Environments - SHEEP FARMER
Agrivoltaics/Agrisolar
Sheep Game
Australian Sheep Stations
Agrivoltaics/Agrisolar
Middle
Secondary
Australian
Curriculum General Capability: Critical & Creative Thinking
Australian
Curriculum General Capability:
Literacy
Australian
Curriculum General Capability:
Numeracy
Australian
Curriculum Cross Curriculum Priorities: Sustainability
Priority
Cooperative
Learning Activity
Introduction
"In today’s volatile economy, job stability can
often be found in unexpected places — like returning to the traditional role
of shepherding. Solar shepherds, who manage sheep grazing under solar
panels, are part of a growing movement that combines agriculture and
renewable energy — and offers high incomes in the process.
My recent study, conducted with Ivey Business School alum Adam Gasch and
professional shepherd Rafael Lara from The Lara Costa, found that modern
solar shepherding businesses in places like Ontario can pull incomes
equivalent to doctors, senior engineers or even lawyers.
These solar shepherds are the vanguard of a new type of farming called
agrivoltaics — a portmanteau for agriculture and photovoltaics — where
agricultural production is intertwined with solar electricity production."
(Source:
The Conversation 16 January 2025)
1. Form groups of 3 - 5 students.
2. Read the full article from
The Conversation 16 January 2025.
3. List ALL the positives proclaimed here.
4. Find out the challenges and put them into an Australian context eg. sheep attacked by foxes rather than wolves (Canadian context).
5. What are the economic benefits?
6. Can you suggest within your group other ways to help with agrivoltaics?
List these suggestions down and share with another group.
Primary
Australian
Curriculum General Capability: ICT Capability
Cooperative
Learning Activity
1. Individually, go to the Sheep Game and play it.
2. What did you learn from this game? Talk over with a partner.
Linking
Terms! Breeding Merinos
(taken directly from Merino Sheep Breeding Trainer
Guide - Wool Wise)
Middle
Australian
Curriculum General Capability:
Literacy
Match the following words with their meanings
| Heritability | When you change one trait, another changes as well, even though you aren’t trying to change it. |
| Correlated traits | A measure of how much of what you see in a flock is caused by genes. |
| Traits | A prediction of how the individual will perform as a parent for that trait. |
| Selection criteria | Characteristics you want to improve in your flock. |
| Estimated breeding value | Things you measure or assess in your sheep to predict the performance of their traits |
Australian
Sheep Stations
[taken directly from
Careers Information Toolkit by MLA & AWI Ltd - PDF; with some
additions]]
Primary
Middle
Australian
Curriculum General Capability:
Literacy
Australian
Curriculum General Capability:
Numeracy
Introduction
From its beginnings with the small flock of 26 pure-bred Spanish Merinos
brought to Australia in 1796, Australia’s wool industry has grown over its
200 year history to have a major
impact on the financial, social and political development of our country.
As
the world’s largest exporter of greasy wool and with over 100 million sheep,
Australia has in past decades
‘ridden on the sheep’s back’.
Listed below is a small selection of the sheep stations that have been prominent in the development of the Australian wool industry.
You can add to this table if you live on a sheep
station!
Let us know: Station Name; Nearest Town; State; and Interesting Fact.
| STATION | NEAREST TOWN | STATE | INTERESTING FACT |
| Alice Downs |
Blackall | Qld | Holds the world record for hand shearing. In October, 1892 Jack Howe shore 321 ewes in 7 hours & 40 minutes with blade shears |
| Barcaldine Downs | Barcaldine | Qld | Site of confrontation between shearers and
the military/police during the shearer’s strikes of 1891 and 1931 |
| Boodarie Station | Port Hedland | WA | Mustered sheep by fire for decades. When the mobs of sheep were found the stockmen would set fire to the Spinifex bush as a signal |
| Brookong | Lockhart | NSW | Regularly shore seven to ten thousand sheep
each day in the 97 stand shearing shed built in 1900 |
| Bungaree | Clare | SA | Home of the South Australian Merino, the tallest and heaviest of the Merinos, bred for arid conditions in the 1860’s |
| Cranmore Park | Moora | WA | Since its establishment in 1908 scientific innovations were pioneered that were years ahead of their time. |
| Dagworth Station | Winton | Qld | Place where Banjo Paterson wrote Waltzing Matilda in 1895 based on events occurring in the local district during the Great Shearer’s Strike |
| Dalkeith | Cassilis | NSW | Jeanine Kimm made world history shearing 358 merino ewes in only 8 hours in May 2024. She took an average of ~80 seconds to shear each ewe. Only 4% of Australian shearers are women. |
| Dennistoun | Bothwell | Tas | Continued to use blade shears when most other sheds had converted to machines. All shearers in the shed shore with blades for the last time in 1961 |
| Dunlop Station | Bourke | NSW | First shearing shed to have all shearers use machine shears, which were installed in 1888 |
| Egelabra | Warren | NSW | Australia’s oldest closed Merino stud established in 1906. The unique bloodline of the sheep can be traced back to the first Spanish Merinos brought to Australia in 1796. |
| Gostwyck | Uralla | NSW | Site of one of the largest and oldest surviving shearing sheds in Australia, built in 1851 using a modern design that was decades ahead of its time |
| Haddon Rig | Warren | NSW | In the 1870’s 345 km of boundary and paddock fences were erected using nearly all the fencing materials in Sydney and Melbourne. |
| Isis Downs | Blackall | Qld | Shearers at Isis Downs started the Queensland Shearer’s Union in 1886 |
| Liveringa Station | Derby | WA | The shearing sheds were built to withstand cyclones. A team of Liveringa shearers was lost at sea during a cyclone in 1912. |
| Mundabullangana | Port Hedland | WA | Only employed Aboriginal shearers in the 1880’s who were said to treat the sheep better than white shearers. Over 800 mules and donkeys were used for most of the station work. |
| Nareeb Nareeb | Hamilton | Vic | Established in 1839 this station has been burnt out and rebuilt several times. |
| Newstead | Inverell | NSW | Place where Tom Roberts painted his famous sheep shearing painting, ‘The Golden Fleece’ |
| Seven Creeks Run | Euroa | Vic | Famous pioneering sheep run where Mrs W Furlonge established a stud of Saxon Merino sheep in 1835. |
| Terrick Terrick | Blackall | Qld | One of the most famous merino studs in Queensland, established in 1881. It survived a series of droughts in the late 1800’s and has changed hands several times. |
| Tinnenburra | Cunnamulla | Qld | James Tyson built Australia’s largest shearing shed on Tinnenburra in 1895. It had 101 stands for 101 shearers |
| Toorale Station | Bourke | NSW | In July 1887 electric lights where installed in the Toorale shearing shed, the first in Australia. |
| Uardry | Hay | NSW | One of Australia’s leading merino parent studs, established in 1864. A famous Uardry ram was immortalised on the Australian shilling from 1938 to 1966 and on the 1991 50 cent coin. |
| Wanganella | Deniliquin | NSW | Home of the Peppin Merino that was specifically bred to suit a wide range of Australian conditions in the 1860’s. |
| Wellshot Station | Longreach | Qld | The largest sheep station in the world in terms of numbers, with 460,000 sheep in 1892. |
| Winton | Campbell Town | Tas | The oldest surviving stud in Tasmania, established in 1835. It boasts the purest Saxon Merino flock in the world |
1. Use an atlas of Australia to find the location of the sheep stations by finding each of the nearest towns.
2. Draw a timeline for the development of the wool industry by using the
dates in the Interesting Facts column.
3. The Australian wool industry is built on the Merino breed of sheep,
beginning with a small flock of 26 pure-bred Spanish Merinos brought into
the penal colony at Port Jackson in 1796.
Investigate one of the research topics [below] to find out more about the
development of the wool industry in Australia
a. Where did the first flock come from?
b. Who were the famous couple that bought the sheep and started breeding
them for wool? They had a very interesting history. Find out more about
their lives.
c. Why is the Merino prized for its wool?
4. The Australian Merino is not a single breed or
strain of sheep. Four main strains are recognised in Australia each selected
for specific characteristics:
• Spanish Merino
• Saxon Merino
• Peppin Merino
• South Australian Merino
For each of the four strains of Merino find out:
a. Where did they originally come from?
b. What characteristics do they have?
c. What regions of Australia best suit this strain of Merino?
The Big Merino in Goulburn
The Big Merino, built in 1985 is a monument to Goulburn and the surrounding
district’s fine wool industry. Standing 15.2 meters high, 18 meters long and
weighing 97 tones at the time of construction he is an impressive life-like
model of Rambo, a stud Ram from a local property, “Bullamallita”.
(Source:
Big Merino)
(Source:
Wikipedia)
5. One of the innovations pioneered at Cranmore
Park in the 1940’s was the use of a microscope to measure the diameter of
wool fibres. Today all wool undergoes a number of tests before it is sold
including the measurement of fibre diameter in microns.
A micron is one thousandth of a millimetre. Finer, high quality wools
receive higher prices and wool growers breed their sheep to produce wool in
a particular micron range.
Four main types of Merinos are now recognised in the Australian flock,
classified according to the fineness of their fleece:
• Superfine Wool Merino
• Fine Wool Merino
• Medium Wool Merino
• Strong Wool Merino
For each of the types of Merinos find out:
a. The micron range for the fleece.
b. The average weight of greasy wool produced by each sheep.
c. The ways in which the textile industry uses this type of wool.
6. The Great Shearer’s Strikes of the 1890’s were
a turning point for Australia’s politics and industrial relations.
a. What were conditions like for shearers and shed hands before the strikes?
b. Investigate some of the incidents that occurred during the strikes.
c. Who won?
d. What were the long-term consequences for Australian politics and
industrial relations?
The Merino Sheep - Livestock Genetics From Spain
https://youtu.be/D6HtYv5sROI?si=ckZxvnrfdRiDjseM
Material sourced from:
