Auchenstroan Wool

Since last week’s story about shearing, we still had one sheep left to shear – sweet Vera.  Vera has photo-sensitive skin and doesn’t respond well to the close shave given by electric blades.  Last year I hand-clipped her and she had a much more comfortable summer as a result.  Giving Vera a haircut is now part of my summer jobs.

Hand-clipping Vera serves two purposes; leaving a half centimetre or so covering of wool on her gives her some protection from the sun (which triggers her allergy).  And using hand shears is less aggravating on her skin.

So I chose the one day in the week where thundery showers weren’t forecast and off I went to find Vera with my bucket of bits.  In my bucket I had:  Jakoti hand shears, hoof clippers, Protego wound spray, bailer twine, anti-blister rowing glove for my right hand, plasters, halter, midge spray, midge net, water, a  handful of sheep nuts.

Having located the flock, Vera was easy to spot, she was the only sheep who still resembled a roly-poly teddy bear.

I take my time shearing, better said, I have no choice but to take my time shearing because I’m not an expert by a very long shot.   Although Adrian and I once learnt to shear the standard ‘Wool Board way’ where you do 16 specific moves, moving at one with the sheep, removing the wool deftly and gently whilst keeping the sheep comfortable at all times, we realised it was a little beyond us.  We would need to practise shearing more than just once a year to get good enough to do it safely and confidently.  This is why we book in a pro shearer like Guy.

Last year in a moment of madness I decided to not only shear Vera, but quite a few others too.  I found the ‘standing up method’ to be quite successful and not too painful on my back.  The downside of this approach is that it takes a long time per sheep because there is more room for error so you have to go slowly.  The sheep isn’t ‘stretched out’ as it is when you shear the standard way so you have to make sure you don’t snip little wrinkles of skin.  This is particularly the case where there are joins, for example where the legs join the torso, where the jaw joins the neck or the tail joins the bottom.

So, having popped Vera into a pen, I started at the tail end of her back, made an opening in the wool and snipped in lines along one side of her back.  Then I did the other side which was a little more tricky because I had to reach over her and position my hand at a different angle.  All the while I snipped, my left hand guided the way, feeling the terrain.   Although I have a pretty good map in my head of the anatomy of a sheep, there’s nothing quite like having a pair of blades in your hand to jolt you into a different state of mind.  It’s a bit like reading all the theory about lambing, and then actually doing it.

I had started off putting a halter on Vera and tying a tether to the hurdle so she wouldn’t move around, but after a while I removed it as she seemed quite content chewing the cud and standing in the one position.  This made life easier for both of us as I could move her round to snip her wool at different angles, and Vera didn’t feel constrained by the halter and tether.

After about an hour and half I had removed three quarters of her wool but felt the need for a cup of tea.  I let Vera out to graze and went back to the house for some tea and toast.  Adrian emerged from his study like a small boy at the sound of the kettle and the ping of the toaster.  We chatted about Vera, the weather and Adrian’s work, and then back I went to finish off Vera before the rain started.

I’ll be honest, despite the cup of tea, I was pretty tired at this point.  I’d had an intense couple of weeks doing other physical jobs around the farm.  In between this I had an important trip to Edinburgh where I was dancing in a show (my other life).  All in all, I was looking forward to a day off.  But with the weather being so showery I had to grab the opportunity to get Vera finished before the next downpour.

When I got back to the fields the sheep were still where I had left them fortunately.  This meant I didn’t have to run around with hurdles setting up a new pen.  I led Vera back into her little pen and spent another hour or so finishing her off.

I did the rest of her face and neck, the remaining side of her flanks and belly.  Now I was on the home straight, all I had left to do was her backside up to the udders.  As I straddled her facing her tail so I could get a good angle, Vera started to get twitchy.  The straddle method is my standard approach for dagging sheep and admittedly, normally I have Adrian helping me to make sure the sheep doesn’t wriggle around too much.  In the absence of Adrian (aka my combi clamp), I opted for Plan B, I tethered her up and sprinkled some sheep nuts on the ground.  This worked a treat and I made a pretty good job of trimming Vera’s bottom even though I say so myself.

With Vera shorn at last, I opened the hurdles.  Vera skipped out with her new hair do and re-joined the flock who had put up the ‘do not disturb’ sign for some serious grazing. Meanwhile, I hobbled out and sat on a rock for a while listening to the sound of sheep eating which is weirdly hypnotic and quite pleasant.

Last Saturday I was just back from walking the dogs and was sitting down for a cuppa when the phone rang.  It was 7am so I grabbed it hoping it would be Guy our shearer.  Happily it was, he said he’d be with us at 9.30 and to bring the sheep down and into the shed.

Still in my wellies I ran upstairs to tell Adrian.  We’d been waiting a couple of weeks for a shearing slot, the weather was perfect, it had been hot and dry for a few weeks and the sheep were feeling the heat.  It was due to rain that afternoon so to say I was relieved was an understatement!   It was Adrian’s lie-in so when I bounded into the bedroom he was still asleep.  As I gabbled on about organising the sheep and hurdle arrangements I had the impression I was talking to a bear just out of hibernation.  No matter I said, already halfway down the stairs again, I’d make a start on my own.  Off I whizzed with a handful of bailer twine and my ‘farm handbag’ – an empty lick-bucket full of sheep things – sheep nuts, a can of ‘Protego’ spray, hoof clippers, tick remover and lots of other bits and bobs.

Within a short while I had set up a large pen in the orchard, standing back to admire it I remembered I’d better go off up the hill and get the little darlings.

By the time I got back with the gang, Adrian was up and about and was able to shut the gate behind us in the nick of time.  Sheep have an uncanny knack of knowing when something is up, and can be good at making a break for it if you’re not quick enough to shut the gate behind them.

Phew!  We both said.  Now for a cup of tea and some breakfast before shearing started.  Shearing is hard, physical work for all involved, mostly for the shearer obviously, but also for the helpers (ie myself and Adrian).  We would be organising the flock, passing the shearer sheep and keeping everything calm.

When the shearer arrived bang on 9.30, he backed his van right up to the shed, got his blades and oil ready and I got the first sheep.   Within a few minutes he’d already sheared our woolly girl, Star.  While Guy worked away like clockwork through the flock, Adrian and I passed him sheep and made sure the rest of them didn’t get in his way and that everything remained calm.

Guy is a great shearer, he mainly shears small flocks and is well used to Ryelands and their tricky wool.  He also shears Merinos in Australia and if you can shear a Merino you can shear just about anything.

Half way through the morning, Ymogen our smallest flock member, started to get biffy.  She was particularly targeting Yogi who was getting a bit miffed by it all.   Sometimes after sheep have been sheared they don’t recognize each other.  There’s a lot of bottom sniffing, and sometimes biffing.  As Ymogen was starting to disrupt the other sheep we decided to bundle her out and all was calm again.

Within a couple of hours, 18 sheep were sheared with just Vera to go.  Vera however would be sheared on another day, by me.  Because of her sensitive skin she reacts badly to a close shave so I’ll be clipping her with hand shears and giving her a slightly longer hair cut.

Once Guy had gone off to his next job, we checked the flock for nicks and scratches, all was looking good so we let them out again and off they trotted back up the hill.

There’s a job we should probably do every year but it usually ends up being every two years or even every three or dare I admit it, every four.  This is because it’s not the most exciting of jobs and nor is it necessarily an urgent job.  It’s one of those jobs that you can happily turn a blind eye to and walk on by.  In fact, I like to remind myself that putting off this particular task can make things easier when we eventually get round to doing it.

So what am I talking about?  Yes my friends, it involves sheep dung, and it involves large quantities of it.  I’m talking about deep cleaning the sheep shed.

During the winter months our happy teddy bears spend a lot of time hanging around their shed.  They have a big shed, conveniently positioned next to the hay feeders.  It’s like a living room, kitchen arrangement for our woolly friends.  Although the sheep have access to the wider pastures on the hills, during the winter months when they’re on hay they trundle down to the orchard every evening, munch their hay, sprinkle it all about while doing so and then spend the night in the shed enjoying a cosy time out of the elements.  The sheep are very happy with this arrangement, they live a practically stress-free existence and the shed is a big part of this.

This is all very well, but the downside of the shed arrangement is that it can get really messy.  Sheep go to the toilet wherever they happen to be.  They are not like pigs who would never dream of going to the loo in their shed.  Sheep do their business wherever they happen to be.

Every afternoon I go along with my fabulous “Dungbeetle” sh*t shoveller which I got for my birthday recently.  This is a great piece of kit, it takes an impressive amount of dung and I can get the orchard and shed cleaned up in next to no time time compared to my old “shoveller”.  Plus I don’t get the back and arm ache which is a bonus!

But despite my efforts shovelling dung into the trailer each day, a small amount manages to somehow build up, secretly and stealthily like a woodland fungus, so slowly that it goes almost undetected.  Until one day you walk into the shed and wonder why you’re scraping your head on the ceiling.

This phenomenon is probably common to farmers and smallholders and there might be a name for it out there somewhere.  Despite shovelling copious amounts of dung and bedding each day and keeping the shed clean and tidy, a huge amount still manages to mysteriously build up behind your back.  The fact of the matter is, I know I said earlier that this is a job that can be happily put off, when it gets to the point where you’re scraping your head on the ceiling, you know it’s time to roll up your sleeves!

As the shed is pretty sizeable, I break down the deep-clean by doing a small area at a time.  Every day I take my special tool, (I’m not sure what it’s officially called but it’s perfect for prising up compacted slabs of ancient manure).  Once the prongs go down, I can leaver up satisfyingly large chunks and fling them onto the muck heap.  Once I’ve finished I’ll shovel the manure into a trailer and quad it over to the vegetable patch to use a a mulch.

I’ve been working on this every day for the last two months.  It’s tiring, but hugely satisfying and there’s a real sense of “before and after”.  Also, sometimes I find things like lambing tail rings, or ancient bits of bailer twine hiding away in the “dung cake” which is weirdly nostalgic.  I mentioned earlier that this job is easier if you leave it for as long as possible.  The reason for this is because the thicker the wodges, the easier they are to prise away.  If the slabs are too thin, they crumble into nothing which is very disappointing.

I have only a little way to go now, I’m hoping to have the deep-clean completed by next week.  Then I can pretend not to notice the slow stealth as it creeps back over the next three years!