6 Stand Lane Delivery Shearing Shed & Sheep Yards | Mandurama, NSW, Australia
In October 2023, the construction of a new ProWay shearing shed and sheep yards was completed at ‘Malongulli’, a property located between Mandurama and Canowindra in the Central West region of NSW. The enterprise is co-managed by Jim and his brother Harry, and is run in conjunction with their farm in Coonamble. They run self-replacing Merino flocks at both properties.
The ProWay shearing shed that incorporates a lane delivery board delivers sheep directly to the shearer. The main benefits being an increased efficiency in catching and dragging sheep with a reduced physical effort for the shearer. It also minimises the chance of injury to the shearer from the dragging and twisting movements required in a traditional catching pen.
“For us, having good facilities and getting the sheep right, leads onto contractors being available, whether that’s shearers or livestock contractors working in the yards. It goes a long way towards encouraging them to come back and help us out.”
“In our operation, the sheep are the core of the business, and we’re heavily focusing on infrastructure of both properties. Priorities to date have been water and wire and we really are heavily focusing on the infrastructure of the property,” Jim said.
Investing in a new shearing shed and yards at ‘Malongulli’ had also become a priority for the family run business.
“The past few years have had their challenges, particularly the wet years managing sheep and getting contractors and shearers on board,” Jim explained.
“We are up for anything that makes sense when it comes to efficiency, so we were open minded to the idea of a lane delivery system and it’s proving to be paying off and the shearers are happy,”
The new six-stand shearing shed, utilises the lane delivery principles developed by AWI and refined by ProWay, was ready for their first shearing in mid-November.
“From a budget perspective, we haven’t had to spend a lot more to build a lane system like this, so it’s not costing us more to take the load off the shearer. On top of that they’re able to shear more sheep and feel better at the end of the day.”
“They have been able to shear seven to eight more sheep per run, so there’s obviously an efficiency gain. They’re also keen to see that it’s working well, and we’ve really only had positive feedback."
Jim and his brother had been in discussion with ProWay about building a new shed and yards and were drawn to the idea of a lane delivery board which delivers sheep directly to the shearer. The main benefits being an increased efficiency in catching and dragging sheep with a reduced physical effort for the shearer. It also minimises the chance of injury to the shearer from the dragging and twisting movements required in a traditional catching pen.
“While we’d originally planned to build a conventional shed, ProWay put the idea forward to us to incorporate a lane delivery system into the design and it made total sense to us,” Jim said.
In terms of the sheep yards Jim and Harry wanted to incorporate an efficient and well thought out design.
“To us the design offered a lot of versatility, whether you’re going up the ProWay Bulk Handler, Combi-Clamp or an autodraft as well as having a good 5 way draft, the design creates an ease of flow for the sheep. There’s also a yard cover over it so people turn up and are probably excited to do a days’ worth or a weeks’ worth of sheep work.”
“As soon as the design process was in motion, we were back and forth with designs and found the communication with ProWay was really good throughout the project. It was never an issue to change something.”
“Throughout the construction of the project, ProWay were always checking in with us, the shed builder and their install contractors to help co-ordinate things.”
Overall the Head family are happy to recommend ProWay’s service.
