Bringing The Crutching Trailer Inside

Tim McShane, wool producer in Southern Tasmania, part of a family farming operation, Stockman Stud, mating over 30,000 ewes, cropping 2,000 ha under centre pivot irrigation and operating a Poll Merino Stud.

In the past couple of years we have been crutching our pre-lambing ewes over a crutching trailer which has significantly reduced the drag for the crutchers. However, the downside of this has been the exposure to the elements experienced by all the staff (Tassie can have some challenging weather conditions during winter!).

Over the years we have invested heavily in upgrading our 12 stand shearing shed to provide the best possible conditions for all the shed staff, and then to have the crutching occurring directly outside this shed seemed crazy. So, we decided to bring the trailer inside.

Our shed is a straight flat board, so constructing a race which could be setup directly in front of the existing stands was our plan. The crutching trailer used the previous year was a 3 stand trailer designed and constructed by Essential Shearing. We took that design and extended it out to 6 stands, incorporating a curved race to feed the sheep from the grating out and onto the board.

In June we got to give it a run and, with some tweaks, we were full steam ahead with everyone enjoying the comfort of the shearing shed while still avoiding the drag. Improvements from here may include adding air blowers to push the crutched wool under the race. Our philosophy is to make at least one improvement to the shearing shed each year and we think this year we succeeded.

We also tied in pregnancy scanning with crutching this year, so the ewes were all scanned as they left the shed making the whole job very efficient and avoiding remustering and scanning as a separate operation.

ENDS