WA-based researcher Kelsey Pool is driven to find an alternative solution for fleece removal for crutching

WA-based researcher Kelsey Pool is taking the decades-old concept of biological defleecing and putting a modern medical spin on it in a bid to provide producers with alternative options for fleece removal. The Lefroy Research Fellow noticed a gap in the market for sheep fleece removal when looking to lock in a project for her fellowship two years ago. Biological defleecing is not a new concept, but earlier market options had some unwanted side effects and were quite labour intensive, limiting widespread adoption. Rather than re-inventing the wheel for fleece harvest, Ms Pool’s team decided to focus on animal husbandry and welfare practices using targeted fleece removal. “We wanted to develop something that was safe for the animal, easy for producers to use and commercially scalable,” she said. “This ended up being a topical spray, with an encapsulated active component in a nano-delivery system, commonly used in human, over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. “This allows for targeted biological action at the wool follicle, so that only wool at the treated site forms a break.” Ms Pool said the concept was not designed to serve as an alternative for wool harvesting but as a back-up option for crutching. “We’ve got 80 million sheep and around 2000 shearers in Australia, and there’s no back-up option for crutching,” she said. “As the breach wool is usually of little commercial value, the wool falling off the sheep in the paddock is not an issue for many producers, particularly those operations without a pure wool focus. “In the long run, we hope to develop this into a spray that producers could easily use to crutch sheep if shearers aren’t available. “It would never replace the role of shearers, but rather provide a contingency option to producers to safeguard animal health and welfare.” Ms Pool said her research had been received well by producers. “I presented the idea to the WA Livestock Research Council’s Livestock Matters 2025 back in July and I had a really positive response,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of producers come and offer their farms as potential research sites for the future, which is really lovely, and have had some good suggestions about how we could adapt applicators to work on farms. “We’ve also had lot of people saying that it would be great to have a bit of flexibility because they’ve definitely had times where they couldn’t get shearers out.” Ms Pool and her team of two have evaluated preliminary trial results — which were conducted on-farm near Pingelly — and were hopeful they were on the right track. WA-raised Whitney Payne was serving as research assistant, and soon to be PhD student, while Julia Lathbury was on board as an UWA honours student. “This project originally started with me growing wool in petri dishes in the lab, to figure out which compounds could affect wool growth,” she said. “Seeing our progress on farm this year has made me realise how far we have come in the last few months.” The project is currently under commercial development, with trials ongoing. The next on-farm trails will begin later this year, supported by the University of Western Australia Pathfinder program.