
Serving the American Sheep Industry Since 1918

Wool Market and News

Wool Marketing: Second Quarter 2009

The recent Roswell Wool Auction showed an increase in interest for fine wools; the prices were better than we had been seeing all winter. While prices were still 35% lower than the same time last year, the auction did show an improvement in prices that we had been waiting to see. The Australian market has firmed considerably across all grades within the past couple of months. While the upward trend is encouraging, prices are still lagging behind where they should be when compared to the Australian price. The higher foreign values are enabling export activity to improve, but we still have a good bit of last year's clip to yet work through. We still believe that values will stabilize and rise as we move through the summer months.

Spring is the time of year that ram selection and breeding plans begin to be finalized for the upcoming lamb crop. I am asked often, "What can I do to get paid better for my wool?" The simplest and easiest answer is to consider adding a fine-wool ram to your ram battery. If you are already doing this, then you can further refine your search by improving the micron, increasing staple length, and improving yield. But, for those who raise medium-wool sheep, a fine-wool ram is going to provide you with a group of half-blood females to put back into your flock. This one addition is the quickest and easiest way to increase the value of the wool you produce. Sheep in the Midwest are predominately raised for meat and little emphasis is placed on the value of the wool. These half-blood females could be crossed with a terminal sire and produce excellent market lambs while yielding a desirable fleece.

Spring is also the time to look at your pastures and how they may affect your wool clip. Too many fleeces come into the warehouse with burrs and hay chafe in them, immediately lowering the value of the wool. Keeping your pastures clipped will not only improve your wool clip, but it will also improve the quality of your pasture. Too many times we don't worry about our wool clip until the day of shearing. Wool preparation and quality is a year-long endeavor that cannot be focused on for only one day.

At the March Board of Directors Meeting, the directors voted to offer again this year our Customer-Appreciation Program to our patrons who market their wool through one of Mid-States' warehouses. For those unfamiliar with this program, we send out a certificate in December with the wool checks which provides the patron a discount in our supply departments for the entire month of January. This discount is based on the amount of dollars spent with the supply department, not the pounds or value of the wool marketed. This program provides a nice discount for producers as they stock up on lambing supplies prior to lambing season.

Hopefully, this update has provided you with some useful information that you can use for your operation. Remember to sign up for the wool LDP program at your local FSA office prior to giving up possession of this year's wool. The ungraded LDP currently is $.29 per pound. I hope that lambing season went well for each of you, and let's hope that the strong lamb market that we currently see stays with us through the summer.

Dave Rowe
General Manager