Dubbo Schools Merino Wether Challenge 2025

Over the past six months Stage 5 Agriculture students have been working on preparing two teams of three Merino Wethers for the 2025 Dubbo Schools Merino Wether Competition. The Wethers arrived at school on the 6th of March thanks to the team at Yanco Agricultural High School who picked them up from Wagga along with animals for several other schools.

To be selected for the competition the school had to complete an expression of interest application in August 2024 and sign a lease for the animals prior to delivery. Originally all the animals in the competition came from the same mob of Egelabra breed animals from Warren NSW.

Apon arrival the animals were around 5 months old. February shorn with EID and VID tags for identification. A big thanks to Lauren at our local Elders for helping us with the EID tracking and animal transfer.

The students have been recording weight gain and measuring wool growth, body condition and fat scores on their animals on a regular basis with the results summarised in a table.

To obtain the data the animal’s had to be placed into teams of three, they were assessed and placed into teams according to their weight gain, wool type and evenness of type. Team 1 Gold had a fibre diameter of 17.4 micron, a condition score of 4.5 and a fat score of 3. This team had an average weight gain of 240g/day, 80g/day greater than expected.

In the six months prior to the Judging of the animals. The students had to monitor the growth and welfare of the animals and in doing so developed their understanding of low stress livestock handling skills, health and welfare observation skills, animals husbandry skills including stock movement and handling, animals treatment, production recording and for the carcase judging. The students presented the animals well and were in the top end of the groups presented. Team 1 had an average eye muscle area of 36 and 6.5mm of fat coverage.

Their average fleece weight was 4.21kg (6months), 18.1 micron, staple length of 68mm, strength of 42 n/kt, yield of 65.7% and value of $42.65.

The final results are in for the 2025 Dubbo Merino Wether Challenge. Competing against 69 schools with over 400 sheep and 700 dedicated students, teachers and event organisers the final presentations were made to the successful schools across the 15 groups from 4 zones across the state.

Congratulations to the students for being awarded the Encouragement Award for the way they presented their animals and themselves to the Judges whilst maintaining a clean, safe and well maintained working environment.

As for the animals. The animals selection for the teams was second to none and as a result our A team was awarded first place in carcass value (zone3), second place in wool value (zone 3) and first place in Zone 3 Combined Value. Following on from this success NHS team A were awarded first place in the combined zones carcass value and ultimately Champion School.

We would like to thank the Dubbo National Ram Sale Association for convening this event, the event organisers for their efficient and professional manor in which the event was run, the sponsors for their support, the trade representatives that value added the experience offered to the students and the projection (at the end of May projected livestock weight was calculated form the previous months average daily growth rates), haltering, leading and standing the Wethers for presentation at Judging.

Over the six months the animals had access to a Lucerne, Phalaris and Clover paddock as well as hay and grain Ad Lib. The grain ration was 70% Whole Barley, 20% Cracked Lupins and 10% VitaMin Buffer.

On Monday morning the team set off for Dubbo after yarding and loading the Wethers , swags, food and bags. We arrived at Dubbo at 1:30pm and unloaded the Wethers, scanned their ear tags and penned them.

We headed to Fletchers International where we were put through an induction process and issued with PPE for our tour of the sheep processing plant. This was an intense experience with an overwhelming number of people working to gather to process a live animal into its individual market items, packaged, chilled and made ready for shipping. A big thanks to Fletchers for allowing us to witness this process.

After checking the Wethers and taking a team photo we headed off to Billy O Bills retreat via Domino's Pizza and Woolworths where we roasted marshmallows around a campfire before settling down in our swags for the night. Tuesday started a 6am with an early breakfast for both the students and the sheep. After some final trimming and cleaning we were ready to compete in the Store Value class of the competition. After careful scrutiny by several judges the placements were given.

Whilst unsuccessful the students and animals were competitive and after judging we moved to where the Eye Muscle Area and Fat Depth were measured. After lunch the animals were shorn and the wool valued. The team were up again early this morning leaving camp at 7am. Bus loaded we got to the show grounds and made sure our animals were ready as competing against schools who presented a quality and very competitive team of students and animals. A special mention to Fletchers International who also gave our students a guided tour of their facilities at Dubbo. This has been a highlight of a comprehensive experience of all that goes into delivering a quality product to consumers.

Why the long face?

The 2025 Schools Wether Challenge has come to an end, and all involved at Narrandera High School have learnt heaps and grown along the way. If a picture could tell a thousand words than below is a 10 000 work summary of where we have come from and reached to in the past six months working with our six Merino Wethers. Thank you to everyone involved and we look forward to doing it all again next year with a new group of students and Wethers.

Mr Matt Shady

Agricultural Teacher

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