The Shear

So the wait is over, the nearest lamb has been grabbed and dragged over the 'shearing centre' - that's a sheet of plywood that's seen better days and a compressed-air-driven razor thingmy.  Peter (the shearer) tucks the head between his legs, pulls the cord for the razor and off he goes.  He starts on the front leg, then the upper body and head, then the lower body - same procedure every time.  It was fascinating to watch, I have to admit...

Sheep Man Graham kept me engaged with snippets of information as we watched a clean lamb appear from under the dirty fleece.  They'd been out in the fields for the first four months of their lives, so the fleece looked dull and not terribly clean - to be expected, I guess. If I was lying on the bare ground for a few months under the stars I doubt my fleece would be very clean.  As bits started coming off he reached down and gave me a handful.  Rubbing it in my hands it felt very waxy - I suppose it has to be to keep the elements out.  When we resumed after a tea-break, the razor had gummed up with dried, congealed wax from the fleece, which Peter had to scrape off and then re-oil the blades before starting again.  I think he said a new blade was required every 20 or so animals.

Before long there was a mini-mountain of discarded fleece on the floor, which Graham swept up from time to time.  I'm not sure if the bits had any value but I'd surprised if someone somewhere didn't have a use for it.  I got down low and steadied the 'Blad with a 50mm lens attached (about a 28mm equivalent in 35mm) on a bale of hay (wrapped in plastic, see background right) in order to get this shot:

The Crime Scene. On Adox MCC fibre paper

Most of the lambs didn't seem terribly bothered by the whole thing but the odd one or two struggled quite vigorously against this unwarranted affront to their dignity.  Peter, being an experienced shearer, kept a strong grip of them until they relaxed a bit and he could get on with it.  It didn't take long - about 5 minutes a lamb.  Graham told me that actually Peter was taking his time and doing a very neat and careful job, on account of these being prize-winning animals (and being Graham's pride and joy and all that).  On other farms, where time is of the essence, it's a 2-minute job per lamb.  That's fast.  Shearing is, as you can guess, really hard, physical work. As we took a break Peter told me the first summer he did this he lost something like 2 stone in weight over the course of a month - the target was 200 lambs a day.  That, I can tell you, is some going.