How many sheep could a sheep shearer shear if a sheep shearer could shear sheep?

Peter was fortunate to have made the acquaintance of a sheep farmer here in Wanganui.  OK, that is not entirely accurate.  He has met about 10.  But, one of them, Paul, was the father of one of the kids he coached, and was kind enough to give Pete and Lindsay and both sets of grandparents a personal tour of a farm and sheep shearing operation.  

It was very informative about something that is so obviously an integral part of the Kiwi identity and culture. 

According to Wikipedia…”Sheep farming is a significant industry in New Zealand. According to 2007 figures reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, there are 39 million sheep in the country (a count of about 10 per individual). The country has the highest density of sheep per unit area in the world. For 130 years, sheep farming was the country's most important agricultural industry, but it was overtaken by dairy farming in 1987. Sheep numbers peaked in New Zealand in 1982 to 70 million and then dropped to about 30 million.^[1] There are 16,000 sheep and beef farms in the country which has made the country the world's largest exporter of lambs, with 24 million finished lambs recorded every year.^[2]”

Sheep farms visually dominate the landscape of much of the countryside of NZ, and specially in the hills and valleys of Turakina and Rangitikei, which are the areas just south of Wanganui. So we drove about 15 minutes south to the town of Wangaheu in the Rangitikei valley. Pete had asked for the address of the farm and told him we could just meet him there, but Paul insisted that we just meet him in the “town” center, which consisted of a community center, an old church, and a school grounds.  We then proceeded to follow Paul on some dusty dirt roads for 10 or so minutes to a beautiful farm in the hills above town. We were glad to have an escort as we are pretty sure this farm is not really on google maps!

Paul led us up into the sheep shearing operation and we watched as 3 guys sheared the wool from the sheep and then 2 or 3 girls separated the wool good from bad.  

We learned more about sheep and sheep farming from Paul, and from the owner of the shearing operation (a very friendly Kiwi who has a daughter in the USA playing tennis on a scholarship) than we could have really learned from Wikipedia.  Such as…

You cannot shear sheep when they are wet, not because it is difficult, but rather, because the wool must be dry in order to separate and process.  So…in relatively wet countries like NZ, the operation has a vast underground pen that is covered and can contain thousands of quite tightly packed sheep, who stay inside to dry before being shorn.  

Wool from sheep used to be the main product that a farmer sold from sheep, but with the proliferation of synthetic fabrics, it has become a by-product (lamb meat being the most valuable commodity).   So, they barely earn any money from selling the wool.  However, shearing is still a vital and integral part of making the sheep as valuable as possible to the farmer.  That is because un-shorn sheep become, in the words of the farmer we talked with, “lazy” and they just want to sit or lie in the shade.  So, farmers want their sheep shorn a few weeks prior to processing them so that they will go eat and fatten up for what he called “their one way trip into town.”  He estimated that even if he had to outright pay more to shear his sheep than the wool was worth, that it was still better for him to do so. The extra weight the sheep gain once they are shorn more than makes his money back.

Wehat makes the wool as valuable as possible is the sorting that the girls did on the floor of the operation.  They separate the parts you cannot use (hindquarters and lower legs) from the parts you can, and do one more separation of the very best quality wool.  He actually whispered this to us because he said he wasn’t sure the girls were aware that they were so valuable, but…we think they knew : ) 

As for the title of the post, how quick is a sheep shearer? In a word, fast!  A sheep would take a little over one minute to shear using electric shears. We asked permission to videotape for a bit, and Paul got their best shearer to do one quick for us - he said he was otherwise “just sort of cruising”. We are pasting the video below, and it took the guy 57 seconds from bringing the woolly sheep out from the back to sending a rather nekkid looking sheep back down the shoot, despite being interrupted by someone in the middle. 

Paul said it was typical for a shearer to do about 300 sheep in an eight hour day.  They are paid $1 per head that they shear, so it sounds like a decently rewarding day, but…wow, you have to be in some kind of shape to do this kind of work 300 times a day!  Paul said that they keep national records and that occasionally someone will attempt the record for number of sheep sheared in a day or in a certain time period.  The number we remember was something like 800.  Sounds like a fun day : )

There are also competitions that are held at county fairs and sheep exhibitions, and a lot of the guys we spoke with (including Paul) had participated and won those competitions.  There are divisions in those competitions in both electrical shears, and old fashioned hand shears (pretty sure there was some nostalgia in Paul's eyes when he talked about those hand shears).   

Another interesting thing was to take a look at the rams in the outside paddock.  Compared to the sheep they look quite large, at least double the size (they typically weight over 150 pounds).  But, they too need to be shorn from time to time. A shearer typically gets $3 per head on a ram (triple what they get for a sheep) but the shearers aren’t too fond of having to shear those big guys, who are strong and a bit on the grumpy side.  It looked tough enough to wrassle and shear the sheep to be honest.  Paul said he didn’t do the rams anymore, or if he did, he had them sedated, which costs him a little per ram but, he figured it was a good tradeoff.  Here is a shot of the rams.  

Good luck with that!

And here is a picture of both sets of grandparents with Lindsay in front of some of the shorn sheep in their paddock.

Anyway, before leaving the farmer then got his working dogs out and moved the sheep from this pen and out to the fields.  It was very cute, so we posted the video of that below.  Check out the sheep gamboling (high jumping) as they made their way from the pen, past the barking dogs, and out to the hillside. Very funny.

Thanks again, Paul! That was a fun day trip!