Transcript of AE 1047 - The Goss: Single Sheep Sells for $165,000 Breaking Records

G'day, you mob. Pete here, and this is another episode of Aussie English. The number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So, today I have a Goss' episode for you where I sit down with my old man, my father, Ian Smissen, and we talk about the week's news whether locally down under here in Australia or non-locally overseas in other parts of the world.

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Yeah, so shearer shortage driving record prices for Australia, white shedding sheep. I had never heard of this sheep prior...

Shedding sheep, haven't you? There's a few- Somebody I was talking to recently actually had them. they were breeding them and selling them, so...

They'd be a little easier as a pet if you wanted a pet sheep that you didn't have to worry about shearing.

Yeah, the trouble is, though, they shed...

Well, they'd be like any animal, though, like a dog or a cat.

...Like a long-haired dog that's just going to be shedding hair all over the place all the time.

Yeah, but they're in the field. Who cares?

Yeah, well, exactly.

Yeah, so- Anyway, so this ram sale in New South Wales, the Central Tablelands, there was a record for the sale of a ram, an Australian white sheep for $165,000.

Yes.

Isn't that crazy? So, this was at the eighth annual Tattykeel Australian White Stud, I guess meet up or, you know, some kind of event. And the ram was called "white gold" for obvious reasons.

Exactly right.

So, it set an Aussie record across all meat sheep breeds, several other rams though also would have broken the previous record at that meetup.

That's about four times the average price over the last four years for a stud ram...

Well, the average stud ram was $40,000 and a flock ram is $15,000. And the sale at this eighth Tattykeel stud meetup thing was $5.5 million worth of, I guess, studs...

Stud... (both talking)

...So.

Yeah, Jesus.

Which aren't worth anywhere near as much money. But yeah.

Yeah, so the Australian white breed developed was developed only a decade ago or so by Tattykeel, and it was bred to produce hair instead of wool so that farmers didn't have to pay shearers if they were just interested in raising sheep for meat.

Yes.

Which I thought, you know, makes a lot of sense. I wonder how the genetics though, differs. I imagine that it's, you know, we think of hair and wool as being these very two different things like feathers and hair. But I assume that wool is just hair that crinkles and that doesn't fall out...

So, it doesn't fall out as easily. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So, all you had to do is select for a sheep that loses its wool on a regular basis, which would have been the default genetics of the animal and make sure that the hair's straight.

Yeah, or it doesn't even have to be straight, it just has to fall out.

Yeah. So, it never gets long enough to become that sort of curly thing...

But it looks it, these sheep kind of look like Labrador- White Labrador dogs.

...White Labradors. Yeah, exactly.

So, it's pretty cool. But it makes a lot of sense, and I think a big driving factor was apparently the fact that we are obviously in a pandemic, but as a result, we don't have many shearers around.

And so, you would imagine that despite them being scarce, they're also going to become more expensive to hire, which impacts your, you know, top end when your top margin, when you're trying to shear wool or shear sheep that you're going to use for meat in the future.

So, obviously, if you can just make sure the hair falls out naturally, you don't have to worry about paying shearers at all and you can just harvest them for meat, so.

Yeah, and look, the wool from- Typically from breeds that are made for, you know, the meat market, the wool is almost worthless. So, you know, yes, you'll make a little bit of money on it, so. But, you know, you're probably- It's probably about cost neutral, I think in terms of you make your money back on the shearing by selling the wool...

Yeah.

...Because they're only cut to make the animal's lives easier...

Yeah. Well, the animals haven't been bred to have good quality wool, they've been bred to have good meat.

Yeah.

Yeah, so...

Typically, the ones that they're sacrificing for meat are lambs anyway, they're, you know, less than a year old. So, you know, they're not- They're never going to- You don't have the problem with the ones that you're actually sacrificing. The problems you have is the breeding ewes and rams that have to be shorn, so.

Yeah, but it was interesting they were talking about whether or not it would stand the test of time because they weren't sure if it was going to be a fad or not. As soon as the pandemic ends or as soon as restrictions end, are we going to get an influx of shearers where it no longer becomes viable to buy these really expensive Australian white sheep?

...Won't be that expensive. They won't be that expensive. I think the difference, and I know the article talked about, you know, the analogy with the emu market, you know, farming emus. The job with farming emus is that there was never a downstream product, that was just speculation on there being a downstream product for emu feathers and for meat. And yeah, there is a market for those, but it's a very small niche market.

And so, the idea that, you know, thousands of people went out there and created emu farms was just never going to work. But in this case, the market is there, we know that the market is there for, you know, lambs, for meat. And in this case, all it is, is an economic decision just to say whether it's going to be worth taking this breed, which saves you money in shearing, or whether you can take a cheaper breed and shear them.

So, there'll be a balance in the price. Yes, it might be that, you know, the $165,000 ram, it's going to take a lot of time over the next few years for that ram to pay his dues back. But, you know, who knows? I doubt whether that price will maintain itself, but there will still be value and there'll still be people who go, this is much easier.

It's much easier to just farm these sheep rather than having ones that we've got to worry about shearing. So, assuming that there is a balance, that there's no significant difference in cost and effort to farm these in comparison to anything else other than the shearing component.

I mean, I don't know whether these are more susceptible or less susceptible to disease or require different fencing or, you know, there's all sorts of other things to, you know, keeping sheep that are going to influence the cost. But assume that they're all equal, then if you can balance the payment for shearing as against not paying for shearing with the price of these, then it'll find its place in the market, I'm sure.

Yeah, I wonder if they get fly struck as much as normal sheep if they're- I don't know what the length of their wool would get to, but I wonder- I would like to see one of these sheep at the end, right before it started shedding, you know, at the end of winter to see what is the actual length of their hair.

If they do- I don't know whether they- The article wasn't, you know, typically was fairly short on biology of the animal. There was more about the, you know, the fact that they exist. Yeah, I don't know whether they are continuous shredders or annuals or seasonal shedders.

So, if they're continuous, then they're going to have this, you know, constant low level of hair over them. The other thing to note is whether they're also- Whether you can also have them in a variety of different environments because often, you know, meat sheep are more susceptible because they don't have the long, fast-growing wool.

They're typically more susceptible to, you know, cold and frost and those sort of things. So, whether they're- That's going to be a problem for them, we don't know, so. And I don't know enough about the, you know, the breed itself.

So, do you reckon...

...Idea.

Do you reckon it'll last? Are you expecting to see that shedding sheep take over the meat industry in Australia?

I don't know that it'll take over. I think it might be that in some circumstances it's going to be economically beneficial to have them, and that's what people are going to choose to do. If it turns out that, you know, regardless of the shearing price, these are just producing better quality, cheaper meat, then it's going to be, you know, they're going to become much more popular...

Well, and as you say, it's probably going to matter where you live, and if you live in a place that gets, you know, relatively cold temperatures, even if it's only a few days a year.

Yeah.

Or for a small, short period of time during the year, you may have to just cut your losses and choose a sheep that grows wool in order to be able to endure that...

Yeah.

...Whereas if you live somewhere where it's really hot, there's obviously then multiple reasons for you to be like, well, now we don't have to remove the wool because of the heat or anything like that...

Exactly.

...Deals with it itself.

Yeah, interesting one.

Do you remember any big changes happening with other livestock or other, say, vegetables or fruit in the past for you that have made massive, I don't know, made massive changes or differences in terms of their growing like...? Did you grow up with bananas that had seeds?

No, that was way before my time.

That was before you. Yeah. Do you know of any...?

I've eaten plantains, which we don't get in Australia.

Yeah.

But you go to South America and Central America and plantains, which are effectively native bananas, you know, I've eaten them, but not in Australia.

I can't remember the last time I had grapes that had seeds in them.

Yeah, you're probably right, I think they've just sort of gone off, people just prefer grapes without seeds.

Yeah.

It's not that those, you know, varieties of grapes are not around, but clearly, they're just not selling them and they're not in the supermarkets. You may be able to get them at, you know, vegetable markets or fruit and vegetable markets and things, but don't know.

Well...

I'm sorry. The one that comes to mind, which again was- Which was... ...Sort of niche market thing, and they still- They're still around. But the- And that was the sheep, the wool sheep that you don't need to shear because they grew a weak spot in their wool.

I think it was a change of diet or something. I can't remember the specific instance, but it was something that happened annually where you could change the diet of them and it would create a weak spot in them and effectively the whole fleece would just fall off.

Wow.

And what, you just go and pick it up?

And so, you know, you'd see these sheep, flocks of sheep running around with covers on them, so they were clean, and they were covered. And then the- Effectively the fleece would just effectively fall off them.

So, it's like a snake shedding its skin or something. It comes off in a single piece.

They were just way too expensive to keep. It's sort of this little niche, cutesy little niche market. And I think the quality of the wool is obviously very good and, you know, you get a higher price for it, but it probably doesn't warrant all of a, you know, crapping around you've got to do in order to get it.

Chasing the sheep down and grabbing them and then peeling them like a banana.

...Yeah, take your overcoat off.

Yeah, I can't imagine. I guess you'd want more control over it, right?

Yeah. And look, there's always been certainly within the livestock market, there have always been geographic variations on which breeds of, say, cattle are used for particularly, you know, beef cattle rather than dairy.

But the further north you go, the more you get into breeds that cope with tropical environments, you know, hot and humid environments and are also more resistant to things like ticks and so on. Whereas they don't thrive as well in cold weather, but the cold weather breeds just can't cope as soon as you move to North Queensland, so.

I'm trying to look up chicken change over the years, because that would have been my best example, I think of changing biology and this is just selection, but- Yeah, there it is. Okay, so...

Big breasts.

1957 chickens weighed 905 grams when they were obviously harvested to be eaten. 1978 they were 1.8 kilos, so they doubled in size. And then 2005 they were 4.2 Kilos. It's just insane. And so, they're like, these just goliaths that, I think in the sheds where they're grown, they can't even stand up once they're almost at the being harvested stage.

Like they can stand up and walk around a little bit, but they get so tired so quickly because of the muscle mass that- Yeah, it is another ethical kind of, you know, dilemma... (both talking)

...And they're breeding for, those chickens, well, they're roosters the ones that we killed to eat. They're bred for breast mass, breast meat mass.

So, that, you know, because there's now- There's a huge... ...In butchered chicken meat, as in not just here's a whole chicken, you know, go and roast it, which used to be- You know, you couldn't buy pieces of chicken when I was a kid, you'd go out and buy a whole chicken and you'd roast it. And or you'd boil it and pull it apart and use it in various things and so on.

But now when you go to a butchers or a supermarket, you can choose, well, I just want the legs, or I want...

Bone in, bone out.

...Typically the one that- Yeah, you go and look at the whole chicken display and 70% or 80% of it will be breast fillets, and then there's the other bits and pieces. It's my understanding that it's mostly those increase in size of breast fillets. I mean now you can go and get these huge things, you're going to go, does this come from a bloody turkey? What's going on here?

Well, the other tragic thing, I think it was 'Super Size Me 2', is the documentary that I watched that covered that, where he is effectively trying to open a fast food restaurant but be 100% transparent on everything, the ingredients, where the chicken's grown, how it's grown, how it's treated. And he shows all the bare bones and scars and...

Hormones and the...

...Everything. Well, and I think he tries to do it in an organic way. But then it like, you know, he shows this is going to shoot the price up, blah blah blah. So, it was really interesting, but they...

Do you want to pay $40 for a chicken burger? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, they were showing, though I think on a yearly basis, I think it was a yearly basis. They're pulling back a day on the amount of time it takes for this chicken to mature, to be harvested, and they're adding a certain amount of weight every single year to the chicken.

And that's been gradually happening since the 1950s. Yeah, but it's just insane, you know, because he has- He goes to the chicken farms and then also talks about how all the companies that effectively pay farmers to grow the chickens for them, it's like- It's almost like indentured servitude where these companies set it up in a way that all the farmers are kind of fighting amongst one another to get a certain rate.

Because it's done on a scale, you don't- It's not all of them are paid the same. It's whoever gets the highest amount of meat for the least amount of food gets the highest rate, and they can penalise you if they don't like what you're doing or if you're talking to the wrong people.

...Dairy industry as well, which is...

It's fucked up.

Australia is owned- Mostly owned by two, you know, multinational conglomerates.

Yeah.

And they are the- The only thing they don't do is have dairy cattle. They control every other step.

Well, when you open a bottle of milk, you're probably drinking milk from thousands of cows, right. Because it's just taken from so many farms mixed together. You know, it would be so interesting to do a DNA test on your average bottle of milk and see how many individuals that are in there.

Yeah, but it's, you know, they control both the price that they pay to the farmer and the price they sell to the supermarkets, which is where most milk is sold and or to, you know, producers. Well, they own the downstream dairy products like cheese and ice cream and things, they own all of those factories. And that's how they can control the price of milk when it goes to the actual milk product, where it goes to supermarkets.

And that sort of oligopoly, where you have two big companies that are effectively controlling not just the entire retail market, but the wholesale market that drives the retail market as well. You just shake your head and go, the only people who are getting screwed here are the consumers and the dairy farmers...

...Everyone else. Yeah, but I think that's an issue we're going to have to overcome with globalisation and a lot of these- What would you say, these product chains, right? And working out because a lot of the time it's the middlemen that are making most of the money and controlling the guys at the bottom and the guys at the receiving end of these things.

But the problem is that you have a population that wants to pay less and less and less for more and more and more and expect more and more high-quality stuff, you know. And I get hit with that all the time. I'll be like, what do you mean, it's $3.50 for three litres of milk now? It was $3 the other week.

And you're like, mate, it's three litres of milk for a few dollars. You know, you'll go, you'll say that, have a whinge about milk and then go to 7-Eleven and pay $5 for a can of coke. And you don't even think about it. And you're just like, I am such a hypocrite.

Anyway, good place to leave that one. Thanks, dad. See you guys next time.

Bye.

Alrighty, you mob. Thank you so much for listening to or watching this episode of The Goss'. If you would like to watch the video if you're currently listening to it and not watching it, you can do so on the Aussie English Channel on YouTube. You'll be able to subscribe to that, just search "Aussie English" on YouTube.

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I'm your host, Pete. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you have a ripper of a day, and I will see you next time. Peace!