Shearing.

It sounded easy but it never is. There's plenty of shouting, swearing and running, usually us after the sheep as they escaped. Then it quickly decends into chaos with each of us, muttering under our breath at the sheep and each other. Since we've had Maggie things have moved more smoothly as one stare from our Border Collie and the sheep became more meek and obedient but since getting a grass seed in her eye the Vet told us Maggie needed a rest and no work! So here we were trying to pen then sheep by ourselves and all this just to have four woolly sheep shorn. The majority of our flock are self shedding Wiltipols and come spring naturally start to fall, however these four older sheep still need a visit from the shearer.  Unlike our neighbours with their shed where they shear their thousand plus sheep,

we move our portable panels into a small field and then decide which would be approach to guide the sheep into the pens and so here we are getting the run-around as sheep go everywhere but where they should! In the end we had to get Maggie and even on a leash it was if by magic the sheep became compliant and walked into the waiting pens. Now although penned we had to divide the sheep without a three way draft which again resulted in more shouting, a lot of dust and man-handling! By the time our shearer arrived it was peaceful and the actual shearering took no time at all.

With real farmers there's a couple of shearers or more, some shed hands and a wool classer and the fleeces are tidied and bagged, however ours are worth nothing so end up on the ground to be dealt with later.

The last job is to divide the ewes into two groups and then send them away with a ram each, as far away as possible from their lambs. Finally the job is finished.