🟢 Saturday's Club Notes (Free) - Know more than next door

Thinking and acting like a Shepherd could be the answer to Virtual Fencing for Sheep - Wayne Perkins from Perkinz, the Sheep handling Equipment company, said this about Virtual Fencing (VF) for Sheep: “We have to think about having 1 piece of Equipment to contain 100 Sheep rather than 100 bits of Equipment to contain 100 Sheep”. This got me thinking. They are doing Collars for Cattle; let’s use Wayne’s theory and rethink how we can do it for Sheep. I came up with this: VF for Sheep could involve using humanoids or robots that rotate around the mob. Perhaps there are, say, six or ten of them who are constantly rotating around, and the Sheep are trained not to go outside their track or perimeter. This means you have 6/10 pieces of Equipment containing, say, a mob of 500 or more. It would replicate the Shepherd days, or it could be like 6/10 people riding around on horses making sure they are kept in a confined space. Perhaps it’s that simple. Is it that simple?

Our latest writings come from our trip ot LambEx in Adelaide

One bloke who builds Sheep Yards and Feedlots for Farmers said that he is getting enquiries about building Breedlots. This would be really intensifying the Sheep industry.

We wrote that trading and restocking are coming under more pressure and might disappear for at least a few years.

Where are the Ewe prices going to get to? One of the papers did a case study, and at today's rate, there was still money to be made buying Ewes at $600. Could they get to $750?

Wearing RM Williams boots on a concrete floor all day for 2 days was a mistake. We ask whether RM’s are overrated and whether we are only wearing them because it’s a status thing.

We have to think about Virtual Fencing for Sheep in a different light. See the story above.

JBS were there, and they were wowing patrons by cooking up a constant supply of chops (they call them cutlets). I reckon they would have won some great Lamb deals on the back of doing that. They were good too.

The only sore point on what was a great LambEx event was that they didn’t let us exhibitors in to the main arena to hear the speakers. They wanted us to pay an extra $400 for the privilege. How do you think that went down?

Guest columnist Vic Hoffmann Dohle is sick of the sexism debate that is filtering through our political scene.

We found out from a manufacturer of Sheep Feeders that, as we currently stand, we are fully overcapitalised in Feedlotting Equipment in the Sheep industry. We explain why.

Breeders are holding all the aces in the Sheep industry right now. They have control of all the Lambs and it’s their time in the sun.

The Wool industry invented activewear but lost it when it got outmarketed. One company, Icebreaker, has done well with Wool activewear and has made a name for itself among Chinese consumers. So much so that they are looking to open an extra 100 stores there, go Wool.

Guest columnist Bec Lindert had a most traumatic day/night during the week when her Sheep got attacked by a wild dog. She writes about the terrible experience.

Have a great Saturday, and make sure you subscribe to know more than your next-door neighbour.