Farmer works to create crossbred sheep to cut down labour and increase profit

Australia Broadcast Center

10-07-2025

Producers are working to breed "low-maintenance" sheep as farmers and workers continue to walk away from the agricultural sector.
Leo Tompkins said finding shearers and labourers was getting harder, even in the sheep country of Central West New South Wales, so he has been developing his own "super breed".
"What we're trying to do is create a sheep that's a low-input sheep, or a low-maintenance sheep, that is going to be as productive or more productive and more profitable than other competing breeds at the moment," he said.
Mr Tompkins started with the meat-producing Wiltshire horn breed, which has a shedding coat and does not need to be shorn.
"What we're finding is that many shedding breeds, because they are in their infancy in the industry, they haven't really achieved those production goals to compete with other wool sheep at the moment … like your Poll Dorsets or your white Suffolks," he said.
"There are a lot of other producers doing really great work … we just want to work in conjunction and collaboration with those breeders and producers and to produce and to create something that will complement what's already there."
Mr Tompkins also introduced the Persian, Damara, East Friesian and Finnsheep breeds, which are known for high fertility rates and do not have tails, which eliminates the need for mulesing.
The number of farmers across the country has decreased by more than 22 per cent since 2006, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Rising input costs, heavy workloads and tough seasonal conditions are making life difficult in the agricultural sector, according to the NSW Farmers Association.
Mr Tompkins said he hoped the new sheep breeds would make living on the land a little easier.
"We found more people wanting self-reliance, self-sufficiency, and producers out west wanting just a lower-input sheep because they couldn't find the labour to shear them, to do other contracting roles that they needed to do," he said.
Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) sheep genetics operations manager Peta Bradley said the organisation had observed an increase in general composite breeding.
"We are certainly seeing a lot of interest in new traits, like shedding, starting to do some preliminary work to develop breeding values around tail length as well, so breeding sheep with shorter tails," she said.
"Those really easy care traits are becoming more important in … breeding programs and as a result we're working with the scientists to try and develop breeding values.
"For the first time, all our industry indexes now include an emphasis on … shrinkles [skin wrinkles] … breeding to alleviate the need for surgical procedures like mulesing," Ms Bradley said.
According to Sheep Producers Australia data, the proportion of merino breeding ewes that were joined to merino rams fell to less than 50 per cent for the first time in 2022.
Sheep Producers Australia chief executive Bonnie Skinner said shedding varieties such as Aussie whites and ultra whites were becoming more popular.
"The discussions that we have with producers are around, 'What is the best fit-for-purpose animal for my area and my personal circumstances that is going to help me have a profitable business?'" she said.