Connecting Seniors
Nan Bray · 58 min
A former oceanographer who traded ocean currents for Tasmanian pastures proves that kinder, nature-led sheep farming is not only possible — it is profitable, healing, and quietly revolutionary.
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Nan Bray spent her career as a marine physicist studying ocean currents before moving to Tasmania, where she fell in love with the landscape and spotted sheep grazing near Government House. That glimpse sparked a question: could she have both the farm life she'd longed for since childhood and a steady income? She could. What followed was a quiet revolution in how sheep can be farmed.
When Nan started, she followed conventional methods, guided by a retired stockman named David Carnes who taught her everything about wool growing. But as she got to know her animals as individuals, particularly a pet lamb named Vicki, she began to question the practices she'd inherited. She refused to mule her sheep, stopped weaning lambs from their mothers at three months, and eventually stopped sending them to slaughter. She reduced her flock to a quarter of its original size and let the land recover. The sheep learned from their mothers what to eat and how to stay healthy. She hasn't needed to drench an animal for internal parasites since 2009.
When the economics of ethical farming didn't add up on wool sales alone, Nan moved up the supply chain. She found a mill in New Zealand, taught herself to knit, and built White Gum Wool into a profitable yarn business. Her sheep live to around ten or twelve years old, their wool stays fine and strong as they age, and the older animals get an assisted living paddock where they can stay with their flock rather than be transported away. Nan proved that kinder farming is not just possible. It's profitable, healing, and it works.
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