Sheep Shearing

We inherited one sheep on this new property. She was mainly here to act as a lawnmower on the steep paddocks. Throughout the year she spends her time eating ALL the food in her paddocks and we have to move her from one section to the next to allow time for the grass to regrow. Seriously. all the time, I've been out at around midnight and you can see her STILL eating.

In summer though, it is time to get rid of all that wool that she spent the year growing. Not really nice to have a wooly coat on when it is over 30 degrees outside. The previous owners gave us the contact for a mobile shearer and on Sunday, our sheep got her haircut.

Oh, and her very imaginative name is: SHEEP

Although the neighbours like to call her: lamb chops or mint sauce

Mobile shearing tower set up. Next was mustering the sheep.

Right, so we've never handled a sheep before. This one has a collar and we tried grabbing that. The problem is, this sheep is STRONG and she will go off on a run with you hanging off her collar easily. We managed to cajole her into a small pen, but we had to get her up to the carport to get sheared.

Needless to say, the shearer was not impressed with us. He had to come down to the pen, show us how to catch her, actually catch her, get the rope on and lead her up to the carport. This guy is not used to mustering sheep, he just shears them, so Sheep took the opportunity to escape down the hill. She's so strong that the rope just pulls you along with her.

Finally, somehow got her up to the carport, which included a lot of pulling on the rope and pushing her backside to make her walk.

Flipped onto her back, and she's helpless.

Start with her belly

Noticed that her belly was quite big actually....

Shoulders and sides. See her pouchy belly?

Her back

And finally the other side. Leaving behind one single piece of fleece

Her wool isn't all that soft and if you hold some, you'll notice the lanolin oil on your hands after.

The after shot. A few nicks here and there, but much cooler. She's also a lot smaller and quite angry at being manhandled. Bleated at us for the rest of the day.

So the things that we learnt from this:
1.  Get a thicker rope
2.  Get the rope on her as soon as possible and hope that she gets used to it
3.  Get her up to the carport and tie her up there until the shearer arrives, so we're not running up and down the hill chasing a sheep, who's trailing a human holding on to her rope.

The actually shearing took about 4 mins. Chasing her took a lot longer >.<

All this for $30 and the shearer keeps the fleece.