shearing

Shearing a flock of sheep is not done for the profit in the wool at least not in our area. Ungraded wool brings in 23 to 27 cents a pound in the grease. Shearing costs more than the wool can bring unless you market to specialty customers, like hand-spinners interested in black, gray, brown or white, long-stapled wool. Regardless of what you get for the wool, sheep need the wool removed or it mats and makes them uncomfortable in the heat of the summer. They also will not breed if they are too hot.

Some shepherds shear twice a year, once in the fall to make lambing easier and the sheep more inclined to come in with those lambs when the weather is inclement. With our sheep and several nice shelters, they come in anyway and we feel lucky to find someone to shear them once a year.

When we first began raising sheep, there were more flocks in this area; and we had more sheep ourselves. Sometimes we had shearers who came in with a trailer, platform, wool support, and all their equipment. They would shear the sheep in this area then head for Australia for its season. That kind of operation is not interested in shearing small flocks and thirty sheep is a small flock.

Three years ago happily we found a good shearer, who is efficient and gentle with the sheep, doesn't nick them more than she does herself, and will come clear out here to do the flock. Each year we hope she is still doing it as if we can't find a shearer, the farm boss has to do it-- something he definitely doesn't relish. This year, he will still have two small ewes to do. One because we purposely left her out of the pen as her baby was less than a week old which would make it more vulnerable in sheep stomping it accidentally, and her twin that escaped the fence before a loophole was fixed.

My contribution was to take some photos of the process. Basically the sheep are penned ahead of the shearer's arrival. The farm boss catches, drags, and the shearer shears. Once the wool has been removed, it can be pushed into a wool bag or thrown onto a clean plastic tarp to later be sacked. When we were able to borrow a wool stand, our children used to get in those big tall sacks and stomp the wool down. With less wool, sacking is less of an issue.

After being shorn, the sheep are released to complain about the whole thing. The next day though, after their lambs finally acknowledge who their mothers are, the ewes are happier for the shearing and act more like goats than sheep for how they go up and down hills and run around like the lambs they once were.