This homesteader’s shearing dreams take a ‘sheepish’ turn
Shearing is a lot harder than it looks, and the sheep’s expression says it all!
Hinterland Homesteading with Racheal Pascoe
Homesteading is all about growing and making your own, minimising your expenses where possible and doing as much as you can yourself. I just love the idea of always learning about life and giving things a go.
We have had sheep here at home for a long time now and enjoyed having a little flock who have lambs each year.
We have been late for school drop off in the morning some years, as we have taken up place on the grass in the paddock and watched in awe, as a ewe has given birth to twins! Nothing beats mother nature showing us just how amazing new life is.
Keeping and caring for sheep also means a yearly shearing.
It is important to get the fleece off the animals before the hot weather gets too severe. We have always had a shearer come in and take care of this job for us. It is amazing to watch them at work. It seems hard, but I thought that maybe I could take on this task (picture my husband rolling eyes again).
I bought a set of electric clippers on-line and talked Henry, our lovely shearer, in to giving me a lesson. I promised that I wouldn’t be taking his job as such, he could just give me a little try out. Henry was all too willing to show me the ropes. “How lovely of him,” I thought.
We picked a quiet ewe and made a start together. I could hardly get my hand around the clippers and it was actually harder than it looks to hold the sheep between your legs to work.
It is important to kind of stretch the animal out, so that the skin is not wrinkled and you get a good cut, close to the skin.
Well, I was so worried that I would cut the animal, that I found it hard to just let the clippers glide along the surface.
Nevertheless, I felt like I was right in the gritty, dusty outback, working alongside the pioneers, just like in a Tom Roberts painting. I thought about all the people whose back our great country was built on.
A gun shearer can shear 300 sheep in a day
It was pretty amazing with the long cuts. The clean fleece underneath was just falling off the sheep. There is a sort of routine of shearing the animal. Where you start, how you move the animal around to get the best angle, working to the spine, then when you come from the other side, your cuts meet up and the fleece just falls to the ground. Job done (I made that sound quite easy. I was nervous the entire time to not to cut a leg tendon or cut the abdomen, or draw blood of any sort really).
A good shearer can shear 150 sheep in a day, a great shearer can do 200 and a gun shearer or ringer can hit the 300 mark! Well, there is something to aim for.
It took me more than 20 minutes to shear one sheep! I think I caught the animal giving me the side eye a couple of times. No doubt she was thinking that my homesteading ideas have gone too far this time.
Now I am 5’ 10” tall. As I stood up, slowly… I thought that I had done a pretty good job. But as I inspected the ewe, she kind of look a bit moth-eaten and I could see my shearing was a poor effort. Shearing was obviously an absolute skill, which would take a long time to perfect.
Maybe I would just stand and chat to Henry while he sheared the rest of the sheep this year. No wonder he knew I wouldn’t be taking his job anytime soon!