Wool producer Steven Wishart rapt with market revival

Prices for Steven Wishart’s wool clip are getting towards “a fairer return than where it has been”, the Inverleigh sheep and wool producer says. This is what he is planning.

Inverleigh wool producer Steven Wishart, with Kelpie Maisey, is happy to see prices bounce back from the lows of last year. Picture: Zoe Phillips

INVERLEIGH sheep and wool producer Steven Wishart has been “really pleased” to see the wool market improving in early sales this year.

And he reckons prices for his Burnbrae Poll Merino stud’s clip are getting towards “a fairer return than where it has been”.

The Wishart family sold 18.3 micron wool for 1530c/kg last week, the last of the bales from their main shearing last November, and will shear some more wethers later this month.

Steven said their breeding aim was to produce dual purpose, plain-bodied Merinos, cutting around 7kg from their young ewes, and the lift in wool prices helped make that enterprise even more profitable.

Producer Steven Wishart says his sheep and wool enterprise is eyeing a premium for its non-mulesed wool. Picture: Zoe Phillips

Burnbrae is one of the most southern, high rainfall studs to be breeding bare breech, non-mulesed sheep, supplying rams to traditional Merino flocks as well as for dual purpose enterprises where Merinos are mated to Highlanders or first-cross ewes in order to reduce fleece micron and lift improve wool quality and prices.

“We have ceased mulesing and put a lot of (selection) pressure on breeding sheep with low breech wrinkle, so we are hoping to contract non-mulesed wool and eventually see premiums there too,” he said.

“It is great that all three sales (weeks) have seen positive price increments and the market is looking more buoyant than what it was last year.”

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