When the scraper
first hits the compacted, manure-laden hay it feels like concrete.
There's just no easy way of getting through that top layer, and I know,
because I tried every other tool sitting around the barn on that hot May
afternoon. It wasn't until I came back to the scraper the shepherd had
given me in the first place, that I was able to break through to the soft
layers of rotting hay beneath. While easier to move about, it has a smell
unlike much else. The smell doesn't bother me much though; within a few
hours I am able to see the wide heaving floor boards that remind me just
how old of a structure I'm cleaning. Having the floor scraped, raked, and
swept should prevent pieces of hay and other “prizes” from getting into
the wool on shearing day.
For those of you that
have never experienced sheep up close and personal, let me assure you:
they are not cuddly cute animals eager to jump over a fence and lull you
to sleep - they are strong, stubborn, and loud. Consider perhaps a two
hundred pound toddler that doesn't speak your language. Currently, the
farm I live on has about 25 sheep and several lambs. Years ago there were
a few hundred and and it was the largest sheep farm in the area. In times
past, shearing was easily a multi-day affair. This year it would only
take the better part of the morning and early afternoon.
We called in the help
of a local sheep shearer named Kevin. He makes his living traveling
around the state and shearing people's sheep for a modest wage. Kevin is
a kind looking thin man, with grey hair and wool shoes. Most of all,
Kevin is the real deal.
I'd never experienced
sheep-shearing day before. I had this idea in my head... there would be
some kind of contraption that the sheep would stand in and be held still,
similar to a goat milking/medicating stand I'd seen somewhere. Maybe
pieces of wood could slide around the head and legs like in the stockade,
so that the shearer could have an easier time moving around them with big
electric hair clippers. Maybe this daydream is the case somewhere, but
what I experienced was nothing like that.
Sheep were held
still, not by some wooden contraption, but by Kevin's sheer force of will,
and the sheep were sheared
not by large electric clippers but by giant scissors that strapped to
Kevin's hand and looked as if they had been assembled from large kitchen
knives. You might think that
shearing sheep with scissors would
take
significantly longer than with electric clippers, but you'd be wrong -
provided
Kevin was holding the shears. Kevin can shear a sheep in
about two minutes.
Undeniably the most
important part of a successful shearing day (really, any livestock
project) is organization. There needs to be a clear flow to the sheep
entering and exiting the shearing area, and a way to keep them contained
on both sides of the process. Our barn is set up with two large pens that
serve this purpose well. During lambing season we use these pens to
separate pregnant ewes from nursing mothers.
One of the pens
attaches to a corral next to the feed yard outside the barn, while the
other opens directly into the feed yard itself. The sheep are herded into
the corral and brought inside the barn in small groups. Sheep are picked
out of the group one by one, medicated for worms and sheared. After they
are sheared they go to the other pen to join the rest of the sheared sheep
and wait to be let outside again. Simple. Except the only part of this
that the sheep do willingly is growing the wool and leaving.
