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Sheep shearing is the process by which the woollen fleece of a sheep is cut off. The person who removes the sheep's wool is called a 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 Australia]).
Sheep farming in Namibia (2017). According to the FAOSTAT database of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the top five countries by number of head of sheep (average from 1993 to 2013) were: mainland China (146.5 million head), Australia (101.1 million), India (62.1 million), Iran (51.7 million), and the former Sudan (46.2 million). [2]
The Tally-Hi shearing technique reduced the time taken to shear a sheep by approximately 30 seconds. Kevin's daughter Deanne holds the Australian women's shearing record, having shorn 392 sheep in a day. [8] Henry Salter (1907–1997) MBE won the first organised shearing contest at Pyramid Hill in 1934 and in 1953 was a machine shearing ...
In the shearing shed the woolly sheep will be penned on a slatted wooden or woven mesh floor above ground level. The sheep entry to the shed is via a wide ramp, with good footholds and preferably enclosed sides. After shearing the shearing shed may also provide warm shelter for newly shorn sheep if the weather is likely to be cold and/or wet.
A mechanical shearing handpiece is used, and the graziers sit the sheep between their legs and shear the required portion of the sheep, leaving the main fleece to continue growing. There are also many varieties of crutching cradles which allow the sheep to be crutched with less physical strain to the operator.
Drenching for internal parasites is an important routine on a sheep station. Other activities include ram buying and classing the sheep in order to determine the inferior types that are to be culled. Crops and pastures are often also grown to provide additional feed for the sheep, especially those that will be raised and sold as prime lambs.
Shearing on a sheep station is the one busy time of the year; and if there are from 30,000 to 50,000 sheep to get through, there will be 16 or 20 shearers. Amongst these there are sure to be some men who are what is termed rough—that is they do not take off the wool clean, make lots of second cuts, and cut the sheep badly.
It initially comprised competition in three shearing classes, including the Open championship, which is the most revered of all single shearing titles worldwide. In the final, sometimes referred to as shearing's equivalent of the Wimbledon Open in tennis, six shearers each shear 20 second-shear sheep, for which the fastest time was 15min 27 ...