Shear Delight : Farmers Learn to Barber Their Flock

Shearing a sheep is nothing like cutting hair. There’s no delicacy, no style, and no one seems to mind if the customer suffers a few nicks, scrapes or even gouges--as long as they’re not near a vital organ.

The idea is to cut off the fleece as quickly as possible because, like little boys, sheep get fidgety around barbers.

“It’s harder than it looks,” said Shirley Mounts of Claysville, wiping the sweat off her brow with the back of a hand after tackling a half-shorn ewe seeking freedom. “I’m always afraid I’m going to cut the daylights out of them.”

One sad ewe ambled off with about four sizable cuts, but nobody seemed concerned.

Students Fret

“They’re a long way from the heart,” remarked one student as Mounts, 32, fretted over her blunders.

Mounts was one of 18 sheep fanciers who took a class on how to cut fleece without cutting the animal. The 2-day program, sponsored by the Washington County agricultural extension office, is held once a year during the spring shearing season in this hilly, farm-studded corner of southwestern Pennsylvania.

Sheep farmer David Horn opened up his large, wooden barn, perched on a slope overlooking neatly grazed pastures, and provided students with as many “customers” as they needed to hone their skills. In return, Horn got about half of his flock of 180 shorn for free, although the results were a little ragtag.

“I was going to experiment with mine, but I’m sort of glad I didn’t. I think I would have killed them,” said Dave Krupski, 30, who raises 15 sheep on a relative’s farm in Independence Township.

“It’s hard work, believe it or not. A lot of them aren’t lambs, they’re lions. Some will sit and lay in your lap, but the ones with the horns are real feisty. I’ve done five sheep in eight hours, and they say the Australians can do a sheep every 1 1/2 minutes.”

Agricultural extension agents say that after two days of classes, students are able to shear a sheep in about five minutes.

Speed means money to commercial shearers, who charge about $2 a head. But for the students, who just want to learn enough to shear their own flocks, speed means the difference between doing it right and not doing it at all.

Sheep get fussy if they’re fussed over for too long.

After years of hard times, sheep farming in this country is on the rebound. In the West, it’s a full-time job because flocks number in the hundreds and thousands. But in Eastern states like Pennsylvania, sheep farmers are largely part-timers who have small flocks of 50 or fewer, said Joanna Shepherd of the Washington County extension service.

In Washington and neighboring Greene County, the state’s two leading sheep-raising counties, commercial shearers are at a premium, she said. Sheep farmers, particularly those with small flocks, have been turning to the classes mainly because they can’t find anyone to do the job.

Last year, nine people signed up for beginning sheep shearing. This year, 22 wanted to attend, but four had to be turned away because there weren’t enough instructors.

“We have only 35 sheep. People don’t want to be bothered with them,” said Bill Smith, 39, of Lagonda. “Then when you do find someone, they don’t show up till the end of June, and your sheep are about dying from the heat.”

At one end of the barn, extension agent Ed Wood coached a teen-age boy on the importance of keeping his free hand away from the clipper’s sharp teeth.

“Get your hands out of the wool or you’ll cut yourself,” Wood barked over the incessant buzzing of a dozen clippers.

Layer of Fuzz Left

But as the teen-ager moved his hand away, he failed to pull the skin taut, causing the clippers to leave about a 1/2-inch layer of fuzz.

“You’re leaving too much wool on her,” Wood complained. “If you sold wool you wouldn’t have enough money to go out on Saturday nights.”

To get the maximum value for fleece, it has to be cut closely with long strokes so it comes off all in one piece. Shearers start from the back left side, work up to the belly, head and back, and then repeat the procedure on the right side, ending up at the back right leg.

Proper clipping technique means nothing, though, if the shearer can’t pin down a struggling, 130-pound sheep.

“You need to know where to put your legs, how to hold the animal, how to stretch their skin,” Shepherd said. “You concentrate on how to get the wool off later.”

For Horn and most of the country’s sheep farmers, who mainly raise sheep for meat, wool is a secondary commodity. A fleece from most meat breeds weighs about 5 pounds, with the price per pound averaging just under $1, Shepherd said. After paying for the price of shearing, the farmer makes about $3 per animal from the wool.

If the fleece is cut improperly or is too dirty or coarse, he gets even less.

Shorn in Spring

Sheep are shorn late in the spring, after cold weather has passed but before the onset of summer’s high temperatures. Domestic sheep have to be shorn once a year to maintain a high-quality fleece and to rid the animal of accumulated dirt and parasites. And it simply helps them feel more comfortable.

Sometimes, though, their drastic change in appearance is unsettling--especially to their own lambs.

“A lot of them don’t recognize their mothers at first,” Horn said. “They’ll bawl for a while.”

An increasing number of people in Pennsylvania are turning to sheep as a hobby or to supplement their incomes, Shepherd said.

“People like sheep,” she said. “It’s an animal most of us can physically handle without a lot of fuss. They don’t take a whole lot, they just eat grass and a little bit of grain. And they’re nice. They must be--just look at what these students are doing to them.”