Harnessing the dual-purpose potential of Merino ewes

Matthew Morgan of Tarkastad has developed his family farms vertically by establishing permanent mixed pastures for his 3 000 Merino ewes to lamb on. The excellence of his farming won him the title of 2019 Toyota-Agri Eastern Cape Young Farmer of the Year.

- Mike Burgess

“Merinos are our pride and joy,” says Matthew Morgan (35), who returned home to farm near Tarkastad in the Eastern Cape with his late father, Jonathan, in 2009 before establishing his first pastures a year later.

“With the pastures, I tried to maximise the potential of existing land so that I could produce more lambs without a big capital outlay, such as buying a new farm.”

Today, with 100ha of pastures, Morgan has shifted from an almost exclusive focus on fine wool to a more balanced production of wool and store lambs that enables a ewe to generate an income of R1 500 a year for an expense of between R200 and R250.

LAMBS AND WOOL

Morgan’s dedication to the production of exceptional Merino lambs is symbolised by the replacement of wethers with productive ewes, despite the former’s significant contribution to wool volumes in the past. “Yes, wethers are great bale fillers, but they spend the whole year not giving anything else [except wool] and taking up space on the veld,” he explains. “Ewes can produce a lamb every year, which can be sold for the same value as a wether.”

In order to produce heavier lambs, he has concentrated on increasing the size of ewes to the current average of 50kg. Although this approach has seen his wool’s fibre diameter increase to between 18 and 19 microns, the clip still achieves prices 15% higher than the average achieved at most auctions. Morgan was one of the first farmers in South Africa to produce wool worth R200/ kg a few years ago.