim to drop each year, 2200 are Merino lambs and 1800 are crossbred lambs," he said.
Growing up on a Merino property, wool has always been a major passion of Mr Nield's, and the family's growing wool-based business plan is proof that hard work pays off - and top-quality wool can grow in high rainfall areas.
"I love growing and producing wool," Mr Nield said.
"The wool aspect is my passion but it is great to have an animal that produces a dual-income too."
To produce the best stock possible, the Nields have made changes throughout the years to ensure the flock is at its best.
"Realistically we just make them work harder," he said.
"They have to do something other than just producing wool, they need to also be producing lambs.
"We do this by taking any freeloaders out of the system, so if they aren't being productive we get rid of them."
Using the right bloodlines for their breeding program, from Angenup stud, Kojonup, and Orrvale Poll Dorset stud, Kojonup, has played a big role in producing quality stock.
The selection process for the Merino rams is based only on visual appraisal, selecting heavily on wool quality.
"Our most critical thing is wool," Mr Nield said.
"We look for bright, white-woolled rams because being here in this type of rainfall the wool has to be white and well-nourished.
"For our Poll Dorsets, we pick them based on early growth and meat yield."
Regardless of the breed, the Nields also look for overall conformation and good feet.
"We run both breeds at a 1.7pc joining rate with the ewes," Mr Nield said.
Changing from a five-week joining period, to a 28-day joining period, split into two joinings for Merinos and crossbreds each year, has eased farm management and condensed the lambing window for the Nields.
"We put the Poll Dorset rams out in February and the Merino rams out in March," Mr Nield said.
"The split joining system makes the management of lambs and feed supply easier.
"This way we can better manage the flock in general and during weaning, market the sheep easier and match feed growth in the months they lamb.
"Maiden ewes make up 30pc of the ewe flock most years, so they are joined separately so we can keep a close eye on them."
Post-joining, ideally 45 days in mid-May after the rams come out, the Merino ewes are pregnancy scanned.
"Any ewes that are dry at scanning will be marked as culls and put on the first available truck to the abattoirs," Mr Nield said.
According to the Karridale producers, scanning is a vital part of their livestock calendar.
"It's good to know what ewes are in lamb or dry so we can manage feed for twins and singles, and reduce our mob sizes accordingly," he said.
"We won't run more than 100 twin-bearing ewes in a mob.
"We use electric fences to ensure we have 100 twin-bearing ewes or less in a mob."
Although percentages fluctuate almost 5pc each year, the Nields have reached a 12.5 lambs per hectare target and plan to increase it to 13.5 in coming years.
When both Merinos and crossbred lambs begin to drop in July and August, all lambs are marked a week to 10 days after the last lamb is born.
At marking, both lambing groups will receive a Glanvac3 vaccine, Vitamin B12 and Selenium, as well as pain relief on the cradle and the ewe lambs get a Guidair shot as well.
"After marking, about 75 days after the final lamb drops, we start weaning the lambs," Mr Nield said.
"All our Merino weaners will receive Cobalt and Selenium bullets during the yard weaning process."
To ensure adequate lamb growth, crossbreds will graze on clover dominant pastures after weaning, while the Merino lambs go onto 60ha of standing oat crops.
"We seed the oats as a feed source for Merino lambs after weaning, and to mate our maiden Merino ewes on," he said.
"During the winter months, after the Merino ewe weaners graze on the standing oat crop, we run them under local vines once the season breaks and the vineyards are finished harvesting.
"The benefit of this means we can increase our stocking rate and ewe numbers in the winter, and when they come back to the farm in September, grass growth is up."
November in the stock calendar is a big month for the Nield family, working together with their classer to decipher what animals will build up the existing flock, and what will be sold as culls.
"We will retain all of our ewes until they are classed as hoggets," Mr Nield said.
"We'll mate 98pc of those ewes as hoggets, only culling the animals with undershot jaws, bad legs and bad feet."
Wool type determines what breeding flock they'll go into based on their potential wool production.
"The top-end ewes will be joined to Merino rams, while the tail end will be marked as culls and go into the crossbred breeding mob," Mr Nield said.
One of the most important factors when selecting Merino ewes to go back into the self-replacing flock is fertility.
"For a Merino maiden to stay in the flock, she must rear her first lamb, so if she's dry at scanning, or doesn't have a lamb on her at weaning, she will go into the crossbred flock," Mr Nield said.
"This means our fertility in the crossbred flock is 5-10pc behind our Merinos, so we are working on the genetics in that flock at the moment now that we have the ewe numbers up, meaning we can cull harder on fertility."
The Nield family switched to non-mulesing about four years ago, meaning breech cover and dag scoring is important when it comes to the culling process.
"We cull for breech on the cradle with lambs, and dag score the ewes right up until they have their first lamb," he said.
"No matter how good a ewe hogget is, if she has dags she's gone.
"It's all about doability and manageability of the animals, we want to make it as simple and easy as possible."
Over the years, due to Mr Nield working on his own for the majority of the time, introducing sheep eID tags and non-mulesing has improved farm management and labour efficiency.
"We introduced the tags partially seven years ago, purely for management purposes and then put tags in all our stock four years ago," he said.
"This helps me track individual animals and manage their fertility and data, it's a great management tool.
"It has done a lot for us in terms of labour saving and reducing the amount of sheep handling we do.
"Everything eID does for an enterprise can be done manually with a pen and paper, but it's the labour efficiency of the tags that will save farmers a lot of time and stress."
An auto drafter also helps with time management.
"It's so handy to be able to have the auto draft system because it is something I use a lot when I'm working alone," Mr Nield said.
"Since having the new set-up, you basically tell the computer what to do, so if I need to offload numbers it's easy to find my poor ewes historically with the eID and draft them accordingly as well as so many other things."
December shearing for wethers and cull ewes is part of the management plan, followed by a January shearing for all Merino ewes and lambs.
"We use Gillies Shearing team from Boyup Brook," Mr Nield said.
"When it comes to our wether lambs, shearing and scanning are crucial in determining how many wether lambs we'll keep each year."
In the past few years, the Nields have kept up to 800 Merino wether lambs and fattened them on a lease block close by.
"We try to get our Merino wethers off to the live export market, so we are currently trying to change management strategies to market them domestically," Mr Nield said.
"In saying that, although it's a bit scary at the moment, I see a bright future in the next two years for sheep prices."
Aside from the live export industry challenges, the Nields say they are battling ideology from local, State and Federal governments.
"Some people within the shire, who have minimal education on the matter, if they got their way, we would lose 30pc of our land and would become non-viable," Mr Nield said.
When it comes to marketing crossbreds, the Nields hope to have all their crossbred lambs off the farm at 120 days old, whether it's over the hook or to a lotfeeder.
"It was hard last year because there was no store market, so we finished everything ourselves," Mr Nield said.
"We don't work off an ideal sale weight, just what the market is doing and the best prices we can find at the time."
In a normal year, crossbred lambs at Blackwood Grazing would be grass finished, but due to the season shutting off in September last year, lambs were finished on grain due to a lack of available grass.
"We started same hand feeding in November and our small onsite feedlot that is only used occasionally, was in full swing last summer," Mr Nield said.
"We can feed 450 head at a time in the feedlot and lambs spend anywhere from 28-42 days inside.
"We aim for four weeks on feed to finish them off usually before they are sold."
Mr Nield said crossbred lambs have been processed at V&V Walsh, and Beaufort River Meats before, usually selling to where this is adequate booking space and reasonable prices.
To maintain production over the long summer period of limited feed availability this year, after years of planning, the Nields built a confinement feeding zone last October.
Although it was earlier than originally anticipated, they knew back in late 2023, with the upcoming season ahead that there was no better time to introduce the confinement feeding.
"We had been thinking about it for a few years, and when I built it, I knew it was a necessity that had to come with the season," Mr Nield said.
"I can fit 3000 head in confinement which I plan to expand to 6000 next year.
"I've established water points and supplies for 6000 head."
According to Mr Nield, the confinement set-up will improve farm management in the years it's needed.
"The aim for once it's completed for 6000 head, is at the break of the season, is to put other pastures into oats and utilise them from grazing throughout the year," he said.
"Our oats aren't usually sown until June or July but with all the sheep in confinement we can sow earlier and utilise the extra feed from the cereals, and as soon as I have enough grass, the sheep will come out of confinement.
"Basically the idea of confinement is for the break of the season, but because it was so dry this year, I tried dry season confinement because we were running out of feed and water."
On top of the standing oat crop, ewes and lambs are also supplementary fed according to their nutritional requirements.
"We buy barley straw in and whatever grain we need, I prefer lupins but barley was the cheapest energy source we could get this year as lupins were very difficult to get," Mr Nield said.
"We don't grow any fodder apart from the standing oat crop, which is a part of our pasture renovation plan."
The pasture renovation management plan is based on a four-year rotation throughout the property.
"We try to crop a couple of the paddocks back to standing oats, which usually comes up dirty with ryegrass, which gives me another seed bank of ryegrass going forward which is great," Mr Nield said.
"Now that we've controlled other weeds we're going to start sowing clover into standing oats, which we would usually do after the oat crop but we've decided to combine them now."
Mr Nield said the family had been dabbling in forages for the past five years.
"We've tried millet, sorghum and forage rape," he said.
"Now we're looking at establishing perennial pastures in the low lying waterlogged parts of the farm."
