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Hello MyFarmers. We’re in the lambing shed which you might remember from a few months
ago when we had lambing season and today it’s another hive of activity, it’s shearing
day Mark? A really busy day, what’s going on?
What’s going on is we’ve got about 430 ewes in here and fattening lambs that need
their wool off. We’re taking the wool off for welfare reasons – we don’t want them
to get fly strike. It’s a very, very busy day – early start for me and weeks and weeks
of preparation to get to this one point where we can get all of the flock in and it’s
been raining a lot lately and they like to shear dry sheep, so they all came in over
the weekend and they’ve all been put in here and this team of lads, these New Zealand
boys come in – they’re the professionals they get it done and they’re really good,
really efficient, good with the sheep and it all happens in one day, hopefully by mid
afternoon we’ll get it all finished.
Okay, not that it’s a race because we’re going to compare it to stuff we did with Simon
hand shearing the sheep and things but 430 – what time did these boys get here – how
quick will they get through?
They started about 7.00am and I imagine they’re going to finish mid afternoon so I think they’ve
taken about a minute per sheep, they’re going a little bit slow because they’re
horned sheep. These are the guys you want doing this kind of job, they do it all year
round, they follow the fleece round the world so they’re the experts and I just pay them
and we know them, they’re trusted and they’re good with our animals.
Is there any sort of special kit they bring with them, you see they’ve got all the electric
shears you can probably hear that buzzing away in the background and things but is there
any special kit they bring with them other than their expertise?
They’ve got a little bit of a transformer thing going on because this is actually a
trailer that comes behind their truck. They bring it in, jack it up, the wheels come off
and then everything just falls out and it’s ready to go. You’ll also notice that they’re
wearing special trousers? The trousers actually help them to move the sheep around and they’re
wearing moccasins as well and sometimes they wear a big strong belt which helps to protect
their back. Rather them than me to be honest – it’s hard, hard work. They’re worth
every penny. They also bring a lady with them who wraps and rolls the fleeces for us and
they go into these wool sheets here – they pack about 50 fleeces per wool sheet then
pile them up all nice and neat. It’s one of them days I really, really enjoy, because
there’s a lovely atmosphere around the farm today, everyone’s coming around photographing
it and when it’s done you can breathe a sigh of relief for the year – finished.
There’s a real buzz around I mean we’ve sort of killed it a little bit for MyFarm
for the music and things – they’ve got like heavy rock music and stuff going on so
they can get a real pace going. It’s quite a well oiled machine – you’ve got quite
a few people here – there’s a couple of your farm hands helping to bring the sheep
through.
I actually have one of my volunteers Andrew, who only comes in this day – he will not
miss shearing. He books a day’s holiday from his firm – they let him have a day’s
leave and he rings us weeks in advance ‘can I come and do the shearing’ and he’s been
doing it about five or six years now and I just leave him and he takes control of it
– he’s in charge, so once I get everything in I hand it over to the experts really. I
just oversee it from a distance.
Are there any considerations, like what is the worst thing that can happen – we talked
with Simon about nicking the sheep and things and I’m guessing with the electric clippers
it’s a little bit more than a nick?
You can get a nick – we have antiseptic sprays on hand and we can stitch any cuts.
These are really good – these are expert lads and if one’s nicked we are prepared
to deal with it but they’re going pretty good. They’re taking their time with them.
They are taking their time because they’re rare breeds and horned but they enjoy coming
here as well because they get to see different breeds of sheep.
Yes with the different things we’ve seen - I’ve seen some of these guys with the
Oxford Downs and they are big animals and the MyFarmers voted for them. Does it make
a difference which sheep you’re shearing?
I think it does. The way they hold them in their legs with the horns – it’s complicated
for them. These guys are used to doing up to 700-800 sheep in one day but they’re
all one breed, so they’re uniform, they get used to it and they get a routine. But
I think this maybe sharpens up their skills a bit as well as they do see different breeds
and even these shearers take photographs of our MyFarm flock because they like the different
breeds.
That’s the other thing with the welfare thing about we don’t tail and dock and now
we don’t castrate our young lambs – I’m guessing that makes it more difficult as there
are more bits to shear?
There are more bits to shear they’ve all got long tails now, the ones that naturally
have long tails, and then we’ll have to see next year when we do the shearing – we’ll
have our entire ram lambs so we’ll see what difference that makes but I’m sure we’ll
cope – there’s lots of work goes into this before the actual day and if we’ve
all done our work over the last couple of weeks with dagging and getting them tidy,
all the lambs have come off now, they’ve all been weaned it’s one of them days that
you really enjoy but you’re glad when it’s over but you can see the atmosphere yourself.
It’s a good atmosphere.
It’s good fun. One last thing – what happens to the wool – where’s it going?
Today we have a few ladies in who are sorting some of the fleeces and we’re going to do
a little project where we may have some balls of wool coming back into the shop for people
to knit with and we have a lady in our Stable Block, Vanessa, she comes down and buys some
fleeces and then the rest of it goes off to the Central Wool Board. The days of… the
old thing in the old days was that your wool cheque paid your rent for your smallholding.
I hate to say it but I just look on this as a by product – I want it off them for welfare
reasons, I send it off and it barely pays for the shearing.
Not lucrative then?
It’s not lucrative at all and that was true in the old days – it paid the rent on the
smallholding for a year.
You’re a busy man Mark, we’ll let you get to it.
Yep, thank you very much, we’ll get on.
Thanks.