While many hill and high country properties have changed their sheep breeds from fine wool to strong, at The Grampians Station near Culverden in North Canterbury, Merinos have remained the breed of choice for many decades.  

Graham Reed (left) and John Philp sort wool during shearing in the The Grampians shed.

It has been owned by the Reed family since 1973 and current owners, Graham and Ann Reed, started farming the property on their own account in 1989, having previously been in partnership with Graham’s brother.

Their fine wool sheep are Graham’s passion: “I get a lot of fun out of growing a decent product,” he says.

Ranging from 330m to 1700m above sea level, The Grampians run around 6400 sheep, with 2700 ewes going to the ram, a wether flock of 700 and the balance hoggets.

Wintering 3000 hoggets this year, an extra 1000 lambs were purchased at the beginning of autumn. Nine hundred are kept each year as ewe and wether replacements.

Son Jono takes care of the Angus breeding operation on the farm and the Reeds lease another 260 hectare property near Waikari, which this year has been used as the wintering block for the hoggets.

When Graham and Ann took over The Grampians, they wanted a finer wool flock than the predominantly half breds already there, so phased in pure Merinos from the late 1980s.

Adaptable sheep
With a range of climates, from very cold, to hot and dry and times of high rainfall from the Nor West, Graham has tried to select over the years a sheep that can withstand the variations of both climate and topography.

The land changes from a small area of irrigated flats, to developed hill country and then native high country, so the sheep have to be adaptable.

As the wool is a major component of the sheep income, Graham selects animals that have fleeces that are dense on top to keep out vegetation from scrub. It is also important the fleece is able to withstand times when there is heavy rain.   

The hoggets are shorn from late September/ October and a couple of weeks prior, Graham will go through the flock to select his replacements based on their wool type and constitution. The ewes and wethers cut an average 5kg fleece of 18.5 to 19 microns, while the woolly hoggets cut about 3.5kgs of 17 microns.

The flock of 700 merino wethers are kept until the fleece starts to lose quality, if they produce good wool and have good teeth they stay on the farm.

About a quarter of the ewes are mated to a terminal sire – Romney, or black face, which gives a number of lambs that can be sold early.

The Gums
Lambing starts around October 10, when the main threat of snow has passed and ewes lamb on the top dressed hill country.

Graham sources his Merino rams from The Gums, a large commercial property near Cheviot and has done so for more than 20 years. They have suited The Grampians’ breeding programme and Graham has no complaints about the offspring.

The straight Merinos are carried through to hoggets and sold off shears. As they cut their two teeth a bit later than strong wool sheep, they can be carried a little longer.

The system has worked well for Graham, but with a severe drought this year it has been a struggle and he is expecting wool weights to be back a bit on most years.

Some rape was sown at Karaka Downs (the lease block), this year, which finally grew after a bit of autumn rain and the hoggets have been break fed on this over winter. Graham says he has also bought in a lot of barley for supplementary feed.

The aim of having the two properties, in a normal year, is that they complement each other. The Grampians is better summer country, and Karaka Downs good winter country being lower in altitude and warmer, although the drought has taken its toll on both properties.

Merinos’ bright future
Despite the stressful year, Graham says the sheep have held their own, but a lot more extra feed has been fed out to keep condition on.  

He sees a bright future for Merinos with rapid advancement made in breeding sheep that are plainer in the body, faster maturing and with a longer staple. The major breakthrough for many merino and quarter bred growers has been the development of a gene test for footrot resistance.

“It has been a game changer for us here, the merinos would have gone years ago if it hadn’t been for the development of the footrot gene test. We haven’t had to inspect feet or foot bath sheep for years.

“It is quite exciting to see how rapidly the Merino has made progress towards becoming an easy care, truly dual purpose sheep.”