Callum's crutching dream for the future

Passionate about sheep, cattle and cropping to name a few, he knew he wanted a career in agriculture.

However, the only problem was not knowing where to start, until about a year ago.

With the help of his parents, Mr Winter was given a loan to start up his own crutching business, covering Ballarat and sometimes more further afield including places like Gippsland.

What started as a small hobby, has quickly grown into a profitable part-time business in 12 months.

"One of my mates had the crutching trailer for sale and I thought there was an opportunity there to make some good money so I got it going," Mr Winter said.

"My parents lent me some money, that was good of them and I'm paying that money back as I grow and expand the business.

"It's helped me a lot to get off the ground because it was a bit slow at the start but it's really starting to pick up now."

The 22-year-old completed a Certificate III in Agriculture at Federation University and took up an apprentice role at the Frawley's farm at Bungaree, east of Ballarat.

It was during the early days of his apprenticeship where he decided to work "smarter, not harder" by investing in a more practical and less arduous way to crutch sheep.

"Sheep run up the race [and] into the machine...it's an air compressed setup which clamps and flips them over so you don't have to drag them or anything, you can just crutch them when they're on their back," he said.

"It means people don't have to use their shearing shed and it's only a two-man show."

The purpose of crutching is to remove the wool from around the tail and between the rear legs of the sheep, preventing conditions like flystrike and allowing lambs to access the teats of their mothers during lambing.

Mr Winter described the opportunity to start his own business as "eye-opening", learning about how to budget responsibly with the finances of a small-scale operation.

"[My parents] were happy to loan it to me as long as it was for the business and I wasn't going to waste it so it was about being responsible with that money," he said.

"Don't be afraid to borrow money, have a good crack and get a good accountant so they can sort out the finances and let you focus on growing the business.

"If you have people around you that can help you out and you repay them then it's always a good start in life because sometimes you need that leg up."

Mr Winter, who lives at Gordon, plans to grow the business to a full-time operation within two years.