Why Aussie White sheep are making such high prices

Australian Whites have grown to 400 studs in 10 years – and are making huge prices. Founder Graham Gilmore shares why.

Tattykeel will offer 150 young eyes and 250 stud and commercial Australian White rams at their on property sale.

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The founder of what is proving the most notable sheep breed of this year is boldly calling the rise of the Australian Whites a “reset of the sheep industry”.

A former-shearer who “busted my back shearing sheep”, Graham Gilmore, is a key figure in the Australian Poll Dorset stud sector, and now, in the increasingly popular shedding and haired sheep breeding industry.

Graham and his late brother Martin developing the wool-free haired Australian White sheep to remove the cost and worry of managing a fleece — and the animal husbandry workload that came with it — in the mid 2000s.

“The world isn’t cold anymore, everything is airconditioned, but it is hungry,” Graham said.

Time will tell if the Australian Whites do inspire a reset, but for now they are continuing to smash price records.

The breed has also recently brought in a new certification system of all AWSBA flock rams blue tagged to identify rams from pure bred registered rams and ewes, following a spate of miss described animals on AuctionsPlus and scams where so-called Aussie White sheep were advertised via social media and would-be buyers lost their deposit, Graham said.

But the legitimate results are mounting.

Just last week, AuctionsPlus’ national sheep sale had 40 scanned-in-lamb Aussie White Tattykeel certified ewes sell for $1015 from R and K Greenfields Pty, Bundalong. This surpassed the record for ewes set in June by $21.

The ewes were pure Tattykeel-blood Australian White, April-May 2020-drop, averaged 69.4kg liveweight, carried the Tattykeel certified red tags and were purchased by a bidder in southern NSW.

Along with their ease-of-care, Graham said the ability of the breed to join out of season; their explosive growth rates, high “but not silly” lambing percentages and good carcass yields, were attracting a raft of new entrants to the breed.

Graham uses a “real world data” approach to sheep breeding, choosing to line breed towards his goal and doesn’t use LambPlan.

This doesn’t seem to be harming the rising popularity of the breed; in the 10 years since he launched the breed, the Australian White Sheep Breeders Association now has around 140 registered studs.

Tattykeel itself has around 2000 stud ewes.

Graham said the people interested in Australian Whites varied greatly — from Merino breeders, to cattle producers.

“At the moment a lot of interest is coming from composite breeders as they want to get rid of the wool (on their existing sheep),” he said, as prices for broad micron wool continued to flatline.

“They don’t want the shearing cost, the crutching, flies, lice and it is becoming harder to get shearers at the right time.

“And, there is a worldwide oversupply of stronger wool.”

Graham said Australian Whites could be run with very low labour costs, giving an example of a new farm he had purchased which ran 1500 ewes.

He estimated that flock would only require 50 days labour per year, or, a day per week.

“Input costs are negligible, they need drenching, and are lambing at around 150 per cent lambs annually that’s 2250 lambs or say 1100 wether lambs at $200 each, that’s $220,000,” he said.

“If you keep 400 ewe lambs as replacements and sell 700 ewe lambs at $400, conservatively, that’s another $280,000, so you’ve already got half a million on that investment and still your old ewes to sell.”

Tattykeel will offer 150 young ewes and 250 stud and commercial Australian White rams on September 29 on property at Oberon, NSW.

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