Sheep Shearing

April 28, 2020 by Stephany Wilkes Leave a Comment

My Covid-19 Sheep Shearing Protocol

“What are you doing about shearing?” is a question I get daily, these pandemic days. This post is my lengthy answer. In the US, shearers are broadly considered ag workers, and ag workers are considered essential workers. But that’s the beginning of the issue, not the end. I’m essential. Now what?

In the shearing community, you will find the full spectrum of ways of dealing with various forms of shelter-in-place orders, from changing nothing and traveling across multiple states per usual, to changing just about everything to biohazard mode. I’m in the latter camp.

I love sheep, but I’d be lying if I said I wanted to die for them. Do I want to die to preserve my business or, worse, be disabled (long term or permanently) with cardiovascular effects that would end my shearing days anyway? No. That said, sheep need to be sheared. I figure my small-flock shearing situations are safer than a trip to the grocery store, if I am careful.

I do love soap and being clean. I’ve got that much going for me.

I promise to wash my hands. Even as a dirt bag shearer, I really love to be clean. Here is some of my favorite goat milk soap from Wild Oat Hollow. Soap, soap, soap, we love soap, viruses hate it, we love soap.

The first thing I did was to self quarantine early, before our local or state government said I had to. Anticipating (incorrectly) an earlier lockdown, my husband and I began our self quarantine on February 27. I canceled an early March trip to Montana, absolute and utter heartbreak because I not-so-secretly want to live there, like too many Californians, I suppose. I hope it has worked. I have shown no signs of sickness these 61 days.

Next, I rescheduled all of my late March to late April shearing jobs to see what we would learn about the virus in the meantime, and to think about what to do in terms of my shearing process and policies. I wanted to be a good neighbor: Frankly, I would want to die if I infected a customer and, through them, a whole rural community.

All of this is no small task and, hardest of all, I did it knowing it would be so much hotter one month later. (It is.) Every year I say it’s too hot, too soon, earlier.

My practices come mostly from what’s known about how the virus spreads, and how long it lives on various surfaces, but here are the ones I’ve come up with so far.

Covid-19 Sheep Shearing Policies

1) I have and am enforcing a strict ZERO CONTACT shearing policy.

Flock owners must maintain a distance of at least 10 feet, given how much I am sweating and moving around. I will not eat shared food (not that I don’t love it, but this years I’ll have all my own food and water). No neighbors or family observers allowed, no demos, and no community skirting, because people shouldn’t touch wool I have just touched and sweat on profusely. If neighbors start appearing, either they leave or I do. I have no way of knowing who these people are or how safe they have been. Think skeleton crew this year.

To help facilitate this, I ask flock owners be available by text and/or phone in case I have questions or need to reach them. This way, I don’t have to shout or knock on the door. I also appreciate signs, balloons, or sidewalk chalk instructions pointing me to where I need to be and/or where the sheep are, etc.

I am wearing a mask in public, and I will wear one if/when I need to be in nearer proximity of a flock owner, but I do not want to have to shear in one. I have tried it. It is very hard and very hot.

It would be nice for folks to be in screaming distance, in case I have an accident and need someone to call 911 for any worst-case scenario stuff.

Folks can have the virus and be asymptomatic for a long time. I can’t afford to trust anyone, and they can’t afford to trust me. Treat me like I have the virus.

2) Sheep must be TIGHTLY penned. Pack ’em in shoulder to shoulder (which sheep like anyway).

Like this:

NOT like this:

This is NOT what I mean by “tightly penned.” This is loosely penned. No bueno.

And I do mean: Sheep packed TIGHTLY together in a small space, so they cannot run, so I can reach in and get one. I do not want to be touching gates and walls and stressing animals out any more than necessary while working alone. If I cannot catch them without help, I cannot shear them.

In keeping with our 2020 skeleton crew philosophy, I will do all the work (catching, shearing, release or return to pen, wool handling, and cleanup). This makes my day a lot harder. How much harder? Twice as hard. At one job last year, people handed me sheep and I sheared the whole flock myself by 3 PM. This year, at the same job, no one handed us sheep and they were loosely penned and able to run. It took the same amount of time for TWO of us to shear what I sheared last year.

3) Every barn is a biohazard.

I will wipe down any and every gate, fence, etc. I need to touch. This is because the virus lives on metal for days.

I ask folks to identify (via a posted note, text message in advance, or area drawn in chalk, etc.) a target area for me to drop and/or bag sheared fleeces. Ideally, this will be an area where that fleece can be left for approximately three to four days, sufficient time to let any virus from my sweaty hands die. Alternatively, folks should wear gloves and remove the fleece to a skirting table or other area where it can then be left; or skirt the fleece with a mask and gloves on, get the fleece into a wash solution, and then wash or discard the mask and gloves. My sweat is ALL over that thing.

I bring all my own soap and hand sanitizer. Since soap and water work better than hand sanitizer, I will bring a gallon of hand-washing water and a bar of soap. I just ask for permission to let a little of that fall on the ground beside my minivan. I will change clothes in my vehicle.

Here is more goat milk soap I like, from Milk & Honey 1860. Soap, soap, soap, be pro-soap, everyone should love soap and washing hands.

The tricky bit is bathrooms, and I will probably need that at least once. I will wipe your bathroom down with wipes before and after.

4). No more cash payment. I accept payment via PayPal, Venmo, or a check sent in the mail.

5) I promise full honesty about my health, and request the same, complete openness and transparency with regard to any symptoms of COVID-19. This goes both ways.

We can reschedule your shearing. DO NOT worry about telling me you don’t feel well, or had a family member bust out of quarantine without a mask and ruin it for everyone. I will come back. It’s not like there’s much traffic or much going on in my life right now. The sheep will be okay with shade and water.

6) I have elongated the time between jobs.

This, by far, is the hardest thing I have done. I am no longer visiting multiple farms in a day, which increases my mileage costs and drive time, and means I basically break even. So it goes this year.

I wanted it to allow a full two weeks between jobs but, with how many jobs I had to reschedule, how hot it is, and the condition of the animals, I can’t shear all the sheep that need doing and leave a full 14-day quarantine period between each and every job. ONE full week between jobs is the best I can do and survive as a business.

I promise to avoid all possible stops en route to a farm, for myself but also farmers and rural communities. I promise I have not done any crew work since January. I have not been in shearing trailers in close quarters.

I’m sure I seem like the OCD shearer now, but I am taking the virus seriously. One of our family members, aged 38, had it early on and almost died for about five days straight. We know now that most people who go into ICU with the virus are not coming out alive.

7) Transmission to sheep is unknown. I am not liable for any Covid-19 transmission to animals.

To the best of my knowledge, the only real data we have on this is that seven tigers at a Brooklyn zoo appear to have gotten the virus from an infected zookeeper, while that zookeeper was asymptomatic. This doesn’t tell us anything about people and livestock, of course. Livestock are SO different from cats, which get all sorts of things livestock can’t. The news did give me pause, however. Until we can all be tested and understand human-to-animal transmission (if any) fully, the best I can do is point out a possible risk and leave shearing up to the owner.

This is a truly unprecedented situation. Let’s do our best.

Questions or suggestions? Leave them below. I would love to learn what other farms and flocks are doing in these times.

January 7, 2020 by Stephany Wilkes 4 Comments

New Year, New Pricing, New Services, New Everything

It’s 2020, and — when I wasn’t fighting AB5 tooth and nail, to save my business — I took some time over the holidays to figure out a better way to get compensated for the totality of the work I do on shearing jobs. To that end, I have completely overhauled and reworked my pricing for 2020, and added some new services and policies. These are the first major changes I’ve made in over seven years of shearing, and long overdue. I haven’t raised my shearing rates in that time.

New and cherished clients alike, please read this so you can decide whether or not to hire me accordingly.

Super-short version of this post: I have a flat, hourly, on-site rate of $100 no matter what we’re doing that day, whether it’s building a catch pen, teaching a school workshop, or actually shearing. It’s all the same. This is as honest and simple a formula I could create, to reflect what my shearing jobs have actually been like since 2013. The fact is, much of what I actually do is not shearing. I also have two new policies (no more post-job payment, and a new full-sheep policy), and one new service: private and small-group shearing instruction.

2020 Pricing Details

This new flat-rate model includes everything. There is no more customized ranch call based on distance, time, and mileage calculations, and trying to price all that out separately; no more per-head shearing plus per-hoof and/or horn trimming; no more piecemeal anything.

This new model doesn’t change much for most people. A $100/hour flat rate sounds like a lot, but interestingly, when I looked at my shearing spreadsheet from 2018 and 2019, I realized that most of my customers would not see a substantive jump in price. Most folks will see a $25-50 increase (for the first time ever), and a few folks will see an increase of $75, but in the latter cases, I honestly wasn’t charging enough to begin with. Of course, as a self-employed person, about 50% of anything is taxes.

I charge by the quarter hour (in 15-minute increments). This way, if we use only 15 minutes of one hour, you don’t get charged for a full hour.

This pricing model does not apply to commercial shearing, which is not most of my shearing. That is an entirely different context: $3-5/head until however many of us finish shearing the 3,000 or 10,000 or however many sheep.

Why I Changed My Pricing Model

I write this less to explain myself (never feel obligated to explain the decisions you need to make for your business, folks), than to shine some honesty and transparency on what small-flock shearing and running a business is really like.

My prior pricing was extremely inefficient: it required a lot of time and ultimately produced little difference. I had a minimum charge of $150, but spent unpaid hours on the phone, on email, and driving, and then created custom estimates that considered the entire time a job would probably take, including drive time, set up, break down, and so on.

It took a lot of time to put together all those custom quotes, broken down by every tiny thing and going back and forth, but in the end, when it all shakes out, everybody ends up paying about the same anyway.

And those were just the estimates, which rarely matched reality. Now, before you think I’m complaining, I am not: Unpredictability is simply the way of sheep things. It’s like the Law Of Sheep — and, by the way, has done wonders for my willingness to roll with the punches. I no longer believe I can control anything or anybody; the best I can do is guide it sometimes, and it’s really only a matter of how gently or roughly I do so.

Oftentimes, I’d shear a few sheep, and then maybe some lost goats showed up from somewhere, or perhaps the power went out so I had to find a fuse box, or a fire started and shearing day turned into load-up-and-run-like-hell day, and so on and so forth, according to the Law Of Sheep.

In order to have a business, and stay in business (which the federal and California state governments make harder by the year), I have to price my work fairly to account for all of it, and lo, I have struggled with how to do that. I have struggled because a fair price requires admitting a not fun, not cool thing, which is that actual shearing is not what I do most of the time.

Shearing is the fastest (and best, and most fun, and SUPER RAD) part, in the way that 90% of life is just showing up, and 10% is shearing. On most jobs, for instance, I spend far more time driving and getting set up than I do actually shearing. (This is why I’ve come to love commercial jobs, because all we do is shear all day, yeehaw and AMEN!)

What am I doing for all these hours when I am not shearing? I may be effectively building a permanent shearing area, especially on my initial visits to new customers: drilling and hanging a 2×4 at the right height and correct distance from a wall for my machine; buying and mounting some big lights to shine on the shearing floor in a dark barn; all sorts of things.

I have built pens, because the dimensions I give for a “small pen,” into which I can reach and easily grab a sheep, is not the same size as the “small pen” OTHER people have in mind, and then I’m running around in, say, a rather large horse pen burning all my energy — and risking injury — to catch and wrassle sheep.

I may skirt, grade, bag and/or bale fleeces. I have provided a lot of ad hoc instruction on humane sheep handling: how to flip sheep gently (a very useful thing, when you need to get a good look at certain areas); how to halter break sheep; how to shear sheep on a milking stand. I have stitched up a variety of animals that had been bitten by dogs, or that got hung up on fence, since I had the proper tools and experience to clean the wound and do it. I have also taught farmers how to do that.

A few farmers, despite my 48-hours-ahead reminder calls and emails, are not ready for me when I arrive. I have driven hours only to arrive at an empty area with nobody around, and stood around waiting, looking for sheep. Some fine fiber and show sheep have coats that have to be removed. Lambs may need to be separated from ewes, or a farm may have two or more groups of sheep to shear that require my setting up and breaking down in different locations on the same farm, during the same job. All of this adds time to the job, and I don’t want to feel rushed.

And if I’m not paying myself enough, because I have to finish by a certain time in order to race off to another job so I can make more money on the ranch call, then I start to feel rushed and worried by all this unexpected work. With a new flat-rate model, I have no reason to feel rushed, because I’m not losing money every second I’m not shearing.

Finally, and especially in the past three seasons, I am encountering more and more sheep that are excessively large (300 pounds) or difficult to shear, i.e. with many years worth of wool growth; not accustomed to any handling; and full of food and water — hence one of 2020’s other policy changes.

New Policies: No Full Sheep and Payment In Full

Full-Sheep Policy

This may be the least popular change, but it is something I need to take a hard line on. Why? Because shearers cannot afford to have either themselves or the act of shearing blamed as the “cause” of sheep suffering and death, when the true cause was the sheep being full of food and water.

So here’s the new full-sheep policy: If I encounter more than one or two full, struggling sheep who are in obvious distress (wheezing through their teeth, literally fighting for breath, kicking and pooping and urinating profusely, all the obvious signs), I will stop shearing, leave, and we will have to reschedule for a time when the sheep have been kept off of food and water. Before I leave, I will ask to be paid, at the new flat rate of $100/hour, for not just on-farm time (which would be minimal in this case), but for the time I spent driving to and from the farm.

It is easy to avoid this. I always call and email people at least 48 hours in advance of the job to remind them to take the sheep off of food and water. And, if you cannot get your sheep in and stop them from eating, JUST TELL ME. No shame, no blame. We can reschedule for another day. Calling me and canceling is so, SO much better than shearing full sheep, for them and for me. It is truly no big deal — in fact, consider it a gift to your flock and your shearer.

What does “off feed and water” really mean?

It means sheep must be off of all food (all food = no grass, no grain, and no hay) for 12 hours prior to shearing, AKA, a solid overnight time period. I generally advise folks to feed the sheep no later than the late afternoon, and then take all food and water away by about 5 PM if we’re to start shearing between 8-10 AM. As I always say: We humans fast overnight without any harm, and sheep can, too. Keeping sheep off feed for 12 hours is no different then not eating before surgery or a blood test, and we do it for many of the same reasons.

95% of my customers do this already, so they are not affected.

Yes, grass counts! I have arrived to many a job — even after my no-feed reminder — to find sheep grazing, and the flock owner telling me “they are off feed because it’s just grass, not grain.” Grass is fresh in the spring, and thus hot and heavy in the rumen, so yes, being full of grass makes sheep harder to shear. This increases the time needed to shear, and — under the new pricing model — your costs.

Why are full sheep such a concern? Sheep that have food in their rumen (multiple stomachs) fight a lot more. They do this because, when we turn them over to shear them, the weight of their full rumen (which can weigh six gallons and then some) presses up against their diaphragm.

Please consider how heavy six full gallons of milk or water are, or even fill up those containers. Now, lay on your back and ask someone to set the six gallons all over your chest and torso, for just a rough approximation of the sensation. This is not fun.

Wormy sheep will struggle even more, to handle the increased pressure on their heart and lungs, so they have a higher likelihood of dying on the shearing floor.

Full sheep make the shearing job a lot harder. They fight and kick not because they are “bad,” but because they are uncomfortable. Their discomfort makes shearing more dangerous for me, and for them. They can kick the handpiece clear off the drop (flying handpiece = super dangerous); they can thrash around and break horns (and our teeth), and hit their heads (and ours). I do my best to find more comfortable positions for them, but it’s not possible for me to make sheep as comfortable as they would be if they were EMPTY. Empty sheep are happy sheep.

Say it loud, say it proud, paint it on the barn:
EMPTY SHEEP ARE HAPPY SHEEP!

But what about lambing ewes? Do not worry about pregnant ewes, or ewes that have lambed. Keeping sheep off feed overnight does NOT impact lamb growth in utero, nor does it affect milk production in a lactating ewe.

And, on that point, a note about timing: Shearing one month before lambing is the ideal time for most ewes. Shearing one month after the last ewe has lambed is the second-best option. In addition, I generally limit pre- and post-lambing shearing to no more (less?) than two weeks before or after delivery. I have sheared more than one ewe into labor and that’s not ideal — and no, labor-induction shearing is NOT a new service for 2020.

Payment Timing Policy

I accept cash, check, PayPal, and Venmo as forms of payment. Payment is now due in full at the end of the job. If you know in advance that you will not be able to pay me in full on shearing day, I am happy to work out a payment program in advance.

Thanks to more streamlined/not custom pricing, I will no longer need to invoice after jobs to accurately reflect that day’s work. Now it’s just N hours on farm, x $100/hour = the total cost.

New Service: Private and Small Group Shearing Instruction

You’ve asked, I’m listening, and I’m happy to teach and support folks who wish to shear their sheep themselves and are just looking for some pointers on equipment, a safe shearing set-up, humane handling, and so on. The same rate applies, so getting a small group together to cover my rate will make it more affordable for all, and hopefully give us a few more sheep to work with.

A few notes on this (I have more details coming soon): You and/or your group must provide the sheep and shearing location. I have no sheep, nor any place to shear. My new, flat-rate pricing applies, but the things we will cover will be custom, depending on breed and size of sheep you have; prior shearing experience, if any; the equipment you intend to use; and much more.

In addition, this specific, limited form of instruction CANNOT make anyone a pro at the New Zealand method of shearing, which we do to shear sheep at high volume and to commercial wool standards. It WILL help you make a well informed decision as to whether or not you want to shear your own sheep, and the home methods available to you for doing so. It WILL help you choose and set up your equipment in as safe as manner as possible, to reduce the likelihood of injury to you and your sheep. And, it WILL help you handle your sheep more humanely, and in ways that are safer for you, your body, and your sheep.

Thank You!

Thank you, as ever, for your support and entrusting your animals to me for all these years. You have kept me out working with sheep, and out of a desk job, and for that I am truly grateful.

Stay tuned for more important posts about 2020, including 1) how to be well prepared for your shearers, whomever they are, and 2) why I might refer you to another shearer, and why that is a wonderful thing that makes the wool world a better place. Thanks for reading!

December 7, 2019 by Stephany Wilkes 3 Comments

A Sweater Vest Elegy For a Shepherd

Or rather, the employment of a shepherd; Jim himself is still with us. Structurally, an elegy expresses sorrow, sings praises, and offers solace, and an appropriate format (poem, prose) is chosen. This is the letter I sent with Jim’s vest.

Dear Jim,

I was gutted to learn, in late May, about the changes at Hopland, none for the better in my admittedly from-a-distance opinion. Like most everything these days, I learned of the flock auction and the elimination of your position on social media, just two weeks after this year’s shearing school. There it was, over my morning cup of coffee: a Facebook event inviting me to a sheep sale, a flock reduction from 500 breeding ewes to 125, as if this auction were not a swift kick in the gut but an event like any other — a craft fair, a fiber festival — I’d want to attend. As if loss of vocation were not a factor.

Worse, the auction was too soon in the future to stop it: in less than a week, on June 3. Everyone – the Gilberts, the Irwins, Jordan, Alex, Gary, everyone — was devastated, sick to our stomachs, furious, liberally cursing the UC Regents and Janet Napolitano. We knew that as go the sheep, so goes the shepherd and, possibly, flock quantity sufficient to field a shearing school, the only one in California.

*Shepherd Jim Lewers at work in Hopland, January 2018*

Had I my own land, I would have done what everyone should have: show up and bid well over the asking price for the sheep you bred and shepherded so well and carefully for so long, because that is what people are supposed to do in such unfortunate events, and know to do in other, better-mannered sheep places (Iowa, Montana, Shetland). But I have no place, and was in Modoc County teaching 4-H kids how to trim hooves, among other things. Even so, I regret not finding a way to attend the auction to convey my sorrow to you in person, and share yours. I don’t know if you were there, though I expect you must have been. What would have been worse: being there and having to witness that sheep sale, or not being there at all? As with too many things, if you can’t fix it, you just gotta stand it, the hardest thing.

There is a great deal wrong with our culture right now, and the apparent failure of UC budget bureaucrats to recognize how rare you are — an American shepherd, practically unheard of these days! — and how valuable your skills is among them. Now, I don’t know you or your daily work terribly well, but I thank you for your dedicated flock and grazing management that helped save the HREC campus from the 2018 wildfire. I see and count the terrible things you prevented from happening: the people who did not die in an inferno, and the lawsuits to follow; the insurance claims and policy increases from incinerated buildings; the reconstruction costs of buildings like LEED-certified Shippey Hall.

We have not spent much time together, but you taught Hopland students a great deal in those brief windows between sheep, standing in that barn aisle between the tray of decontamination fluid, the sink, and the shearing floor. You blew my mind with stories of when non-lethal predator control works, and doesn’t, and why something that works on one county and landscape won’t necessarily work in another. Many people refuse to acknowledge and hold such complexity, preferring easy, belief-reinforcing answers to very difficult problems. I always liked your refusal to give those.

You taught me about herding and livestock guardian dogs (Bodie!), and showed what they were capable of. If anyone had told me that one command could send a herding dog far out of view, have them return with a flock, and then split that flock into groups, I’d have called them a liar. Thanks for the show. You educated me on Q fever, described how bacteria spread it to humans from animals including sheep, and then appropriately restricted my access in the lambing barn. I’m grateful, because Q fever is hell for shearers who have gotten it. They describe six to eight weeks fully laid up in bed, these strong people, with a severe flu-like illness and, worse, persistent and long-term health problems.

Please know that we all saw how you loved those sheep, even if we cannot fathom how much. You are a true steward. You helped make a lot of shearers. Your impact is lasting, not just on the landscape but on all of the people who have passed through that big barn in which you taught, helped, and supported us…and filled the pens with seemingly endless sheep, over and over again. That’s all right; it was good for us.

I wish I had more words of consolation to offer, but all I feel is outrage and frustration that I’ll just have to shear out of myself. In lieu of that, I thought I’d make something that might console better than my awkward typing ever could: this sweater vest, 100% Mendocino County Targhee like your ewes, sheared by Matt Gilbert (who I’m told was called “barefoot Matt” when he learned to shear at Hopland as a shoeless whippersnapper). It was processed and spun up the road in Ukiah, by Sarah Gilbert, and the yarn is some of the very first to come off the pin drafter and onto the spinner.

I knit it up into a vest, thinking a sweater might be too warm, and I have no idea if the sizing is right. I tried, because I wanted it to be a surprise. Matt was my fit model, and who knows how close of one, and the rest I estimated from photos of you. If it’s too large or too long or too anything, I can easily fix it; just say the word. The wool was white, but I could see that getting dirty pretty easily knowing you, so I thought I’d dye it gray with eucalyptus and iron, to match the color of the work overalls I so often saw you in.

The vest comes too late for your last day at Hopland but, if nothing else, it’s finally sweater vest weather, isn’t it? I hope your grass has germinated. The combination of late rains and cold temperatures have had me worried but, in some places, I’ve seen tiny green spikes and future sheep feed. If you ever need a hand building fence or mucking out pens, give me a shout.

With gratitude, for everything,
Stephany

February 6, 2019 by Stephany Wilkes 2 Comments

The Phenomenal Pora, or Some of What I Learned at Advanced Shearing School

I attended Advanced Shearing School with Australian shearing guru Mike Pora from January 28-30, 2019 in Newell, SD, and thought other shearers might benefit from some of what I learned.

I took this class for a few reasons. First, as shearers are known to say, “If you’re working too hard, you’re working too hard,” and I am working too hard. Second, I wanted to learn more about shearing fine wool sheep, which are rare on the West Coast; I shear mostly crossbreeds, or non-fine wool breeds. Fine wool sheep in the US are found in Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, etc.

Third, at this stage in my life, I cannot get to Australia for a few months to learn to shear there. Well, technically I could, if I intended to abandon my grandmother with dementia and cancer here in California, but that’s not an option. I figured that if I can’t get to Australia, the Australian was coming to us, and that was the next best, doable thing. (Young and/or unattached shearers, do you hear me? Go learn and work in Australia. See the world! Vamanos, whippersnappers! Fly, my pretties, fly!)

Finally, I often work alone and not on crews with expert shearers who can teach me things. As a result, I develop my own shearing adjustments and bad habits, of both the conscious and unconscious sort. I need eyes and expertise outside of me to help me learn and do better.

And it sure was a good excuse for a vacation with the lady shearers you’ve only met online. We were in a Vogue article together and now we’re friends.

In regard to working less hard, and doing everything we can to ensure we can shear as long as we can, Mike taught us footwork and positions to get the sheep to hold more of its own weight, and to get that weight off of our legs and knees. People think shearing is hell on our backs, and it can be, but my knees, quads, and hamstrings take the brunt of it, because those hold the sheep.

A few things to note in this photo: The sheep is holding its own weight, comfortably shifted onto its right hip (not its tail, which sheep hate). Mike’s left knee is over the back of the sheep’s neck, and the sheep’s spine is behind Mike’s calf.

When standing this way, you can feel the sheep’s spine behind your left leg, their back bone leaning against your leg bone. The difference is that your left leg is not required to hold the sheep and prop it up. Your leg braces and grips the sheep, but does not support it.

After feeling the right way to do this, I realized that I often have the sheep’s spine on the wrong side of my leg, supported by my front shin, with my left knee holding up a substantial portion of the sheep’s weight (no wonder that knee is the crackly sounding one). Altogether, this meant that, while shearing the sheep’s first hip, I was supporting the sheep’s weight with my left knee, while also bending forward in half to reach over to the tail. Not fun, and so much harder than it needs to be.

We learned this lesson in the first hour of the first morning so, very early on, I had already learned something valuable that will make my life substantially easier, and prevent injury, wear, and tear. “This class doesn’t cost enough,” I thought, and I meant it.

But there’s something more going on in this position, too. Notice how the sheep is angled, almost matching the angle of Mike’s foot, which is not straight but pointed outward from his body. Mike is looking down over the sheep’s hip more than its belly. When shearing the belly, crutch, and first hip, many of us are oriented more directly over the sheep’s belly, in a straight line, and not at this angle.

This brings me to another big lesson: crutching when the sheep’s weight is situated more like this, and not just when fully laid back as they can be during belly shearing. It was, initially, a bit mind-bending to look down and see the sheep’s crutch area less open and a bit more tilted, with its rear, left leg resting into the crutch area more than unusual, but crutching was still possible, safe, and made the transition from the crutch into the first hip much easier.

As for getting the sheep to hold more of its own weight… When I learned to shear, I was taught to have my right knee turned in to the right side of the sheep’s brisket when shearing the first hip. This meant my right knee ended up holding the sheep up at the brisket, not just bracing it but preventing it from slumping over to the right side. By copying Mike’s moves, the sheep supported more of its weight, required less of my leg pressure in the brisket and, combined with the sheep’s spine sitting behind my left leg, made for a much easier shearing of the first hip.

But wait, there’s more.

The above photo may look like a typical one of shearing the first hip, but let me tell you about what Mike’s left hand is doing (and does next). Because the sheep is stable and holding a good bit of its own weight, Mike can really pull the skin on that leg juncture and hip right up toward him (not just rolling it toward him, but pulling that hip more up than over). This makes the skin taut on these wrinkly fine wool sheep, for a clean, nick-free hip of nice wide blows.

Another pro tip for this stage of shearing: On your blows up the spine, the bottom teeth should land where the tip of your middle finger on your left hand is. This sounds like I’m telling you to aim for your finger, and I’m not. What I mean to say is: When you’re finishing the left hip, doing those blows from the tail up the spine, and your left hand is pulling and rolling the sheep toward you so that you can reach to and over the sheep’s spine, the fingers of your left hand are pointed at the floor. The imaginary line that would extend from the tip of your left middle finger across the sheep’s back is the depth for which you should reach with the bottom tooth of your comb.

And now, a few words about neck blows. The above is the correct positioning for the neck blows. The sheep’s chin is at a 90-degree angle to it’s neck, a normal position (vs. the sheep’s chin being pulled back, akin to our walking around with our chins high in the air, which is neither normal nor comfortable).

Mike showed us how to pull the skin on the chin up to tighten it (much more comfortable for the sheep and its breathing), and NOT pull the chin itself, as some instructors teach, in the “Pull the chin taut and get through it quickly” school of thought. All shearers know, or should, that the greater the sheep’s comfort, the less it fights, and the easier the shearing is as a result. Shearers have every incentive to keep sheep as happy and comfortable as possible, and this is one more way to do so.

In the neck blow photo above, you can also see how the sheep is supporting more of its own weight. The shearer’s right knee is still behind the right brisket, and both of the sheep’s right legs are behind his (i.e. the shearer’s right leg is where it’s supposed to be, in the crutch between both sets of legs). At this point, shearers are like “Duh, that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

But this is the most difficult footwork position for me, and always has been. This is because I am terrified of cutting the sheep’s neck and shoulder. So my WRONG AND ILL-ADVISED modification has been to push all of that sheep’s weight out in front of me during the neck blows, more akin to the position of shearing the last side. This puts all four of the sheep’s legs in front of my right leg, and all of the weight (on the sheep’s hip in the above photo) bowed out in front, supported–but NOT well controlled–by my right leg and left forearm and hand.

The upshot is that these maneuvers stretch the front shoulder skin out nicely, but that’s about the only benefit of my mangled, ugly dance. I don’t have enough control, the sheep feels like it’s falling forward and about to collapse toward the ground (because it is), and the sheep kicks because all four of its legs are totally free to do so. Joy.

So let’s talk about what we should be doing on a wrinkly, fine-wool neck as taught at this advanced school.

In the photo above, the great Emily Chamelin (AKA Lady Shearer Prime) has the sheep in the correct position, and Mike Pora (left) and Alex Moser (right) are talking about the pressure of comb teeth and the dreaded wrinkle. Fine-wool sheep (Merino, Rambouillet, etc.) have a wrinkle like a wattle, and shearers take great care not to cut it. Mike showed us how, on the first neck blow, you want the comb pressure on the top teeth and, on the second blow, on the bottom teeth. This effectively leaves you shearing each side of the wrinkle and not cutting it. This is a very subtle, nuanced and important technique.

I have been using a neck blow modification that has worked well so far, and that Matt Gilbert taught me especially for wrinkly-neck fine wool sheep. I may continue it even after this class, but will devote time to practicing Pora’s method. Matt’s modification is to turn the sheep’s head to move the wrinkle. You can get an idea of this using your own neck.

Look straight ahead, and turn your level head all the way to the left. The skin on the right side of your neck is smooth, and there’s a wrinkle on your left side. So, you would shear the smooth, right side, where there’s no wrinkle to worry about. When you turn your head to the right, the wrinkle is on your right and your skin is smooth on the left, so you shear the left. This cleans the neck in two wide passes.

Now, let’s talk about the long blows.

Notice how the sheep is on its back more than on its side, and that the sheep’s right shoulder and brisket are against the shearer’s left shin. This creates more control of the sheep. I have not been doing this properly.

I hate to admit that, after six years of shearing (and not enough sheep), I sometimes still turn the handpiece off, walk the sheep into this position, and start up the machine again. The pros spin the sheep around and, as it lands in this place, take the first blow without skipping a beat. Sometimes I do that, just not as often as I’d like.

Mike asked a good question: “Stephany, what does a hay bale do on its end?” “It spins,” I said. And there’s the wisdom. If the sheep is sitting on a small point, and holding enough of its weight, you can basically pivot/spin it down into the long blow position, voila (with an assist from lanolin).

Another lesson I will implement right away is the six-sheep focus technique Mike taught: Pick one improvement to focus on (like a certain footwork position, or maybe the comb pressure on the sides of the neck wrinkle, etc.), focus on that for the next six sheep, pause, evaluate how you’ve done and what you need to fix, and shear the next six sheep.

My self-assigned homework is to find some sheep to walk around with. If I had my own sheep, I would do nothing but walk them through each position with only my legs, hands free, until I got every bit of the footwork right. Shearing jobs don’t lend themselves to this, as the job needs to get done, but I’m thinking of asking some friends to let me walk their sheep around with my legs for a day. This is why we take time for things like school, though: we can practice at school in ways we cannot on a paid job.

I can’t cover everything I learned in just a few days, but I hope this post inspires other shearers to take a course with Mike Pora, the master of nuance and finesse.

And good heavens, it was gloriously beautiful.