How to shear sheep without shearers

There have been few changes in the shearing world in the past century but research is showing a promising alternative.

A better version of biological defleecing of sheep could be ready for testing within 18 months.

While there is nothing new in defleecing as an alternative to shearing, the previous method was time-consuming and involved putting nets on sheep to stop the wool falling off.

But work on a new form of biological defleecing being conducted by researchers at the University of Adelaide is progressing well according to Australian Wool Innovation.

AWI chairman Jock Laurie said it was important to growers to have options.

“Times of pressure in industries drive change and that is exactly where we are with the wool industry right now,” Mr Laurie said.

“We are seeing some very positive things coming out of the University of Adelaide’s work and they are confident that they can progress it and confident that in about in 18 months’ time we should have a clearer picture of what the story is.”

A new biological method of shearing sheep could offer an alternative to finding shearers with work now being done at the University of Adelaide.

Mr Laurie said the new method would involve the administration of a protein which would cause the wool to be weakened, but not break.

”You can leave it (the wool) a couple of weeks, grow your five millimetres and start removing the wool at a point when the wool is down to 8 or 10 newtons (low strength) and nets are not

needed.

Mr Laurie said research was now working on a method to administer the protein, whether that was an implant or an injection.

“We know that the protein puts a break in the wool so we can harvest it easily,” he said.

“It is amazing the number of wool growers who have got ideas on how to remove the wool so I think it will be a fairly simple process using VE machines, a level of robotics or air or whatever to remove the wool and move up into bins, classers tables or wool presses.”

While the early signs are good, Mr Laurie said the method would need Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority approval as the first stage in its broader use.

“At this stage I can say it is very positive and I hope this gives confidence to the industry that we will continue to invest in this work, we’ll drive it, we have seen enough to see the potential in this development,” Mr Laurie said.

“The biological defleecing option may not be used by everyone but it is another option to remove wool safely.”