Stephany Wilkes

Author & Sheep Shearer

Sheep Shearing

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Can I come shearing with you?

Peak shearing season (January through June) has reached its halfway mark, though many folks perceive March and April as its beginning. This is the time of year when I receive a surprising amount of email along the lines of “Can I come shearing with you?” Given the volume, I figured it was worthy of a post.

Before you read the answer, know that most people do not like my responses. They say I am mean, and point out that Jordan took me shearing with him. Yes, he did…after I had two years at shearing school (10 full, 8-hour days of shearing and two certificates) under my belt.

Can I come shearing with you?

First, thank you for asking. This is an important, gracious, generous request, for many reasons. It shows that people have genuine, deep interest in where their raw materials come from; that they value the people and animals who do the hard work of bringing these materials into our textile supply chain. Folks even say things like “I can carry your tool box.” They want exposure to shearing work and the sheep, and appreciate fiber so much that it genuinely pains me to have to say…

Probably not, with one exception: If you have attended shearing school somewhere at least once, live in Northern California, and have a flexible schedule, your chances are higher than anyone else’s.

Reason #1: It’s my real job.

Shearing is work. Yes, it is interesting, unusual work, but it is skilled, professional labor. My customers are clients. Asking to come shearing is much like asking “Can I tag along on that client website pitch?” or “Can I tag along on your nursing shift?” Shearing jobs are not (only) field trips.

My customers want their sheep sheared cleanly and well. Most do not want to volunteer their sheep to be learned on, especially if they plan to sell the fiber. There are exceptions to this, namely meat sheep with short, coarse wool who are headed to the butcher. Their fiber wasn’t going to bring much money anyway, so it doesn’t matter if you reduce the staple length with second cuts as you learn. We all do that when we’re learning.

This is why public shearing days (of the sort Meridian Jacobs holds) are so wonderful and worthy of attendance. They are designed to provide a full, shearing day experience, complete with fleece sale, with a team of folks managing everything else so the shearer can work. It is the best of all possible worlds.

Reason #2: Safety – and School – First

It is not easy to get into shearing schools these days, I’m told. The Hopland school I’ve attended sells out in less than five minutes each year, and schools across the country fill quickly. I know folks in California who have traveled as far as South Dakota, Canada, and Tennessee because those were the only shearing schools that had room.

This is why it feels especially unfair to say: If you want to come shearing, it will be in an apprentice role, and you must have attended shearing school at least once, and gotten certified. Safe, humane animal handling, bodily memory of shearing moves, and equipment knowledge are prerequisites for coming shearing.

I am glad there is more interest in learning how to shear, and love that I have more shearers to give work to than I did a few years ago. Yeehaw to that.

Reason #3: Trust, risk, and PETA

In case you’re fortunate enough to have missed it, PETA has waged an anti-wool crusade for several years. They claim shearers skin sheep alive. To that I can only say: Pish. There are so many cleaner, easier ways to make a lot more money.

This anti-wool harassment–which targets ranches directly–means many wool producers understandably and justifiably do not want anyone who is not a known, skilled worker on their property (especially a person who likes to take video with their mobile phone more than work). It’s a sound approach, though it does make it harder to teach apprentices safe, humane animal handling and shearing.

This is my sixth season shearing. Knock on shearing plywood, in those six years I have had to stitch a sheep once. It was a tiny nick, shorter than my thumbnail, but in a bad spot: the top of a belly vein. Of course, it was an accident, and required just a couple of stitches (fewer stitches than I have needed myself from work related injuries). The sheep bopped away and grazed and that was that, while I cried off and on for the rest of the work day like a real competent professional (not).

Crying aside, it was a 15-minute event out of the 525,600 minutes in that year, and the 3,153,600 minutes in six years. Is this event representative of a body of work? No.

Imagine that, in those 15 minutes, a PETA infiltrator has tagged along, knows the location of a ranch, and starts recording. The flock owner and I will be subjected to an online reign of terror and harassment for…how long? Months, years? Does it put the flock owner out of business? Do companies decide not to buy wool from them, to appease PETA? These considerations make it very risky to take a chance on a stranger.

Reason #4: Difficult logistics

Most people have traditional 9-to-5 day jobs and, much as they might wish, cannot afford to take full weekdays off to come shearing with me. If they can, they often have family responsibilities that mean they must get back home at a certain time. Given Bay Area traffic, this often means they might only be able to be on-site shearing with me for 2-3 hours. When weekends roll around, folks are not exactly eager to wake between 4:30-6 AM so that we can reach a shearing site by 7 or 8 AM.

Weather, sheep, and customers drive shearing dates more than my availability (for existing customers, anyway, who get and keep their annual slot for as long as they wish). If we’ve managed to find a date and time when someone can ride along with me, and it rains, they may not be free on the rain date scheduled for the following week (or month).

In the past three years, I actually agreed to take certain folks shearing with me. I’d call or text to offer dates, and they either said they couldn’t make any of them, or said they could and, when I called or texted with a reminder 24-48 hours before the job, bailed. I don’t have the time for that additional management or the space for that mental overhead. This is not to say everyone is like this, but it happened more often than not.

Reason #5: Farmer Centricity

I try very, very hard to shear at dates and times that work best (not just those that work, but work best) for my customers.

Which brings me to a related, unflattering, and possibly controversial point about perceptions of farmers, and how we value their time and agricultural work in general: Unskilled labor, however well intentioned, is not necessarily valuable – or, if it is, is not without costs – to a skilled farmer.

I used to think “I am willing to work hard, put my back into it. Granted, I know nothing about farm work, or the animals who live there, but many hands make light work, right? Someone will be grateful to have my help. 90% of life is just showing up.”

Well, sort of.

As anyone who’s worked on a team in any sort of job knows, when a new hire joins, they don’t ramp up to 100% on day one. They need training and on boarding, and it takes a LOT of time to set someone up for success. When I managed engineering teams, I was simultaneously desperate for more help, yet had no idea where I would find the hours to give a new person the time and attention they deserved – even though they have some experience and know the field.

Conceptually, we get this. This is why we have managers and apprenticeships. We willingly invest time in people, at least partially because we expect those folks to stick around for a while.

But farmers, I think, we see a little differently than the engineering manager. Sometimes, the way we talk about farmers sounds like the way some folks speak about poor people: They should be grateful for anything we choose to give them. Farmers must be so desperate for someone, anyone to show up, even just once, inconsistently, when it’s most convenient for us, like on Sundays (but not every Sunday, I have weekend stuff to do), and never mind if the farmer wants to go to church or a picnic, while needing a ton of the farmer’s direction and time, and never mind the risk to animals or risk of injury.

The person making the offer is in a position of power, in a way, in that they want to call the shots, whether it’s about the clothes they’re donating or the sort of farm labor they’re willing to do, and when.

Even though we’re ostensibly giving something to someone (whether clothes to poor people or labor to a farmer), we get something in return: a tax deduction, in the former case, and time in the fresh air with animals, on a farm, outside of a city, exercise, and instruction in the latter. It’s an exchange, and we should strive to keep the exchange fair to the farmer: Farmers should not give us more than they receive, as they are already often giving all they can and then some.

And, if the farmer is giving us more (instruction, valuable knowledge, life skills), we should recognize and appreciate them for that, not the other way around. This is another reason I like the Meridian Jacobs Farm Club: You pay for membership, products, and the privilege of learning from a real farmer – and it is a privilege.

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Charge More for Metal Scrapie Tags

Emily Chamelin, who must be one of the top shearers in the world (certainly in the U.S.), alerted fellow shearers to some unfortunate news today, news I want to share here. Current and prospective shearing clients: I now charge more to shear sheep with metal Scrapie tags.

Apparently, the USDA only provides *metal* Scrapie tags for free now. Plastic Scrapie tags must be purchased. Metal Scrapie tags–like any metal in a fleece (staple, bottle cap, wire)–are dangerous. The American Shearers Council has long said metal tags are a hazard and should be phased out, and I am disappointed that the USDA does not seem to either comprehend this or, if they do, to care. I will have to charge more if your flock becomes a metal tag flock.

Emily says she is using this additional charge to start a “when not if” hospital fund, the inevitable result of a handpiece lock-up. Here is a video of what happens when a handpiece locks up, most commonly the result of hitting a metal ear tag accidentally. Pay attention at the 1:00 minute mark:

The handpiece swings violently, smashing into the hand and/or forearm. This usually results in broken bones, and/or the comb entering the shearer’s arm and cutting whatever it can reach – bone, tendon, muscle, maybe everything. Shearers’ careers, and lifelong physical mobility and dexterity, have ended because of metal ear tags.

Please remember this when you order Scrapie tags for your new lambs. Keep your shearer safe: Avoid any metal, all metal, at all costs.

Shame on you, USDA. Shame. My next email is to ASI, and I hope to heaven they will address this on their next trip to D.C.

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Shearing Sheep With Years’ Worth of Wool

Folks love stories of so-called Shrek sheep, found God knows where with years’ worth of wool growth (and living proof that sheep do not “just shed” their wool if left alone in nature).But, as a shearer, those stories used to create nothing but dread. “Poor sheep,” I’d shudder to think. “It’s probably wool blind. And imagine what’s hiding in that fleece! Barbed wire, bottle caps, stuff that your shears turn to shrapnel.” No thanks.

It is no accident that the most experienced shearers are called upon to shear Shrek sheep. Years’ worth of heavy wool pulls the sheep’s membrane-thin skin away from its body, making it much easier to cut than usual.
I put off shearing sheep like this for as long as possible. I’d give the job to someone else, avoid them altogether. This approach works until you’re on the job and the next batch of sheep in the pen have 2-5 years’ wool growth. “I’m sorry,” the flock owner says. “I just bought these and they came with all this wool. I get mine sheared every year.”
You’ve got to learn sometime, and this year was it. And, as with most things related to livestock, my fear had blown it entirely out of proportion. I thought I’d share what I’ve learned about shearing sheep with years’ worth of wool growth, and help beginner shearers who end up in this situation for the first time.
A man in bandana and tank top with a complete brown sheep fleece spread out on plywood, on top of hay
My shearing partner, Jordan, displays a completely felted sheep fleece, several years’ worth of wool growth. This is from a small sheep.

Stay calm.

If you take your time, you’ll be fine. Slow down and own it. I make a practice of saying “This is going to take me a while,” both to set expectations and to give myself permission.

Do not discount your rate.

Not even if you’re a beginner. That sheep (and its owner) needs you more than you need the tricky work. It is fair to charge more for sheep in poor condition, which include Shrek sheep. There is a greater risk of cuts and nicks, they require more shearing time, and they use more equipment, in that you have to swap combs and cutters more often than you do for regularly sheared sheep. You’ll go through a cutter every 1-2 sheep, and the same or similar for a comb, vs. getting 2-4 sheep per cutter and 3-7 sheep per comb. These are costs you bear, and you should pay yourself fairly for them.
As a ballpark figure, I would not shear a sheep with multi-year wool growth for less than $10-$15/head, after the ranch call, certainly $12-$15/head for a ram with that kind of growth.

If customers balk, explain that this is because of excess wool growth and that next year, it will cost less. There’s no need to make anyone feel bad for falling behind on shearing. We know how hard it can be to find a shearer, and how few of us there are. Tell them they’re doing the right thing, that things will be better in the future, etc. but also communicate the reality of the situation so no one is surprised. I use very plain language: “I never like to nick a sheep, and I will do my best to avoid that, but here is the situation with the wool…” 

Adapt your technique.

Many years of wool can be very heavy. If a sheep produces a 7-12 pound average fleece every year, and hasn’t been sheared for three years, it is carrying 21-36 pounds of wool. Sheep have very thin skin, so that kind of weight pulls and stretches the skin up as you shear the wool away.
I wish I’d worn a Go Pro or something this year so I could show you what I mean, but I didn’t, so let’s go to Imaginary Shearing Land (via the Mister Rogers trolley).  We’re shearing the neck. You do one stroke, and the wool from that stroke falls over to the side (away from your shears, over the sheep’s shoulder that you’ll shear next). You’ll see the just sheared wool (helped along by gravity) pulling the skin away from the sheep’s body, and lifting the skin right into the way of your shears for the next stroke. If you forge ahead as is, you’ll cut that lifted skin: the just sheared wool is lifting it right between the teeth of your comb. Damn and blast.
I adapt by holding the wool down with my left hand, and shearing with my right. My left hand is at the outermost part of the fleece, putting all of that wool between my hand and the sheep’s body, and between my hand and my sharp, fast, dangerous shears. I hold the wool against the sheep’s body, from the outside, and basically shear underneath it, being very mindful to not cut my hand. I check the sheep’s skin and hand piece position with every stroke and adjust accordingly.
I hope this makes sense. You’ll see what I mean, in any case.

Bring scissors.

Multi-year wool has often felted right on the sheep’s body. This solidified wool makes it difficult to find a safe, clean spot to lay the comb on the sheep’s skin and get started in the proper place, at the proper angle for comb bevel and teeth.
A pair of hand scissors really comes in handy. You can safely and slowly cut wool away by hand, until you’ve created clean purchase for your hand piece. I always feel better and calmer when I’ve set myself and my shears up properly, which gives me the best chance for shearing safely and well.

Bring hand scissors if you don’t already. I can’t say it enough. Add them to your kit. They’re wonderful for safely cutting wool away from the sheep’s face, too.

Use normal equipment, but more of it.

I do not use 9-tooth combs. I’ve sheared sheep with multi-year growth just fine with my usual 13-tooth combs. Indeed, I’d be more leery of using a 9-tooth comb for Shrek sheep, as that lifted skin would fit too easily in the larger space between the teeth. No bueno.

You’ll need more oil, more often, and Kool Lube spray too. After a year or more without shearing, lanolin can dry out, harden, and/or get absorbed by the extra wool. There is less lanolin, literally less oil, to help your shears glide along. This is even worse in cold weather. Your shears may also run hotter than usual, pushing through more wool with more gunk in it. Keep everything well oiled and as cool as possible.

I hope this helps somebody out there. Just take your time, all the time you need.

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Vogue, Of All Things

If you had told me I’d end up in Vogue, and for sheep shearing no less, I’d have called you a liar. But there it is.

A small group of gray, black, and white sheep munching alfalfa
Vogue: Women of the Wool. Photos by Nich McElroy.

I am so grateful to this esteemed publication for showing where our clothes come from, and for telling the world about the most wonderful people I know, who do things like run into sky-high fires to save sheep, and offer to drive four hours to come get you out of snowstorms in the Sierra, and so much else besides. I love them in a way I can scarcely convey.

How did this happen? I certainly did not call Anna Wintour and say “So I’m shearing some sheep this weekend… You busy?” No, this is what happens when Robert Irwin, of Kaos Sheep Outfit, calls you and says “What are you doing Saturday?” And you say “Shearing sheep.” And he says “What about Sunday?” And you say “I’ll be having my first day off in six months.” And he says “No, I need you to come shear my sheep.” And you say “NO.” And he says “It’s a photo shoot for Vogue!” And you say “Well that’s a new one” and show up to shear, even with a torn scapula, because the man deserves an A for effort plus bonus points for cleverness.

I swear, I thought that man was fibbing until the camera came out. The photo of my feet beside Carrie Butler’s makes me cry, because she’s my shearing sister and we’ve been through the wars together, since day one of shearing school. This is quite a day for my people and our craft. Thank you, Vogue.