Okay, I finally decided I would try it this year. A wonderful friend gave me his old shearing machine. It's a Sunbeam Shearmaster Model EW 311 A Head (says on the metal portion of the machine). I have 2 blades, number PC-10, and 2 other holders (? don't know the term!) that say PC3. The machine shows the holes where you put oil in (whew)and I have a tube of (don't know how old) "Stewart" by Oster, special gear grease.

I completely expect to get a marginal fleece out of my first efforts. I will attempt the smaller yearlings first and see if my back holds out.

Anyone out there who can give me tips on the equipment (or shearing, for that matter)? I have observed many shearings and asked a lot of questions, so I understand the process...just never done it before.

Your help would be very much appreciated, esp. regarding the equipment: do you cool down ( I mean the machine, not YOU!! LOL) between sheep? Thanks?

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), April 27, 2000

Answers

Good luck. I shook like a leaf the first time I sheared one of my sheep but she and I lived to see more shearing days. I started doing it myself after a neighbor who raised meat sheep was more interested in making my sheep look slick and pretty than in getting a spinner's fleece off them. I was standing right there reminding him of the conversations we'd had about how I needed the sheep shorn by the way but I could have been speaking to the sheep for all the good it did. He SECOND cut them all to pieces, most of that year's crop became mulch and I figured I could butcher the wool as easily as he did. I was amazed that I didn't second cut it anywhere near as badly as he had. I ended up with usable fleece and my sheep weren't so upset over my wrestling with them as they had been with a stranger.

The parts you refer to are called combs and cutters. Sorry I don't know which is which as I use old fashioned hand shears that are called "blades." These are my choice because I have carpal tunnel syndrome and the vibration of the electric shears makes my hand numb in seconds. They are also much cheaper to purchase and maintain.

As far as the shearing itself, don't worry about doing it by the Australian method with the sheep sitting on its rump. That's all fine and good for a healthy back. I lay my sheep down on a concrete floor and they have been through the process enough times that they will be still if I can keep one foot under their shoulder to keep them from standing up. I do my wool value added so don't need to worry about getting the fleece off in one piece as the wool buyers want it. I would suggest that you forego the yearlings even if they are smaller. They have never been through the process before and are more likely to reject the idea. As far as the sequence, I shear the belly wool and anything else that would end up in the skirtings box, including britch, leg and face wool. I then go up the neck, around the shoulder in long blows to the back of the head, then keep making the cuts until I'm at the thigh and start working in long blows more or less parallel to the spine. When I get a little past the spine, I tuck the fleece toward the sheep and roll her over onto it. I shear the other side of the neck, then start at the lower edge to clear the fleece, again working somewhat parallel to the spine until I find the place where I stopped on the first side. With the hand shears, they look rougher than a sheep shorn with electric shears but that serves to remind people who visit and want to try shearing not to do second cuts. Besides, anything left is seed for next year's crop and like a bad haircut, you don't notice it in 2-3 weeks.

As far as cooling down the machine between sheep, there is a product called KoolLube that is designed to cool the shearing head. Also keeping the comb and cutter clean and oiled will help prevent heat build up. It's amazing how hot they can get and I've helped at shearing schools where the sheep protested vehemently when the hot shears were applied to their skins. I can't say as I blame them. By the way, it won't hurt you to have a chance to cool down between sheep either. Have fun.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), April 28, 2000.

Marilyn, thanks!! I was wondering whether hand shears or electric would be better for someone with carpal tunnel when we get sheep again!! I wouldn't try to do more than a few a day, either -- they don't all have to be done at the same time -- and that's one reason I don't want to have merino's. Any recommendations on breeds that are easier to shear than others? (Definitely NOT merinos -- even with electric shears and a professional shearer they are slow and difficult.)

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 28, 2000.

Your shears were made to be able to shear all day and take it. We use regular oil, - 10w40 - to keep the shears oiled. The Kool Lube is the best. Easy because it sprays right on.

If the cutters and combs are sharp, they don't get hot so fast. If they start to bog down, they need oiled. They have dirt, etc. between cutter and comb. There is no predicting how long a set of combs and cutters will stay sharp. Sometimes they will stay sharp for 5 sheep, another time they will stay sharp for 30.

Be checking around for someone who can sharpen your cutters and combs. That will be a necessity. If you have no one, email me and I will give you the email of a place called Clipper Shack that you can mail them to .

-- homestead2 (homestead@monroecty.net), April 28, 2000.

In Australia shearers get paid more for most non-merino (British breeds, they're called) sheep. Why? Because they earn it. Other breeds are bigger (harder to fight with or manipulate as well as more area to cover). The wrinkly skin on a merino doesn't slow a professional shearer down at all - there's a knack to getting it more or less pulled straight as you go.

You are using a power tool. Try to make sure the animal's insides stay inside. I have also seen a sheep kick onto a moving cutter blade and hamstring itself as well - but that's very rare. The important thing is long slow smooth movements. That's easy on the animal, easy on the wool, and easy on you. That last is important.

Cooling down handpiece (is that the holder-thing you meant?) - first, don't screw the cutter blade down too tight, or it will run red-hot in no time at all. If it heats up too much, either it's screwed too tight, or it's not properly oiled, or the cutter blades are dull (you DO know how to sharpen them, don't you?). If all those are OK, it WILL still heat up (as others have said) but probably not too much. Professionals have a spare handpiece, and swap them from time to time. After each sheep, the handpiece will get a chance to cool while you're disposing of the last sheep, putting a few drops of oil on the handpiece (and, depending on design, perhaps the swivel in the down- pipe), and getting the next sheep. Getting the next sheep yourself is important - it gets you straightened up and moving differently, not hunched over shearing all the time. Shearing is murderous on your back anyway - you need the break between animals.

When you get up to over a hundred sheep a day (say one every four or five minutes, all day except for morning, lunch, and afternoon breaks), contact some of the shearing contractors in Australia (or New Zealand) - they'd be prepared to take you on and train you then. Shearing sheds used to be a male-only domain, but they're just about ready for female shearers now - they've got female wool classers, shed-hands and roustaouts.

What they call a "gun" shearer can shear over two-hundred a day - try the maths on that. The world record is now 720 in a day, but that was a New Zealander, shearing New Zealand sheep, with New Zealand equipment, and he still had to take nine hours to do it.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), April 28, 2000.

To me not having to shear faces and legs is a plus so the Border Leicesters and Cheviots (I know there are other breeds but my brain isn't working well at the moment) are good on my list but wool quality is my primary concern as I'm a spinner. Two of my sheep have minimal wool on legs and faces and they are so much easier to shear. Since I shear indoors, good light is a necessity because I have aging eyes (to go along with the rest of the aging body!)and shearing a black sheep in artificial light is a real test of patience from the sheep and shearer.

The "blades" require pressure to close but the spring action opens them quickly. I bought mine from MidStates Wool Growers. They are referred to as rigged because they have leather sewn around the grips, a little strap that runs across the back of the hand so that you don't drop them as easily and a pair of blocks that stop the blades. They have long points on them, not the short rather blunt ends you see on blocking shears. When I see the people from MidStates, with whom I've done business for years, at sheep events, I give them my "blades" in a shipping box with my name and address inside. They take them to their offices, sharpen them and ship them back to me within a couple of weeks. I haven't found anyone locally who can do the hollow ground blade and MidStates prices are reasonable.

I'm with you on the Merino sheep, Kathleen. I have one ewe that's part Rambouillet. She's a big pet-or is that pest-and can wiggle like you wouldn't believe. Add that to the loose excess skin and she's lots of fun to shear. NOT!

I didn't mention that by laying the sheep at my feet, it's possible to do most of the shearing while seated on a low stool. My technique isn't elegant, certainly not fast, but sheep and shearer don't suffer unduly and the wool comes away pretty nicely. That's my main goal.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), April 28, 2000.

Hi, Sheepish. We have something else in common, then! I just began shearing this Spring. I have a sheep and six angora goats now. It was Clem-the-sheep's first shearing. I used my good (not so good anymore) sewing scissors and a baling twine leash. I was afraid to use power clippers because I didn't want to hurt the animals. I feel guilty about the knicks.

I started at the head,and peeled them out of their coats. When half done, they looked hysterical, like they were stepping out of a snowsuit. Anyway, they all calmed down once I got away from their heads. I did throw Clem down for a while and brace him with my legs. If anyone had been watching, it probably would have looked more like wrestling, but in the end, I won his fleece.

It's interesting about the carpal tunnel comments. I also have carpal tunnel in both hands.

If I could do it over, I would be more careful to disgard the wasted tags and roughly pick the fleece before bagging it. Shear on clean ground. Is this fleece to sell or for personal use?

720 sheep in one 9 hr. period. I would love to meet the human who can do that. They must have a real connection to the spirit of sheep. The poor animal wouldn't know what hit her!

-- Rachel (rldk@hotmail.com), April 28, 2000.

Rachel, these are for myself, so if I screw it up, I will be the only one to know (except for my neighbors who will have to look out at the alien creatures for the requisite regrowth period!). We have professional shearers who do an outstanding job. I just really want to learn because it would be easier in a way, to do them over time, instead of the sheep rodeo that doing all 2 doz of them is becoming.

We tried a "meat shearer" before (he also does butchering of another kind). He was not particularly pleasant in the first place, was irritated that I would want to watch, much less participate, and even though I told him twice that the sheep he was about to do was a wether, he almost trimmed him of something more substantial than just the fleece. When he left, he asked me if I had children. When I told him no, he said, "I could tell". Guess I'm just overprotective, trying to get a nice fleece or two! Don't use him anymore, and he's probably elated that I haven't called him this again.

Those Australian shearers must be an interesting lot. I would love to go to Australia and NZ one of these days. Expensive and long flight times, but it would be wonderful...

Thanks for your replies. BTW, Kathleen, we have Romneys. You said you had Romney ewes and didn't like them. Mine are wonderful! Good moms, really nice fleeces, lots of color range between white, cream, silver, browns and black.

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), April 28, 2000.

Maybe the merinos in Australia have less greasy fleeces?? Or something? Although the friends we used to help shear had some part Australian merinos. All I know is, the poor shearer would do thirty or forty sheep in a day, two days running to get all their flock, and he was always so thankful to see a shetland come out of the holding pens!! They were shearing indoors, on a cement floored barn, but would still lay two clean sheets of plywood down to shear on -- the fleeces went either to handspinners, or to a wool mill in Vermont that made specialty yarns, which our friends sold. (They were losing money, so finally got out of the sheep business.) I guess the reason I wasn't all that impressed with the Romneys we had was because I was comparing their fleeces to the merinos -- I may not want merinos, but their wool is SO soft! The shetlands have nice soft fleeces too, but often have a lot of kemp coming up the legs, and of course the fleeces are very light (often only a couple of pounds). I got a lot of hours in helping skirt fleeces, so got a really good look at the wool of those two breeds.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 28, 2000.

Though sheepless now, sheepish, we got sheep heads for our Sunbeams and quickly learned that we would stick to our goats. Use the cattle heads on them. We called our local 4H leader and got numbers of older lamb raisers in 4H. They came the weekend and did the job for 10$ each. We only had 2 ewe's and their 4 yearlings, I was glad to have the wool clean (they washed an blew the sheep dry with a big vacume cleaner looking thing) intact (our first job was a joke) and for only 60 bucks! (I am beginning to see a disturbing trend to my answers! I pay others to do lots of stuff, don't I? Perhaps that's why we are sheepless! Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), April 28, 2000.

Plain concrete would be hard to move the sheep around on - catch at the fleece - that's why that shearer put down ply sheets. Wood takes up lanolin from the fleece, becomes very smooth and greasy.

In Australia, of course, there's been a LOT of research done on shearing. One thing they looked at, but didn't adopt because it was too slow, too complicated to set-up, and it plain got in the way, was a cradle that picked the sheep up, held it, and turned it over for the shearer (a somewhat similar thing is used to treat sheep infected with footrot). However, the principle of bringing the sheep up to you, rather than going down to them, sounds good. For an independent doing a few sheep, where a perfect fleece in one piece was not vital, I would think a platform you stood (or sat) beside would be a BIG help - say something like a piece of marine ply set up on some drums (say your five-gallon drums?) You could set up a ramp onto it for the sheep out of another piece of the ply.

Shearers are Australian folk heroes. Jackie Howe was THE best. "Although Jack Howe was most famous for the incredible shearing record of 321 sheep in seven hours and 40 minutes with blade shears at Alice Downs in 1892, he was also the only shearer ever to set a blade and machine shearing record in the same year, for a few weeks after his stint at the Alice Downs shed, he set a machine shearing record of 237 sheep in eight hours at the Barcaldine Station. Just to make it more impressive, it was the first time he had used machine shears." And that was when machine shears were new and primitive. Jackie Howe retired to become a publican - many Australian's dream. He had also been a leader in the Australian Shearers' Union - one of the foundations of the Union movement worldwide back when workers NEEDED a union to get decent conditions from gouging employers. Having achieved so much in life, he was obviously an upstanding character, so he was elected to Parliament.

Obviously, for a smallholder, blade (hand) shears could be enough. While I'm sure high-tech hollow-ground would do a better job, the one's we use are simple blades, sharpened on a stone (otherwise as described above). Good enough. We still use them for cleaning up where sheep have been fly-struck. Handy, portable, and the power- source recharges overnight.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), April 29, 2000.

Just thought I would post that our shearing project has been hilarious! First, we broke a part and had to wait to get another one (mail order). Then every time we got ready to shear, it would rain! Finally, last Sunday, we got the time, weather and opportunity. I must say that the ONE sheep we sheared looks rather poodle-like, in that the shearing machine tanked on us in the middle of it!!! (I always feel like Lucy around here!)...

So....I called the shearer, and he will do it for $5 a head, plus a $20 set up charge...DONE....until next year!!!!! Thought you might like the laugh! Next project.....?

-- sheepish! (rborgo@gte.net), June 01, 2000.

Isn't that just the way?! As long as you ended up with bags of fleece, and those skinny, tiny, little sheep, well -- SUCCESS.

-- Rachel (rldk@hotmail.com), June 01, 2000.

Sorry, I only came across your question about shearing months after the last posting!.

I am not familiar with the Sunbeam model you have but if it is a real 'professional' model it will run all day without problems. Is this a system with a flexible cable or jointed solid drive tubes? I think flexisble cable systems are only intended for light duty work.

There are a few things I would like to contribute.

The fixed piece is called the 'comb' the little three or four fingered bit that oscillates is the 'cutter'. If you are shearing, say, two hundred in a day that is only about 2.4 minutes per sheep. The slower you work the more time the machine is 'cutting air', this blunts the equipment and encourages overheating. There is another reason to work as fast as possible and that is that the internal organs of the sheep suffer from the sheep being in anything other than a natural position.

The piece that you hold is the 'handpiece', if you have any problems with your hands these may be lessened if you take a looser hold, in fact it is quite normal for some shearers to let the handpiece rotate in the hands at the end of each blow, which with a little practice is much easier that trying to twist the wrist into uncomfortable positions.

It is usual to stop the machine between sheep.

One of the most important tips is to keep the back of the handpiece up so that the comb is at quite an angle to the skin. You will find this makes a much better finish and lessens skin cuts. Don't tolerate any second cuts, for one thing you will work much quicker if you only have to shear the sheep once.

(I am from a long family of shearers, I could do 200 before I left school, where do you live? maybe I will take a little holiday and come visit for next years shearing! :-)

-- (john@cnd.co.nz), November 13, 2000.

John, you could make a career out of shearing over here! ;)

I live in Western WA state, which has a climate like NZ in some ways. Lotsa green grass, sheep. Big difference: Way too many people!

I had a good friend who went to grad school in Dundedin. He said it's a great place...maybe I should pack up my sheep (romneys) and come visit YOU! (I know, quarrantines......) Where do you live?

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), November 13, 2000.

Dunedin! Duh. tired eyes!

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), November 13, 2000.

Hi sheepish. Excuse my ignorance, which state is 'WA'? not Western Australia I guess! Our family had a farm about 150 miles from Dunedin, I say 'had' as it was sold a couple of years ago. It is possibly too late for me to thing of sheep shearing as a 'career' I think the last time I did a full day was in about 1963! I am sure I could still manage one or two though, especially romneys! I am a town boy now, tell me about your farm, email me direct if you wish. cheers.

-- John Hill (john@cnd.co.nz), November 14, 2000.

I'll email you directly. But stick around the Forum! We need to hear from folks outside the U.S. It's nice to hear what's going on outside our country. We tend to have a rather insular view sometimes....

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), November 14, 2000.

OK Sheepish, I look forward to hearing from you, and don't forget I still dont know where 'WA' is!

-- John Hill (John@cnd.co.nz), November 14, 2000.

For the benefit of all: WA=Washington State, United States of America. Find California on the west coast of the U.S. Look above it and you will see Oregon. Look above that, and before you see Canada (British Columbia), you will see Washington State.

If you see Seattle, you're somewhat close. I live NE of Seattle and close to the Cascade Mountains.

And I will write to you when I get a moment. Hope this helps. :)

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), November 14, 2000.