Students See Exhibition of Shear Artistry

Talk about a close shave. Two sheep-shearing pros showed hundreds of schoolchildren Tuesday how the deed is done during the Santa Ana Zoo’s annual sheepshearing festival.

Children from throughout Orange County and beyond sat on the lawn and watched as a handful of sheep were brought onto a temporary stage and shaved bare with electric razors in the span of a couple minutes.

The sheep stood calmly on stage for the procedure.

Like many children, Autumn Thomas of Sierra Vista Elementary School in Placentia enjoyed the demonstration and thought she might like to try her hand at sheepshearing.

“I would want to try it,” she said, “but with a smaller shear.”

Once they had been shorn, the sheep looked like small horses without hair, Autumn said.

The wool from a sheared sheep might average 10 pounds and sell for 85 cents a pound, said Don Paulson, one of the shearers.

Tuesday was the zoo’s 14th annual festival, which allowed the children to learn about the art of sheepshearing from Paulson and another Pomona-based shearer. (Traditional blade shears similar to scissors are still used, the experts said, but only when it is necessary to leave a thin coat of wool on the animals for warmth.)

In addition to watching sheep be sheared, children could touch the animals before and after the trims. Booths also were set up nearby to show how raw wool is converted into yarn, and how products such as socks can be produced.