A NSW wool grower has built a new state of the art shearing shed to benefit his operation and the overall longevity of the industry.
Stuart Le Lievre, Yathonga Station, Tilpa, NSW, who farms with wife Gabbie, said if wool growers wanted the industry to survive, they had to put more back into it.
"If anybody thinks differently, they need to have a really good look at what they're doing," he said.
"We have to put our two bobs in and make it more efficient and safer for those that work in them."
The new six-stand shed is designed off the work done in Australian Wool Innovation's Shearing Shed Design project and was built by a company from Mildura, Vic, and fit-out by Jason McGaw from Dubbo, NSW.
The fifth generation farmer has just finished shearing his self-replacing Merino flock for the first time using the new shed and the set of yards that go with it.
"Over the last couple of years, there's been a lot of talk about liability, workers' safety, injuries and longevity in the shearing industry, and our old shed was just a disaster waiting to happen," he said.
"[We realised] whatever we put up had to tick a few boxes in relation to that and when we got the [AWI project] explained to us, we found that this particular design covered those big ticket areas."
He said the biggest improvement was the efficiency of the shed.
"Our shearers have gone from probably 900 a day in the old shed to at least 1050 and to say they were cruising was probably an understatement," he said.
"They appreciated that at the end of the day they weren't just bent over and buckled, it was just really efficient."
Also, the shed staff weren't "tripping over themselves".
"The shed was clean and our wool preparation was really good because of that," he said.
"You put all of those things together and you've got a really efficient, cost effective method of shearing."
He said this efficiency improved the conditions for the sheep too.
"As far as stock husbandry goes, I'm a firm believer in the less time you've got your stock in the yards, the better off they are," he said.
"They're better off out in the paddocks doing what they do best."
Having shorn his sheep during the COVID-19 pandemic when social distancing was the norm, Mr Le Lievre said the new shed offered a safe environment.
"There was a couple of metres between stands and the amount of room you've got in the wool room allows for the roustabouts and shed staff to be able to be 1.5 metres apart and sometimes more," he said.
If other wool growers were considering upgrading their sheds or building new ones, his advice was to do your homework.
"Don't go in with any preconceived ideas," he said.
"We can't continue to operate like we have for the last hundred years, it just doesn't work like that anymore.
"There's no such thing as a perfect shed or a perfect set of yards, but we can do a whole lot more by designing something that is a lot more worker and stock friendly."
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