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Sheep shearer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A sheep shearer is a worker who uses (hand-powered)-blade or machine shears to remove the wool from sheep.
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During the early years of sheep breeding in Australasia shearing was carried out by shepherds, assigned servants, Ticket-of-Leave men and free labourers using blade shears. As the sheep industry expanded more shearers were required. Although the demand had increased the conditions had not, and shearers had to contend with terrible working conditions, very long hours and low pay. In 1888 Australia became the first country in the world have a complete shearing, at Dunlop Station, finished using machines. By 1915 most large Australian sheds had machines that were powered by steam engines. Later internal combustion engines powered machines until rural power supplies became available.
In most countries with large sheep populations the shearer is one of a team of contractors that go from place to place shearing sheep and preparing the wool for marketing. A working day starts at 7.30 am and the day is divided into 4 “runs” of 2 hours each. “Smoko” breaks of a half hour each are at 9.30am and again at 3pm. The lunch break is taken at 12 midday for one hour. Most shearers are paid on a piece rate, i.e., per sheep. The shearer collects a sheep from a catching pen, positions it on his “stand” on the shearing board and operates the shearing hand-piece. The shearer begins by removing the coarse wool over the sheep's belly, which is separated from the main fleece while the sheep is still being shorn, by a rouseabout. The shorn sheep is removed from the board via a chute in the floor, or wall, to a counting out pen, efficiently removing it from the shed.
The wool is removed by following an efficient set of movements. In the case of powered shears the movements were largely devised by Godfrey Bowen in c. 1950 (the Bowen Technique) or the Tally-Hi method. In 1963 the Tally-hi shearing system was developed by the Australian Wool Corporation and promoted using synchronised shearing demonstrations. Sheep struggle less using the Tally-Hi method, reducing strain on the shearer and there is a saving of about 30 seconds shearing each sheep..
In 1984 Australia became the last country in the World to permit the use of wide combs, due to previous Australian Workers Union rulings.
A professional or "gun" shearer typically removes a fleece without badly marking or cutting the sheep in two to three minutes, depending on the size and condition of the sheep, or less than two in elite competitive shearing. Shearers who “tally” more than 200 sheep per day are known as “gun shearers”. Gun shearers using blade shears can achieve much lower numbers, about 50 to 70 a day.
On 10 October 1892, Jackie Howe set a record of 321 sheep shorn in seven hours and 40 minutes, using blade shears. He had previously set a weekly aggregate record of 1,437 sheep over a total working week of 44 hours and 30 minutes.
While Howe's weekly aggregate record remained until at least 2005, his daily record tally was broken using machine shears by Ted Reick in 1950. In competition sports shearers, using blades or machine driven hand-pieces, can achieve short-term rates that are greater than for day shearers.
Dwayne Black holds an incredible six world records, mainly in the endurance or marathon events. In April 2005, he spent a gruelling nine hours shearing 513 merino ewes, six more than the previous world record.
On 2nd March 2007, Broomehill shearer Brendan Boyle set the world 24-hour sheep shearing record by shearing 841 full wool merino sheep, and in the process raised over $20,000 for the fight against prostate cancer. It was the first time an official world record has been set in endurance sheep shearing.
"Australian Encyclopaedia", Vol. VIII
