Tuesday, July 20, 2010

It's Shearing time

Now that seeding is all over we've started on our July shearing. It takes a little organisation to get underway with shearing. For instance I have to have the right mobs in close proximity to the shearing shed, and sorted into their correct mobs.. cause, you know sheep... they love to get out and join mobs that they don't really belong to.
Once they're sorted we need to leave them in the sheep yards for about a day to "empty out" and also dry off a little if their wool is wet.
The night before shearing the sheep, which by now really need to be dry, are herded into the shed.. they are "shedded". Our shearing shed can hold about enough dry sheep for one days shearing for 2 shearers. I personally don't shear too many of them, but hire 2 shearers. My job in the shearing shed is to sort the wool and press it into wool bales, and to make sure everything runs smoothly.
Keeping sheep dry has been a problem this time round. The rain is wonderful for growing crops, but not for drying sheep. We've had good rains this July so the shearing has been a little on again off again as showers seem to be rolling through quite frequently. Usually this shearing takes just under a week, but at this stage it looks like we're gonna be at it for over a week now.

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