Stanley Vale Merino Stud - News & Views

The New Black

PIP COURTNEY, PRESENTER: There's a reason the term "black sheep of the family" means outcast, for in the wool industry, a black or brown sheep in the flock is rarely welcomed. But while most woolgrowers aim for snowy white fleece, there's a small core group breeding coloured sheep in varying shades of grey, brown and black. They mostly service the rekindled interest in handcrafts. But as Prue Adams found, the breeders of black and coloured sheep are not always embraced by the wider wool community.

HELEN WRIGHT, COLOURED WOOL PRODUCER: I trained as a professional wool classer, so I was travelling over Victoria and into New South Wales classing and I had friends that were craftspeople and they'd say to me, "Oh, you'll see a nice coloured fleece in the flock you're doing. Will you see if you can buy it for us?" So I'd bring wool home and take money back. But my father actually said to me at one stage, "Well you're not making any money out of this. You might as well have a few of them."

PRUE ADAMS, REPORTER: Helen Wright grew up on this Victorian property between Ararat and Avoca. Her parents ran merinos - white merinos. In the early 1980s, the young wool classer was surprised when her father allowed her to bring coloured sheep onto the place. It was a move that sparked a passion that would last a lifetime.

HELEN WRIGHT: My coloured sheep are based on a Merino-Corriedale cross, but I am breeding back to Merino because I like the softness of the Merino. Yeah, I've bred quite a few over the years, I suppose, but you never - I don't consider I've bred the perfect sheep, so you keep striving to put together the combinations. You'll breed a beautiful confirmation sheep, but the wool's not right and the perfect wool you want's on another one that hasn't got the confirmation.

PRUE ADAMS: Helen Wright still breeds white-wool sheep, but every year it's her coloureds she selects and prepares for the ultimate showcase: the Australian Sheep & Wool Show in Bendigo. So, in July, mature ewe Heloise, along with Katrina, Julia, Kazia and Leonard all boarded the trailer bound for Bendigo.

HELEN WRIGHT: It's a certain amount of pride because I know I've selected probably what I think are the best sheep I've got. They're all brown, the whole team this year; there's no blacks or greys.

PRUE ADAMS: All set then, Helen?

HELEN WRIGHT: Yes, Prue. Everything's ready. They're all on board. So, next stop Bendigo, approximately two hours' time.

PRUE ADAMS: Good travellers?

HELEN WRIGHT: Yeah, always. Past teams always have been. I hope these ones are, seeing there's only one in there that's actually been to a show before, so I hope they will be, but they're always glad to get out at the other end.

PRUE ADAMS: We'll check out how Helen's flock fared a little later. The idea for this story started with a Facebook post from a friend. She put up some photos of the ridiculously cute Valais Blacknose sheep, which hails from Switzerland. I made a few calls to see if these toy-like creatures were available in Australia, and before long, I was driving halfway across the country from my home in South Australia to NSW to speak to breeders who are passionate about producing coloured wool.

MELISSA HENRY, NSW BLACK & COLOURED SHEEP: So I started (inaudible) coloured sheep 10 years ago and they're a Corriedale breed, so a medium wool type.

PRUE ADAMS: Originally from Sydney, Melissa Henry became interested in the genetics of coloured sheep while still at school. Now she is the president of the NSW branch of the Black and Coloured Sheep Breeders Association and the first port of call for enthusiasts wanting to get hold of special sheep.

MELISSA HENRY: There certainly are a lot of rare breeds that are overseas that are naturally coloured, such as the Jacob sheep and the Valais Blacknose sheep that we see a lot of inquiries for here in Australia. The difficulty is meeting Australian quarantine requirements, which is absolutely crucial in protecting the Australian sheep industry.

PRUE ADAMS: Do you go through a phases like this in the association where people see something and go, "Oh, have to have one of those"?

MELISSA HENRY: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, certainly - we certainly do have a market for selling cute sheep for people on small acreage who are looking for a few pets and if you're gonna have a few pets, then you may as well have a few cute ones.

PRUE ADAMS: While cuteness plays a part in the selection of pets, the professional breeders of black and coloured sheep actually treat their segment of the industry very seriously.

MELISSA HENRY: Wool quality is really important, having productive ewes that produce a long staple length, so up to 10 to 12 centimetres is ideal, where you can really see that wool crimp. And also being heavy cutters. Temperament is a must for me, being a small flock, and I operate it largely on my own, so temperament is really important for me to be able to manage my sheep and to get them into the yards quite easily.

PRUE ADAMS: The market for naturally coloured fleece is usually through the craft trade. Spinners, weavers, felters and home knitters like to get hold of wool that has not been artificially dyed and there has been a noticeable resurgence of interest in these old-time skills. Melissa Henry sells her fleeces directly to the public via a Facebook page and client list.

MELISSA HENRY: There absolutely is a market for coloured wool. My fleeces are sold to hand spinners, so individual fleeces at $15 per kilo. So I guess compared to a lot of commodity wool market, that is seen as quite a premium.

PRUE ADAMS: As adorable as they are to the uninitiated, to woolgrowers, the birth of a black or brown lamb is not usually cause for celebration. Only white wool can be successfully and consistently dyed, so coloured offspring are usually culled. Off camera, there are those who scoff at the breeding of these colourful animals. But perhaps surprisingly, WoolProducers Australia, the national peak body for the wool industry, is relatively supportive. A merino man himself, Richard Halliday maintains if guidelines are followed, he has no concerns about the production of black and coloured fleece.

RICHARD HALLIDAY, WOOLPRODUCERS AUSTRALIA: There's room for everyone in the industry. At the end of the day, we're all about making our own share of the profit. You know, the dollar at home. So they find that they might have a small property or a medium-size - a large property growing coloured wool, but if they can make extra profit for themselves, well, well and good.

PRUE ADAMS: Melissa Henry says acceptance is growing and she is reluctant to make too much of any prejudice or division.

MELISSA HENRY: Not all shows have a coloured sheep section in them, so we haven't been able to attend some of those shows. So I guess we're a little bit limited in the shows that we can go to. But certainly, shows like the Royal Canberra Show have been absolutely fantastic in accepting us into their program and having us there all weekend.

PRUE ADAMS: So, as time goes on, would you like to see there be a little bit more unity between the white wool breeders and the coloured and black wool breeders?

MELISSA HENRY: Absolutely. There's new breeds being developed all the time and get accepted into shows' schedules and I'd like to see us have equal footing with that. I'm not sure we should be going down that political line.

BRONI JEKYLL, COLOURED WOOL PRODUCER: "Oh, there goes Black Betty," or, "There goes Blacksheep Broni." And they're two names, two monikers that have given - have been given to me by members of the white stud merino association.

PRUE ADAMS: High on a hill outside Yass is the biggest coloured wool stud in the country. Broni Jekyll and Mac MacDonald have run as many as 600 superfine merinos in varying shades of brown, black and grey, but they're scaling back a little now as they get older. Broni is from a wool-producing family. When she was growing up, the "genetic embarrassments", as she laughingly calls them, wouldn't have had a future.

BRONI JEKYLL: Boom! Gone! No questions asked. No, no, there's a very real reason for that and we cannot afford to have any dark or medullated fibre contamination in the Australian white wool clip, particularly in the merino wool clip, because it's absolutely tantamount to the wonderful quality of a product that we put out - of white wool - that we protect that.

PRUE ADAMS: With an emphasis on low stress handling and a keen eye to what the market wants, Broni Jekyll is well regarded by members of both the coloured and white wool sectors. While she gets some jokey nicknames, she doesn't believe there is the same prejudice there once was.

BRONI JEKYLL: We've had three or four different merino inspectors come out and the sort of comments that are given to us are, "Well, they're absolutely great. Pity they're coloured, pity they're black." But that doesn't worry us because that suits our market.

PRUE ADAMS: Broni Jekyll doesn't market her superfine fleece directly to craftspeople. Under the stud name Drap'hyd she's one of few coloured wool producers to sell through the mainstream commodity market.

BRONI JEKYLL: We have always targeted mainstream. We wanted to be commercially viable, to be able to produce wool to go into the main chain of processing. And, so we've had to have a product that is compatible with white wool of the same specification.

PRUE ADAMS: So, in May, at a auction house in Yennora on Sydney's outskirts, four lots of Drap'hyd coloured superfine wool, around 16 micron, was up for grabs. At about 700 cents, Broni was disappointed with the price. She'd experimented with a nine-month shearing cycle rather than the usual one year and it may not have paid off.

BRONI JEKYLL: We've sold the wool - that's the main thing. We've shifted it and now what we're going to do is follow that through and we're going to find out what the wool's gonna be used for because that's what we want to know so that we know whether to continue shearing with the shorter length or we go back to the 12 months length. ... We do follow our wool through. We're very keen to know what our buyers want so that we can try and fulfil those specifications. And we have found out that the wool mainly goes over to Korea for early-stage processing and roughly gets divided 50-50 to get further processed in either Asia or in Europe. So, somewhere there could be a Saudi prince wearing a suit that our wool has gone into, but by crikey, I woulda loved to have been paid the amount that he paid for that bloody suit. (Laughs)

PRUE ADAMS: Bendigo's annual Sheep & Wool Show is the biggest of its type anywhere in the world, showcasing everything to do with sheep, the food and the fibre. The white woolly breeds take pride of place in a huge permanent building. In stark contrast, the dark and coloured sheep breeders set up in a marquee far away on the oval.

MALCOLM STARRITT, SHEEP BREEDERS' ASSOC.: Their market is in our woolcraft section, so we like to have them close.

PRUE ADAMS: This is Malcolm Starritt's first year as president of the Australian Sheep Breeders' Association, a group with the sole purpose of running this show every year. Can you see a time when the black and coloured wool breeders might be in the big shed with the big, white, woolly merinos?

MALCOLM STARRITT: We're hopeful that we can improve the woolcraft section and the section for black and coloured sheep. So, they'll have, we hope, in years to come, much better infrastructure than what they have now.

PRUE ADAMS: OK. But not necessarily all together? Is there a concern about having them together?

MALCOLM STARRITT: Not necessarily all together. I think it's - it's just a terrific fit. We find it a terrific fit having woolcraft and black and coloured sheep so close together.

PRUE ADAMS: In judging the coloured wool, they're looking for all the usual traits they would in white wool. This year, it wasn't the professional breeders who took home the top prize. It went to a group of Victorian high school students.

JUDGE: Oh, here they are! Come on, girls. Well, congratulations. You've really done a great job.

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: Thank you very much.

JUDGE: It's a wonderful fleece and I congratulate you.

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT II: Thank you.

JUDGE: It should give you a little bit of confidence to keep on going.

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: Definitely.

JUDGE: Yeah.

PRUE ADAMS: While claiming the top fleece is a major coup, showing off the best coloured animals is the main game.

ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the 2015 Australian Sheep & Wool Show. Here today we're judging the black and coloured.

PRUE ADAMS: Different breeds and colours compete. There are the Border Leicesters with their Roman noses and the English Leicesters sporting spirally dreadlocks, all mixed in with the Corriedales and Merinos. The judge, Marie Vinnicombe, is a coloured sheep breeder herself. Like many in this small industry, she became interested in the genetics. The gene for colour is recessive, so every one of these sheep has two recessive chromosomes. That's what makes them coloured. White sheep will have a dominant white gene, but may also carry the recessive for colour, which is why white ewes can have brown babies. In the show ring, Helen Wright is having some mixed results. Her three lambs, however, all offspring of the same father, have lined up like little champions.

MARIE VINNICOMBE, JUDGE: The group that I found today which is truly representative of that group within consistency of wool, type, handle is the Merinos. Thank you very, very much. Beautiful. Congratulations.

HELEN WRIGHT: I'm very satisfied. I won the best-size progeny group with my three brown ones, this ram lamb and two Tutus ewes, and to me, that's a pinnacle as far as I'm concerned because it means my breeding program must be going somewhere in the right direction.

PRUE ADAMS: And that is what it's all about: breeding. Helen's aim is to consistently produce fleece for her own brand of five-ply wool. Broni's pure superfine Merinos will hopefully supply the yarn that ends up in a Saudi prince's suit. And Melissa can barely keep up with demand for fleeces she sends directly to craftspeople. And they all reckon there's plenty of room for others keen to breed sheep of colour.

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