Woolshed and yard design at 'Curragh', Oxley
Channel: Local Land Services NSW
Date: 2022-01-19

Now this is a shearing shed! Take a walk through Bill Ryan's shearing shed, yards, confinement feeding yards and staff quarters to get an understanding of how good planning and design can support property management and improve farm business resilience. The shed and yards are set up to make shearing more efficient, safer and simple.

The investment in infrastructure at the 85,600 ha “Curragh” has been made to improve the resilience of the farm business by ensuring that quality contractors and staff can be sourced more readily by providing excellent facilities. The containment yards are utilised during dry periods for containment feeding during dry periods to protect ground cover and reduce the impacts of wind erosion.

Shearing takes place once a year in September to shear about 30,000 sheep (some 2,300 a day). There are no count out pens and tallies are kept by individual shearers. The yard design is such that woolly and shorn sheep are separated and handled in adjacent yards (mirrored design). This allows multiple operations to occur at shearing time which greatly improves efficiency.

The system also incorporates a double laneway system used to bring woolly sheep to the shed and shorn sheep out. Sheep walk up to 70 km often in large mobs of the same age.

Find out more in this short video developed through the Farm Business Resilience Program, a partnership between the Australian Government's Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, the Future Drought Fund, NSW Department of Primary Industries and Local Land Services.