"THEY mightn't have the finest of clips but they're bale fillers", is Tom Newton's take on his Goolgumbla-blood Merinos.
And in the current wool market, with a heavy emphasis on the middle to medium microns, Mr Newton and his wife Lisa, from Avenel in the Goulburn Valley, are quite happy to be producing wool.
While their top-selling 18.2-micron line, with a yield of 71.8 per cent, sold for 826c/kg greasy, their broader 22-micron adult lines, with a similar yield, sold for only 129c/kg less at 697c/kg.
With their broader-micron sheep cutting at least 6kg, or at least 2kg more than the younger and finer sheep, it was quite clear to the Newtons which of their sheep were paying the bills.
Mr Newton said they ran what was essentially a self-replacing Merino flock on the rough granite country around Avenel, with several hundred older and classed-out Merino ewes joined to terminals.
