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A Texas sheep shearer
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An
Art and a Skill
Cutting
or shaving the wool off of a sheep is called shearing.
Shearing doesn't hurt a sheep. It's just like getting a haircut.
However, shearing requires skill so that sheep are shorn efficiently
and quickly without cuts or injury to the sheep or shearer.
Most sheep are sheared with electric shears or shearing machines.
Some sheep are sheared manually with scissors or hand blades.
While some
farmers shear their own sheep, many hire professional sheep
shearers.
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World
Records
A
professional shearer can shear a sheep in less than 2 minutes
and will remove the fleece in one piece. The
world record for shearing sheep is 839 lambs in 9 hours by Rodney
Sutton of New Zealand (2000) and 720 ewes in 9 hours by Darin
Forde of New Zealand (1997). The most sheep shorn in an 8 hour
period manually using hand blades is 50 by Janos Marton of Hungary
(2003)
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Shearing Crew in Texas
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A
Yearly Haircut
Sheep
are usually sheared once per year, usually in the spring before
the onset of warm weather. Sheep with long fleeces are sometimes
sheared twice a year. Some lambs are sheared to make them more
comfortable during the summer. Many ewes are sheared before they
lamb, because it results in a cleaner environment for baby lambs.
Shearing before lambing keeps the fleeces cleaner.
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Sheep
Shearing in Kazakhstan
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High-Tech
Wool Removal
Because
sheep shearing is so labor-intensive, other technologies are being
developed for more efficient wool removal. Australian scientists
created a chemical method of shearing called "bio-clip."
With bio-clip, sheep are injected with a natural protein that
causes the wool follicle to break and the fleece
to drop off on its own. Scientists have developed a shearing table
so the shearer doesn't have to hold the sheep. They have also
developed a robot for shearing sheep.
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Robotic Sheep Shearing
Photo Source: University of Western Australia
Click
HERE
to learn more
about robotic sheep shearing.
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Freshly shorn sheep in Switzerland
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Shorn
Sheep
Freshly
shorn sheep need protection from the elements. This is because
it takes up to six weeks for the fleece to regrow sufficiently
to provide effective insulation. Sheared sheep also require more
food to maintain their body temperature during the winter.
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A sheep that has not been
sheared for a few years
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Timely
Sheep Shearing
Sheep
grow wool continuously. If they are not sheared at least once
per year they can become very uncomfortable and stressed, especially
when it is hot and humid. The wool will become matted and more
difficult to shear if it is not removed in a timely basis.
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Wool x Hair Lamb
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No
Wool - No Shearing - No Problem
Hair
sheep do not need shearing because they lack wool or their coats
are naturally shed; however, crosses between hair sheep and
wool sheep need to be sheared. The fleeces from hair x wool
crosses are not very desirable since they contain a mixture
of hair and wool fibers. They are usually discarded. It takes
anywhere from 1 to 3 generations of crossing
(and keeping back and breeding the female offspring) to eliminate
the need for shearing in a flock of traditional wooled sheep.
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.
. New Words . .
Shear
- to cut the wool off of a sheep.
Fleece - the wool of a sheep or similar
animal.
Follicle
- the skin structure from which hair or wool fiber grows.
Crossing
- the act of mixing different species or varieties of animals
or plants and thus to produce hybrids.
Generation
- each succeeding stage in reproduction from the original
copy.
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