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HISTORY
Sheep came to Australia with the First Fleet in 1788. They were brought by Governor Phillip from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. They had fat, long tails and their wool was like hair. Sheep are not native to Australia. The first white people wanted sheep for their meat and not their wool.
MERINO SHEEP
Three out of four Australian sheep are merinos. Most other sheep are crossedwith merinos. The first merinos were bred in Spain. Australian merinos are now a separate breed of sheep. Not all merinos look alike. There are four main strains of merinos.
EXPORTS
During 1985, wool was shorn from 168.1 million sheep and lambs in Australia. 97% of our wool goes overseas. Australia is still the biggest exporter of wool in the world. The main buyers of our wool are: Japan, Europe, Russia, India, Taiwan and South Korea. Great Britain used to buy most of our wool but buys much less now. Most wool that Australia exports is still \"greasy\". This means it is just as it was when shorn from the sheep.
Japan is the biggest buyer of scoured wool. Scoured wool is the dirtiest wool which is washed before being sold. Wool makes up one tenth of our exports and earns a lot of money for our country.
LIFE ON A SHEEPFARM
The people who life on a sheepfarm are living far away from the civilisation. Their farms are often more than 300 squaremelis large, that is as big as the half of London or as big as the smalles european countries. They need motorbikes for travelling around their farms. In the past they took horses.
Once a year the "shearers" (that means woolcutters) travel in teams from on station to anothe. They work very fast Most shearers can shear 100 to 120 in one day. It's important to know, that there are 16 million people in Australia and 139 million sheep. In fact, Australian sheep grow up one quarter of all the wool in the world.
The farmers have to pay attention for their sheep because there's the wild dog called Dingo. In one nicht it can kill up to 20 sheep. Then the farmers get the "doggers" to come. They are men who go out and kill the dingos.
Also for children the life there isn't easy. They can't go to school because it's to far away. They talk with their teacher and their classmates on the radio.
For people who live in a city this life is unbelieveable!! But the farmers like their life on their sheepstation.
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