A comprehensive guide to Australian wool growing, published in 2006 and now out of print. This book covers choice of wool -growing enterprises, identifying, customer needs, assessing profitability, establishing breeding objectives, selection and culling, joining management, nutrition, pastures and grazing management, flock health, preparation and sale of the wool clip. Table of Contents: Chapter 1. The Australian wool industry Chapter 2. Enterprise choice Chapter 3. Who are your customers? Chapter 4. Can Merino wool be profitable? Chapter 5. Establish your breeding objective Chapter 6. Choosing a ram source Chapter 7. Selection and culling Chapter 8. Ram and ewe management Chapter 9. Joining management Chapter 10. Nutrition requirements and digestion Chapter 11. Wool production from pasture Chapter 12. Grazing management Chapter 13. Flock health Chapter 14. Preparing and selling your wool clip Chapter 15. How much is your wool worth? Appendices: 1. Gross margin templates 2. Glossary of wool processing terms 3. Cost of production template 4. Individual animal management 5. Liveweight and body condition assessment 6. Pasture assessment 7. Fodder budgeting calculation template 8. Predicted daily intake of pasture by ewes 9. Some sheep diseases and their prevention 10. Merino wool clip worksheet 11. Shearing data and clip analysis templates References Further Reading

John Webb Ware is a veterinarian and senior consultant with the University of Melbourne's Mackinnon Project. He has expertise in animal production systems and animal health.

Times are changing. Until fairly recently many farmers were simply producers. Their energies were focused on growing crops and producing livestock. Selling was often just a matter of sending produce to the local saleyards or silo or contacting their stock and station agent. Producers were price takers rather than price managers. Now many farmers have become marketers rather than just producers, and in the near future many more will make the fundamental shift from an on-farm focus as price-takers to a wider approach that includes price risk management and marketing. Official marketing authorities are playing less of a role in marketing Australian agricultural produce. As part of this deregulation, farmers have many more choices, marketing tools and options that they can use to their advantage provided they know how to use them. At the same time consumer expectations have become more complex. Farmers find themselves required to respond to concerns about animal welfare practices, health and food safety aspects of their products, and the environmental and ethical impact of their production methods. The marketing landscape has therefore become more complex and producers need good marketing skills to navigate their way through the pros and cons of the many alternatives they face. This is the challenge for producers—to apply a balance of production, finance, people and marketing skills to run their farm businesses successfully. This book gives farmers the tools to become a marketer rather than just a producer. It details market specifications, product promotion, quality control and how to respond to consumer demands for animal welfare practices, health, food safety, environmental and ethical issues.

Sheep Veterinary Practice is the ideal reference for veterinarians in farm animal practice, veterinary and animal science students, agriculturalists and sheep producers. While addressing sheep health, welfare and production matters in Australia, this book covers issues of relevance in any country where sheep are raised. Sheep veterinary specialist Professor Kym Abbott and his co-authors inform the reader of the science underpinning the occurrence of disease syndromes, giving special attention to commonly investigated problems related to nutrition, reproduction and helminthiasis. Other disease conditions of sheep are discussed in subsequent chapters; first on the basis of presenting signs in the case of lameness and sudden death – conditions in which signs can be attributed to disorders of a variety of body systems – and then on a body-systems basis. Following on from Professor Abbott's The Practice of Sheep Veterinary Medicine, a review of the systems and strategies available to improve the welfare of sheep in extensive farming systems is included, as well as discussion of pain relief, analgesia and anaesthesia for sheep. The text is illustrated with over 150 images and photographs, the majority in full colour.