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Sheep shearing is the process by which the Wool of a sheep is cut off. The person who removes the sheep's wool is called a Sheep shearer. Typically each adult sheep is shorn once each year (depending upon dialect, a sheep may be said to have been "shorn", "sheared" or "shore" in). The annual shearing most often occurs in a shearing shed, a facility especially designed to process often hundreds and sometimes more than 3,000 sheep per day. A working group of shearers and accompanying wool workers is known as a shearing gang.
Sheep are shorn in all seasons including winter, depending on the climate, management requirements and the availability of a Wool classing and . Ewes are normally shorn prior to lambing in the warmer months, but consideration is typically made as to the welfare of the lambs by not shearing during cold climate winters. However, in high country regions, pre lamb shearing encourages ewes to seek shelter among the hillsides so that newborn lambs are not completely exposed to the elements. Shorn sheep tolerate frosts well, but young sheep especially will suffer in cold, wet windy weather (even in cold climate summers). In this event they are shedded for several nights until the weather clears. Some sheep may also be shorn with stud combs commonly known as cover combs which leave more wool on the animal in colder months, giving greater protection.
Sheep shearing is also considered a sport with competitions held around the world. It is often done between spring and summer.
The medieval English wool trade was one of the most important factors in the English economy. The main sheep-shearing was an annual midsummer (June) event in medieval England culminating in the sheep-shearing feast. It had always been conventional practice to wash sheep.Preparing Wool for Market. p. 34, col 3, The Scientific American, Vol 1, No 3. published 16 July 1859. Scientific American - Series 2 - Volume 001 - Issue 03.pdf
The practice of washing the wool rather than the sheep evolved from the fact that hotter water could be used to wash the wool, than that used to wash the sheep. When the practice of selling wool in the grease occurred in the 1890s, wool washing became obsolete.
Australia and New Zealand had to discard the old methods of wool harvesting and evolve more efficient systems to cope with the huge numbers of sheep involved. Shearing was revolutionized by the invention of an Australian sheepgrower, Frederick York Wolseley. His machines made in Birmingham, England, by his business The Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Company were introduced after 1888, reducing second cuts and shearing time. By 1915 most large sheep station sheds in Australia had installed machines, driven by steam or later by internal combustion engines.
Shearing tables were invented in the 1950s and have not proved popular, although some are still used for crutching.
In the US, the worldwide shortage of shearers is becoming a consideration for those wanting to expand wool production.Committee on the Economic Development and Current Status of the Sheep Industry in the United States, Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources, Division on Earth and Life Studies, National Research Council (2025). 9780309134392, National Academies Press. . ISBN 9780309134392 With sheep numbers declining in that country the profession sees significantly less interest in becoming a qualified shearer. Importing labour during the Australian off-season has also become problematic because of delays in obtaining work visa and because shearers numbers are limited worldwide.
In 1984 Australia became the last country in the world to legalize the use of wide combs, due to previous Australian Workers' Union rules. Although they were once rare in sheds, women now take a large part in the shearing industry by working as pressers, wool rollers, rouseabouts, and shearers.Taylor, Peter, Pastoral Properties of Australia, George Allen & Unwin, Sydney, London, Boston,1984
The shearer begins by removing the belly wool, which is separated from the main fleece by a rouseabout, while the sheep is still being shorn. A professional or "gun" shearer typically removes a fleece, without significantly marking or cutting the sheep, in two to three minutes, depending on the size and condition of the sheep—less than two minutes in elite-competitive shearing. The shorn sheep is released and removed from the board via a chute in the floor or in a wall, to an exterior counting-out pen.
The CSIRO in Australia has developed a non-mechanical method of shearing sheep using an injected protein that creates a natural break in the wool fibres. After fitting a retaining net to enclose the wool, sheep are injected with the protein. When the net is removed after a week, the fleece has separated and is removed by hand.Researchers think they've found a way to remove wool without shearing | ABC News[1] In some breeds a similar process occurs naturally.
Following the skirting of the fleece, it is folded, rolled and examined for its quality in a process known as wool classing, which is performed by a registered and qualified wool classer. Based on its type, the fleece is placed into the relevant wool bin ready to be pressed (mechanically compressed) when there is sufficient wool to make a wool bale.
Blade shearing has recently made a resurgence in Australia and the UK but mostly for sport rather than commercial shearing. Some competitions have attracted almost 30 competitors and there have even been shows created just for blade shearers to compete in. Australian Broadcasting Corp. News accessed 10 March 2017
In 2013, an anonymous shearer reported instances of animal abuse by workers, an allegation to which an Australian Worker's Union representative added that he had witnessed "shearers gouge eyes and break sheep jaws."Kath Sullivan," Union concerned about shearers mistreating sheep," ABC Rural, 17 October 2013. Australian Wool Innovation insisted that animal welfare was a priority among shearers. The following year, the RSPCA Australia began a cruelty investigation following the release of video footage that PETA said was taken in more than a dozen shearing sheds in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. The Guardian reported that the video showed, "sheep being roughly handled, punched in the face and stamped upon. One sheep was beaten with a hammer while another was shown having a deep cut crudely sewn up."Oliver Millman, " Sheep cruelty video sparks RSPCA investigation," The Guardian 10 July 2014. The Shearing Contractors Association of Australia "applauded" the investigation, and Wool Producers Australia president Geoff Fisken said the behavior shown in the video was "unacceptable and unsupportable" but that "we're sure it doesn't portray the 99.9% majority of wool shearers – and those shearers would be appalled by it as well".Colin Bettles, " Shearers back PETA: no excuse for cruelty," FARMONLINE, 11 July 2014. More recent footage and images of Australian workers abusing sheep have been released by anonymous sources, some of which was included in Dominion, a recent Australian documentary on animal farm abuses. No comment has been made about this by the Shearing Contractors Association of Australia.
Wife make us a dinner, spare flesh neither corne, Make wafers and cakes, for our sheepe must be shorne, At sheep shearing neighbors none other thing craue, but good cheer and welcome, like neighbors to haue"Tusser, Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, 1557.
Shearing the Rams, a painting by Australian painter Tom Roberts is like an icon for the livestock-growing culture or "life on the land" in Australia. It was parodied in Michael Leunig's Ramming the Shears. The expression that Australia's wealth rode on the sheep's back in parts of the twentieth century no longer has the currency it once had.
In 2001, Mandy Francis of Hardy's Bay, Australia, constructed a blackbutt seat for the Street Furniture Project at Walcha, NSW, Australia. This seat was inspired by the combs, cutters, wool tables and grating associated with the craft and industry of shearing. Great Holiday Ideas – Relax at Walcha, Vol. 4, May 2009, The Land, Rural Press, North Richmond, NSW
During Australia's long weekend in June 2010, 111 machine shearers and 78 blade shearers shore 6,000 Merino ewes and 178 rams at the historic 72 stand North Tuppal station. Along with the shearers there were 107 wool handlers and penners-up and more than 10,000 visitors to witness this event in the restored shed. Over this weekend the scene in Tom Robert's Shearing of the Rams was re-enacted twice for the visitors.
Many stations across Australia no longer carry sheep due to lower wool prices, drought and other disasters, but their remain, in a wide variety of materials and styles, and have been the subject of books and documentation for heritage authorities. Some farmers are reluctant to remove either the equipment or the sheds, and many unused sheds remain intact.
The world's largest sheep shearing and wool handling contest, the Golden Shears, is held in the Wairarapa district, New Zealand. Golden Shears 2009 Retrieved on 2009-6-30
The shearing World Championships are hosted by different countries every 2–3 years and eight countries have hosted the event. The first World Championships were held at the Bath & West showground, England, in 1977, and the first Machine-Shearing winner was Roger Cox from New Zealand. Other countries that have hosted the sheep shearing World Championships have been New Zealand (3 times), England (3 times), Australia (2 times), Wales, Ireland, Scotland, South Africa & Norway. Out of 13 World Championships, New Zealand have won the team Machine contest 10 times, and famous New Zealand sheep-shearer David Fagan has been World Champion a record 5 times.
In October, 2008 the event was hosted in Norway. It was the first time ever that the event was hosted by a non-English speaking country. The newly crowned World Machine Shearing champion is Paul Avery from New Zealand. New Zealand also won the team event, and the traditional blade-shears World Champion is Ziewilelle Hans from South Africa. A record 29 countries competed at the 2008 event. The next World Championship will be held in France in July 2019.
World Blade Shearing has been dominated by South African and Lesotho shearers, Fine Wool machine shearing dominated by Australian shearers, and New Zealand dominating the Strong Wool machine shearing.
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