Peppin Merinos

The Peppins came from an old English family that had farmed in Somerset for generations and they brought to Australia a wealth of breeding lore

Reproduced from Australian Encyclopaedia, circa 1950

In 1858 South Wanganella station, in Riverina, was purchased by George Hall Peppin and his sons, George and Frederick. They later obtained the whole of Wanganella, Morago, and Boonoke (or Boonoke North).

Their first sheep venture in Victoria ended disastrously.

After a short time on Wanganella they came to the conclusion that the fine-wool Merino was not suited to that district and they set themselves the task of breeding a more robust type of Merino. The sheep they aimed at was a bigger- framed animal, growing a heavier, longer-stapled fleece of strong wool that would withstand the ravages of sun and dust.

In 1861 they formed a stud by selecting 200 of the best ewes on Wanganella conforming to the desired type. To these they added 100 ewes of Rambouillet type bred on Canally, another well-known Riverina property. French and German rams, also selected for type, were used, including Emperor, a big, rugged Rambouillet, whose square, deep frame and long-stapled wool were inherited to a remarkable degree by his progeny.

Old Grimes

In 1866 George Peppin, while inspecting a draft of rams imported from America, saw the type he wanted and immediately purchased two rams by Old Grimes, a famous sire bred by a leading stud- master of Vermont. They were big-framed, plain- bodied animals possessing a denser fleece than had the Rambouillet, although slightly shorter in staple.

This marked the foundation of the two most famous Merino families in Australian sheep history. The Grimes strain, bred to the Rambouillet’s ewes, founded the Warrior family, while Emperor, on Grimes’s ewes, headed the Premier family.

The Peppins thus evolved a type of sheep that put the Australian Merino on a firm basis, particularly on two qualities: its ability to “nick” with almost any other line of breeding and its suitability under all conditions and especially those of the hot, dry plains.

The establishing of this strain was accomplished in the remarkably short space of about 17 years, and, while credit must go to the Peppins for initiating the work, it was fortunate for Australia that they were followed on Wanganella by breeders who carried on the work so ably begun.

Dislike of New

While the Peppin family was on Wanganella its sheep were practically unknown outside the district, and even within it they were not popular with other breeders. The cult of the fine-wool still prevailed and the only thing that counted was the price a pound for wool. Even in their early days Peppin sheep were cutting 1 or more pounds more wool than the older type of Merino, but their medium 64s wool did not appeal to breeders.

When the Peppins’ property was auctioned in 1878, Wanganella and probably Morago was purchased by Messrs Austin and Millear, and Boonoke by Messrs F. S. Falkiner, J. J. Ross and McKenzie (F. S. Falkiner & Sons Ltd later obtained all of Boonoke and part of Wanganella). These breeders perpetuated and developed along national lines, both in breeding and husbandry, the work the Peppins started, and many famous Australian Mainland studs—including Haddon Rig, Uardry, Boonoke, Burrabogie, Wahwoon, and Bundemar (all in New South Wales)—are descended from the Peppin flock.

The South Australian Merino

Even before the Peppins commenced their work of evolving a Merino for the inland, the necessity for such a course had become obvious to the early pastoral pioneers of South Australia.

The stark nature of much of the country, the extremes of climate, and the wide, waterless pastures demanded an animal more robust than the original Merino. Some of the early settlers attempted to evolve a suitable type by crossing the small-framed, fine-wool ewes with English Leicester rams, and some crossed the Cape sheep with Merinos, but results were unsatisfactory. Thanks to more enlightened breeders, such as the Murrays of Mount Crawford and C. B. Fisher of The Levels, a sheep that was at home on the South Australian plains was gradually evolved.

The South Australian Merino of today is primarily a big sheep of rugged constitution, plain and deep of body, and covered with a dense, long- stapled fleece of “extra-strong” quality.

Much of the wool lacks the softness and pleasing handle of fleeces grown under more favourable conditions, and much of it is more reminiscent, in character, colour, and lustre, of the wool of Romney Marsh or other British breeds than of Merino. But the length of staple and the resistance of the fleece to dust and sun have made all the difference, to hundreds of far inland stations, between a profitable and wasty fleece. It is not uncommon for large flocks of ewes of the South Australian type to cut an average of 16 pounds of wool a head and wethers 18 pounds.

The Vermont Influence

In the 1880s, when the value of the Peppin sheep was gaining ever wider recognition, a number of studmasters set out to emulate the Peppin policy, and, as a first step, looked to America for rams.

The success achieved at Wanganella had thrown the limelight on Vermont Merinos. But no account was taken of the fact that, in the 20 years since the rams of the Grimes strain were purchased by Peppin, most of the Vermont flocks had suffered a complete alteration in type due to a change in fashion. In that period the robust, plain-bodied Vermonts had been turned into a strange animal with short, yellow, heavy-conditioned wool on a skin that was a mass of wrinkles from nose to tail.

American breeders had already discovered the serious mistake they had made and were trying to get rid of the wrinkles. Australian studmasters, however, inspired by the idea of growing more wool by increasing the wool-growing area of each animal, and by reports of the heavy fleeces cut by Vermonts, disregarded the lesson of American sheepmen and began to introduce the American strain into their flocks.

Foremost among the importers was Sir Samuel McCaughey, who at that period was reputed to own more than a million sheep. In addition to buying freely drafts of Vermonts sent to Australia, he visited America in 1889 and brought back £50,000 worth of rams. The demand for wrinkly sheep took on slowly at first but then spread rapidly.

Tasmanian flockmasters, in particular, adopted the Vermonts, and, as a result, some of the best fine-wool studs in Australia suffered a setback from which they took many years to recover. On the Mainland, a number of studs refused to be influenced by the Vermont fashion and went into comparative oblivion while the demand for wrinkles lasted.

The drought of 1902 brought a rude awakening to Australia in many ways, but none greater than the realization that the Vermonts lacked constitution and stamina. They were particularly susceptible to fly-strike; their heavy-yolked wrinkles not only attracted the blowfly but provided a breeding-place for it as ‘veil. Today the heritage of Vermont wrinkles survives in the breech and tail areas of many sheep, in spite of breeders’ efforts to eliminate them.

To save these sheep from the blowfly, a surgical process called after its inventor - the Mules operation - is relied on to remove the wrinkles that harbour the fly.