Shearing Day Arrives

Saturday didn't work out for shearing; the weather was cold and wet, and our shearer wanted temperatures a little warmer before she left our little dumplings without their coats.  Yesterday dawned sunny and glorious however, so I emailed my absence into work and dropped an email to Sandy, our shearer, to see whether she could make it out.  In addition to shearing some sheep, I also had 100 strawberry plants sitting in the crisper in my fridge awaiting planting, and two yearling Carpathian English Walnut trees sitting in a box in my pantry waiting for the same.  So, although I was still fighting respiratory issues that had laid me low for the entire weekend, Nora and I got everything in the ground by 1 pm and had time for a little rest before Sandy showed up at 3.

With much anticipation (and some trepidation), we loaded up Sandy's equipment into the wheelbarrow, grabbed some large plastic garbage bags for the fleece, and headed out to the barn.  The sheep were already closed in the barn to make round-up a little easier, theoretically anyway.  The plan was to corral one at a time and coax her from the main part of the barn into the extra stall where we generally store the hay, minerals, grain, etc.  So, we laid down a large sheet of plywood as the shearing station (to keep the dirt and hay on the floor from mucking up the fleece as it comes off the sheep) and hooked up Sandy's cutting tool. Nora has already described the experience of rounding up sheep number 1 below, in a more humorous fashion than I ever could, so I won't repeat the story.  Suffice it to say, I have a somewhat bruised bum from Tallulah plowing me into the metal wall feeder, and after herding and pushing 300+ lbs of sheep across the barn and into the shearing area, some mighty sore shoulders and arms.  I have no idea how Sandy can do this day after day through shearing season  -- some days shearing 50-100 sheep -- but thankfully she can, and she did a fabulous job.

Delilah ended up as the guinea pig of the group; Sandy's first time shearing a Babydoll.  She was extremely impressed with the length and quality of their fleece, which is good to hear.  She also spent a lot of time commenting on the amount of fleece -- everywhere.  Keep in mind the more common breeds, at least around here, do not have any fleece on their faces and little on the bellies and legs.  Our little girls are covered head to top of hoof; and the fleece, at least in Delilah's case, hid many rolls of fat.  Luckily Sandy is quite skilled with the clippers and was able to work her way around all sensitive body parts without lopping anything off.

To give you an idea of process.  First, capture sheep, get her to shearing station and flip her on her bum into docile, sitting pose.  A simple sentence that sounds infinitely easier than it actually is when fighting 100 lbs of flipping out sheep.  But once you get them into that pose, as with the hoof trimming, these little girls really do become quite docile and easy to move around and shear.  It may have taken Sandy 10-15 minutes with Delilah, but after her first, she picked up the speed on Jem and Tallu.

Jem - isn't she adorable?

Step 2: After the fleece has been removed, we opened the stall door and each sheep would right herself and run into the main barn with the others.  Again, Nora described the reaction to Delilah when we released her back in with her sisters.  I was not expecting the total freak out that occurred, nor have I ever seen the 3 of them move that lighting fast around the barn.  Thankfully it didn't last more than a minute, if that.  I would have had to jump into the middle of the fray in an attempt to calm them down, if so.

Step 3: skirt the fleece, which is laying on the plywood in one, intact piece.  The fact that a good shearer can remove a fleece in one piece simply astounds me.  Skirting involves removing the shorter, dirtier edges of the fleece, which end up as garbage.  I may scatter small piles around the edge of our woods for the birds to use as nesting material, but it has little other use.

Step 4: roll up the remaining fleece and stuff into a garbage bad.  I'd estimate that each fleece weighed in around 5-6 lbs.  Not bad for our little girls.

All told, the sheep were sheared, the fleeces skirted and packed into bags by 4 pm.  Emotionally drained and a little sore (Nora and I, not Sandy of course), we headed into the house for some strong coffee and conversation.

Getting reacquainted