

Shearing is a big day in the sheep calendar and it can be pretty stressful for everyone involved, the sheep, the shearers and the farmers. We start thinking about shearing at the beginning of May when the weather warms up and the sheep start feeling hot and itchy in their woolly coats.
Every spring I contact Guy our shearer to confirm that we’re on his schedule, and then it’s a case of waiting. Unfortunately we can’t just pop a date in the diary because shearing is weather dependent. Guy also has many flocks to dealt with, he goes up and down the country helping smallholders like ourselves and so we have to be patient and wait for a slot.
In the eight weeks or so prior to shearing we step up our ‘fly vigil’ watching for signs of fly strike which can be fatal. Our weekly ‘hooves, bottoms and face trims’ routine becomes more important because the little darlings are at their woolliest. Some of their bottoms can be particularly challenging with all the fresh spring grass and the effects that has.

This year we wondered if we’d ever get our little lot sheared. We’ve had the wettest summer we can remember, and not only that, it’s been chilly too. We regretted turning the aga off in May and have been piling on the jumpers ever since.
Normally our shearer comes in the second half of June or at a push the first week in July. But June came and went with grey skies, wind and rain. This year with the strange weather we knew shearing would probably happen in July, but still, we were getting a bit twitchy as were the sheep.
In theory you can shear sheep in any old weather as long as you keep your flock under cover so the wool is dry. But ideally shearing is best done during a spell of hot, dry weather. The wool should be dry so the blades can run through it easily, and the lanolin should be soft to allow the blades to travel more smoothly. If the temperature’s too low, the lanolin doesn’t soften and the blades can stick which can be a problem as you run the risk of injuring your sheep.
But at last, as we came into the second week of July shearing happened. We had two days of reasonable weather and our shearer Guy was in the area, hooray!

We got the flock down into the shed the night before to make sure they stayed dry and had restricted access to grass. The next day we were up bright and early checking on the flock and making some last minute adjustments to the fancy hurdle arrangement I put in place last month. Then we dragged the shearing platform into position, and last but not least popped some lucozade and snickers bars on the shelf in the barn.
Despite the midges and cleggs who decided to join the party Guy did a sterling job sorting out our flock with their summer haircuts.

We were so happy to have our flock sheared and the sheep definitely had a spring in their step as they trotted back up the hill to their summer pastures.