Back at my last sheepie post, I said I'd try and get some pics of lamb shearing ................. so here goes......
It's all pretty self-explanatory really - lambs get pulled out of pens behind each blue door, shorn and sent down the shutes behind the shearers. Apologies if this is not new to you - I'm guessing most country folk will be familiar with all of this!
Our woolshed is a four stand shed, so there are four shearers, three rousies and a presser who pens up the sheep out the back as well. The rousies sweep the board of wool and sort the fleece into the right bales.
These are lambs being shorn, so they have relatively short wool, when we are shearing ewes with 12 months of wool on, the girls use a wool table, where they throw the fleece and skirt(take out the short/gnarly bits around the outside) the edges before rolling the fleece up and putting it into the wool press.
Shearing gangs work so hard, and they are always cheerful and seem to have a lot of fun on the job too.
And here is the finished work, shorn sheep always look a bit strange straight off the shears, a bit nude and bony looking, within a week they'll be looking a bit more normal again. It's always nice to get some good weather after shearing, the last thing you want is a cold snap on freshly shorn sheep. Thankfully we have a good forecast for the next few days, and we are hoping to get our silage(winter feed) made tomorrow too.
Thanks for stopping by today, I'll be back in a day or two with a stitching update, don't forget it's Friday Night Sew In this Friday, if you're keen to join in, head on over here and sign up.......happy stitching ........ .............. Nicky
16 comments:
Hello! I did rudely laugh at those delightfully shorn sheep! Such treasures, and they give so much.
Brings back lots of memories, mostly good. But what I remember most is the smell and the feel of the fleece. Soft soft hands from all the lanolin.
Thank you for the smile for today.
Karen
Hope it doesn't get too cold for them! My parents are heading to NZ in two weeks time for a couple of weeks holiday too!
Hello Nicky,
Thanks for sharing your shed with us. Brings back memories of life on the farm growing up. I think my Mum must have cooked so much when the shearers came.
Happy days.
Bev.xoxo
I always imagine how hard it must be on the shearers backs...all that bending :) Thanks for sharing the photos xxx
Great photos Nicky, it looks like a very hard job...and those sheep look very chilly now!
Thanks for your post very intresting, and hard work.
good to see it is same same no matter what country your in..........shearing is shearing..........
Thanks for those photos. I am definitely not 'country folk' so this is all new to me!
I am country but we have beef cattle so this is a new view for me! I'm wondering if the shearers have regular visits to the physio after all that bending and stretching?
Those little sheepies are just so cute - you do put band-aids and Neosporin on their little nicks and cuts so they don't roll in the dirt and get infected, right? :) I've always lived in the city but I've certainly had my exposure to country life too at my grandparents - loved reading your post.
Great photo's, Did you have to cook for them all?
I bet the sheep feel a lot cooler now with their new looks!
Thank you for sharing this process. I have seen it in the movies.... but it's never been explained. Would love to see it in person.
So, do the shearing gangs travel from farm to farm? What happens if the all the sheep in an area need shearing at once? How do you grade the wool? How do the sheep react to being sheared the first time? Do you eat lamb? So many questions ... it's all fascinating to me. Thanks again.
Any time you want to share|show your sheep|farm, I'm happy to listen.
PS: Here in Oklahoma, we have crews that travel from Texas up north through the plains states harvesting during the wheat season. Quite different from the farms in the mid-west (Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, etc.) where individual farmers harvest their own crops.
All so interesting!
What a fascinating behind-the-scenes look into life at your farm, Nicky! The shorn sheep are so scrawny and pinkish aren't they. I'm glad to hear that their wool grows in quickly :)
Oh, how interesting! These photos are awesome. The sheep do look rather bare after shearing, don't they?
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