KANGAROO Island farmer and shearer Joel Kerr is delighted with the placid, dual-purpose Polwarth flock he is running on his farm at Nepean Bay.
Joel is in his third year of incorporating Polwarths into his sheep operation at his farm Ro-An, which he initially ran as a Merino-crossbreeding enterprise.
He was looking to introduce a breed with dual-purpose capabilities.
"I am merging into dual-purpose so I can get wool and meat off the one sheep instead of just having Merino for wool and the crossbreds for meat."
Joel currently has a mob of 450 ewes made up of 150 Polwarths, 80 Merinos and the rest crossbreds.
Polwarths are also ideally suited to the conditions on KI - they were bred to survive in rainfall regions above 1000 millimetres.
"They were bred a long time ago for these sort of areas back when the Merino wasn't quite suited,'' he said.
The Polwarth was first bred in Australia in 1880 as three-quarters Merino, one-quarter Lincoln.
Through his work as a shearer, Joel was drawn to the easy-shearing and calm nature of the Polwarth.
"They are a direct genuine dual-purpose and they are nice, straight and plain in the frame so you are still cutting good 3A quality wool,'' he said.
The Polwarth fleece is soft handling, long stapled and high yielding and in a good season averages a visual grade of about 58s/60s wool count about 23 microns and a staple length of 110-120mm.
Fleece weight averages about 6 kilograms to 7kg.
The fleece also has high resistance to rot and is fast to dry, minimising the risk of flystrike.
Joel starts his main shearing in September, working around his other contracting jobs.
"For shearing and farming they're very management-free and I thought, hang on, this is the sort of thing I am really chasing," he said.
"They're calm and collected with good shearing and you're putting a good carcase out the door."
* Full report in Stock Journal, August 28, 2014 issue.
