We always say we’re not crop farmers that have sheep,
we're sheep farmers that have crop.
They’re integrated together and one relies on the other, so.
My name is Scott Newby I farm here just east of Broomehill with my brother Wayne,
on a family property that we've had for over 110 years.
We’re running 1500 Marino ewes and various terminal crossbreds and composites.
We’re shearing about 3000 sheep and cropping about 80% of the farm, about 2000 ha of crop.
For back-lining ewes and drenching and what-have-you
we used to just run everything through the race.
We'd draft things up manually and run them around and through the race.
Using handlers has changed the way we've done big jobs like weening, where you're doing multiple jobs
at once because it cuts down on all the double-handling and going back through the race for
a second or third time.
We’re using this handler for drenching, we'll be doing vaccinating,
we're doing our back lining, hopefully we may do some weaning in it.
This handler's a Peak Hill Immobiliser. It's pneumatic, electric pneumatic.
So we run the sheep in, there’s a no-stop no-return segment here.
So the seeing eye trips the unit with pneumatic actuators that clamps the sheep from both sides,
you adjust the pressure for the clamp to have it comfortable for the sheep
and you've got a manual clamp and manual release, to let him go again.
If you're a one-man show you can walk back and push sheep up
and you know it's going to grab it.
Whereas the mechanical one, if you're on your own, you can't leave your post.
The benefits we're looking at getting out of something like this for the business is just
to not have to rely on that second labour unit and of course in the end of the day you would
like some efficiency gains and to actually put a few dollars back in your pocket.
I'm Peter Rowe, I’m an agricultural consultant and I've been working in the field for over 20 years.
I was asked by the Department of Agriculture and Food to look at the Newbys'
potential investment in a sheep handler.
The system that they're looking at cost around $17,000 dollars to buy.
Across 10 years, the system will save them around $10,000 dollars, which means that the
which means that the net present value is actually minus $6,000 dollars.
The benefit cost ratio is 0.6, meaning they spend a dollar they get $0.60 cents back.
The Newbys have 1500 ewes in their flock, and at 2500 ewes then the Newbys would breakeven,
and if they increase the ewe flock up to 4000, then the Newbys would return a $1.50
for each dollar they invest.
So it's clearly dependent on the number of ewes that you have within your system.
Things that are difficult to cost out is the fact that you're not fighting sheep in the
in the race all day, and you can stick it out for a bit longer.
We've definitely noticed the difference between day-to-day productivity of staff, myself primarily.
Especially if you’re not wrestling with heavy ewes in a race trying to give needles.
We’d be quite happy to increase our sheep numbers going forward,
it's just all based on the economics for us.
We just try to use all the tools available to us to get the best result
out of our sheep flock.
The Department of Agriculture and Food WA, through its Sheep Industry Business Innovation project,
made possible by Royalties for Regions, is supporting and sharing new technologies
in the sheep industry.
This is improving labour efficiency in the sector and making it easier all round,
to run sheep.