How one sheep operation is viable six generations down the track
History doesn’t stand in the way for the Dennis family, whose willingness to find ways to stay viable is matched only by their ingenuity.
Innovation is nothing new to the Dennis family despite generations living on the same Western District property since 1840.
The family has a well-earned, multi-generational reputation for embracing change that started back when Emma and Alexander Dennis left their farm in the UK in 1839.
Constrained by their farm size in Cornwall, they brought more than 600 Merino sheep to Victoria from Tasmania and on advice, bought land near Colac on a run called Tarndwarncoort.
The climate, and its 600mm rainfall proved unsuitable for those Saxon Merinos but in what has become a pattern, the Dennis family went about developing their own breed of sheep by incorporating Lincolns into their flock.
A BREED APART
Several decades later, Australia’s first sheep breed was stabilised and named Polwarth in 1880.
That spirit of innovation has gone down through the generations as the family now ironically faced a similar challenge to their ancestors with their 200ha property requiring some lateral thinking to ensure it was able to support them.
It has resulted in a multi-pronged business where tourism, 2000 free-range chickens and the sale of wool spun from the Polwarths generate a range of income streams.
After careful succession planning, ownership of the original property was divided. The property and associated businesses are now run by Alastair and Tom Dennis, the sixth generation of the Dennis family to farm the land. They manage their farms separately but work together with their partners Jemma and Jason on a range of fronts, including producing a woollen yarn.
Alastair is responsible for running the flock of 700 Polwarth ewes, which are grazed on his adjoining property, while Tom is in charge of the value-adding side of the business. Al grows the wool, Tom buys it and then produces the yarn.
While they might have developed the breed and are still holding the No.1 registration for Polwarths, rams for the flock are now sourced from Fairview, Barongarook, with some key criteria for selection.
“Because of how we sell our wool and knowing the end goal, we are always looking for staple length when buying rams,” Tom said.
“Some of our wool goes direct to hand spinners, so they look for longer staple length than is normally accepted by the wool industry, so we can go out to 120mm for the lines that are going to be sold into the wool craft market as either greasy wool or tops.
“But we are also conscious that some of our wool goes into our own production of yarn, so the staple length needs to be 110-115mm to fit into that specification.”
Tom said there were pros and cons about running Polwarths, but there were far more positives.
They included the plain body of the animal, which meant mulesing was not required, but wool cuts were low at about four kilograms of fibre for adult sheep.
But what they lack in weight, they make up for in length and quality which has allowed the Dennis family to maximise returns from the fleeces.
HAND SPUN WISDOM
Tom’s parents, David and Wendy, capitalised on the popularity of hand spinning in the 1970s and ’80s when “every living room had a spinning wheel”, Tom said.
They not only sold white fleeces to hand spinners but kept the black progeny from their Polwarth flock to establish a separate mob of black and coloured sheep.
Wool from these sheep proved popular then and just as popular now, Tom said, despite the dwindling number of people who spun their own wool.
But the main value-adding portion of Tarndwarncoort is the white Polwarth wool, which is processed, dyed and sold as yarn in their farmgate shop, open three days a week, as well as online.
Tom said it was a natural progression to think about offering yarn for the wool craft market when the hand spinning popularity waned but finding the means to turn this plan into reality was not necessarily easy.
“We have worked with commercial spinners in Australia, but it is an industry that is under pressure and many, many have closed,” Tom said.
“There is probably a business opportunity in Australia at the moment to be able to custom spin wool for those who want to value-add their clip.”
The process now for the Dennis family’s wool is that it is scoured in Geelong by EP Robinson, then sent by ship to New Zealand to be spun into yarn, which is then air freighted back. Top making is also done in New Zealand prior to the spinning.
“It’s not ideal for a number of reasons but it is the way we have found at the moment that works,” Tom said.
“We would love to think that the whole process could happen in Australia, but the NZ mill will take our wool, albeit with all the biosecurity that goes with it and they’re a good business to work with.”
The wool is the either commercially dyed, or hand dyed.
About 1500kg of fleece wool is spun into fibre each year, with that wool carefully selected from each fleece that goes across the table at shearing.
LONG LENGTHS
Tom said they chose the longest, purest parts of each fleece to put into the bales that ultimately end up in their range of wools, with the remaining parts of the fleece then baled and sold through their wool broker.
“Both Alastair and his wife, Jemma, are wool classers so they run a fine-tooth comb through every fleece so we can know that we are picking the very best raw wool to work with,” he said.
The wool, marketed under the Tarndwarncoort brand, is the operation’s major seller and while value-adding further has been considered and even trialled, yarn remains the cornerstone of the business.
TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS
That’s not to say they have not considered a range of options, some of which have reached a prototype stage but most of which have ended up non-viable.
“We haven’t yet looked at producing fabric, but we’d like to see if it could be used in other craft disciplines like clothes making,” Tom said.
“We also looked at doing 100 per cent Polwarth wool socks but we tried them ourselves and thought that without including some kind of nylon, they were not really going to work so that did not fit with what we are about.”
But like true innovators, they did not let the experience go to waste.
Normally, most of the wool sold through the Tarndwarncoort brand is four-ply and eight-ply, but the wool needed to make socks was a much finer laceweight yarn.
That finer wool, which could have been used to make socks, is now finding a market in hand weaving, an opportunity that the Dennis family never considered before.
“We have a whole new customer base with the laceweight wool and hit a sweet spot that we didn’t know was there,” Tom said.
“While your initial plans may not work out, it is important to keep your mind open to possibilities.”
With free-range chickens, an accommodation business and the farm shop, Tarndwarncoort’s business model is multi-pronged but it all comes back to the brave decision of the first generation of the Dennis family who came to Australia and created a new breed of sheep.
“We are proud of our history and our wool range pays homage to the colours of where we live, but we have always been innovative and open to seeing how we can maximise returns from our asset,” Tom said.
The Dennis family is in the running for The Weekly Times Coles 2022 Farmer of the Year Awards. To nominate a great farmer, fill out the form below. To learn more aboout the Farmer of the Year Awards click here.
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