Overview
Wool became important to our economy in the nineteenth century, with the development of sheep farming and the rise of big estates.
Today, there are around 25,000 farms in New Zealand, with about 48 million sheep spread across them. Most of these sheep need their wool removed regularly, by shearing.
There was a time when all sheep were shorn by hand, but today shears are mostly mechanised. This has speeded up shearing, but hasn’t meant shearers have to be any less skilled. And for a few of them, hand shears still have advantages. For example they don’t shave the sheep completely naked. Instead, the animals are still left with a very fine coating of wool, which is helpful in cold climates.
Shearers and shearing etiquette have become a distinctive feature of New Zealand farming culture. Competitions have sprung up to test the speed and skill of shearers, as well as wool-handlers. The most well known is Golden Shears.
On most farms, the shearing season is a busy time. Until recently, shearing always took place in summer, usually in November and December. Nowadays, a farmer might choose almost any month to shear in, except perhaps for August or September – lambing time.
Many farmers now shear their flocks twice yearly. This helps even out the farm's flow of income. Also, the wool is cleaner and shorter if it has only been on the sheep six months. There’s a big demand for shorter wool, and a full year's growth in some breeds is too long to go easily through carding machinery.
Most sheepfarms have a woolshed, a building specially designed for shearing. The shed is classified according to the number of shearing machines installed. There are two-stand sheds, three-stand sheds, and so on. Most woolsheds have room to hold many sheep overnight, keeping them dry and clean so they can be shorn easily the next day. There's usually also space in the shed for shorn fleece to be handled and pressed into bales with a wool press.
The shearing day starts early. In his classic book Wool Away, Godfrey Bowen, a world-renowned New Zealand shearer suggested the following daily timetable:
Work 5.30 a.m. to 7.00 a.m., then take a one-hour break for breakfast.
Work 8.00 a.m. to 9.45 a.m., then take a half-hour break.
Work 10.15 a.m. to 12.00 noon, then take a fifty-minute break.
Work 12.50 p.m. to 2.35 p.m., then take a half-hour break.
Work 3.00 p.m. to 4.50 p.m., then take a ten-minute break.
And finally, work 5.00 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.
However, he pointed out that local climate and other factors have to be considered.
Contract shearing gangs operate throughout New Zealand, offering large farms a comprehensive service. However, smaller farms normally don’t use a gang. Instead, they hire one or two shearers and rely on extra help from family or friends.
Text originally published in Tai Awatea, Te Papa's onfloor multimedia database (1998).