Getting Ready to Shear Sheep

 Yesterday afternoon the clouds were so pretty and I had sheep on my mind (perhaps due to seeing the sheep in the ranching exhibit a few days ago). I decided we would take a little trip to see if the sheep shearers were getting set up. We found plenty of sheep in the general area, along with their faithful guard dogs. We also found some activity at the sheep-shearing corral. So we got out and headed over to see what was happening.

 They were really nice and let Desert Boy get on the horse. Desert Boy couldn't remember riding a horse (although he did several times when he was younger). He loved it. I think part of the reason he was so excited to be on a horse is that his friend Ava is totally into horses and talks about them all the time.

 Desert Boy was all smiles for his little ride.

 Thanks so much for giving him a ride! That five minutes was so memorable to him.

 After Edwin teased us about if we had come to work or not, he got on his horse and headed out to gather some sheep.

 That gave us time to look around. They were unloading panels and setting them up to make a chute that came from the recently-arrived sheep shearing trailer.

 Here's the chute, where the sheep can be easily counted, vaccinated, and whatever else needs to be done.

 Here's a view of the purple sheep shearing trailer. It has seven doors with ramps leading down into stalls. This is where the sheep go after they're sheared.

 Morgan was a sweetheart and showed us around. This is the inside of the shearing trailer. Above each shearing station is a little motor that operates the cutting blade.

 When Desert Boy found some wool, he came up with all sorts of ideas of what to do with it. He is creative. Maybe not practical, but why not dream big? Or with some of his ideas, small? He was ready to make some doll clothes from this piece of wool. He figured pressing the wool flat would work well.

 Off in the distance we could see the sheep moving this way.

 A couple of boys were on foot helping Edwin move the sheep. Sheep are apparently much easier to herd than cattle.

 It was so much fun watching. But then we weren't just watching. Morgan said we could help move the sheep, so we tried to keep them going towards the corral.

 They plan to shear about 1000 sheep here, and these are the first couple hundred in the corral. They stay the night in the corral as it's easier to shear them when they don't have full bellies. I love the sheep dog's expression in the photo above.

 Some of the sheep were just as curious about us as we were about them.

 Edwin went out to get more sheep, and Desert Girl took the time to admire Morgan's colorful fingernails. She was really impressed with them.

 Desert Boy went and hung out with the older boys for awhile.

 Then he discovered some bones, and from then on, everyone was on bone-finding duty. This is not a task to be taken lightly. We went to the other side of the corral to pick up more bones than I really wanted to take home. But Desert Boy was already planning his next dinosaurs.

 Edwin and the sheep gradually approached, with the storm clouds looming in the background.

 I like how the leading edge of the sheep and the leading edge of the storm nearly intersect.

 We tried again to help get the sheep into the corral, but we weren't the best help around. Some of the sheep tried making a run for it.

 Edwin brought them back around.

 Morgan helped get them moving in the right direction.

They were added to the group, making the inner corral full of sheep. Hopefully the weather will cooperate (wet wool is difficult to shear), and it will be a good couple days of shearing!

Sheep Shearing

 In 2009 I tried to go watch the sheep shearing, but got there just as they were packing up the last of the wool. (Click here to see that post and interesting comments.) This year I did a lot better. We got out to see some of the setup (seen in my last post), and we went back the next day to see the sheep shearers in action.

We got there in the late morning and found that hundreds of sheep had already been sheared.

 The wool sorter was busy taking wool from the shearing trailer and placing it in the appropriate bin.

We found Morgan, our wonderful hostess from the day before, and she led us into the sheep shearing trailer. Desert Boy was a little intimidated at first by all the noise, mostly from the generator and electric motors used to power the clippers.

 The sheep trailer is a bit cramped, with space for seven shearers to wrestle 200-pound animals. The first step is for the shearer to tumble a sheep from the little platform under the curtain and onto the floor.

 Then he starts shearing the belly.

 Next up are the rear legs. The wool is really thick, and it looks a little strange as the big, bulky animal is generally transformed into something much smaller and bonier.

 After the rear quarters are exposed, it's time to start near the ears. During the whole process, the sheep was surprisingly docile. I have a feeling that not all are quite that easy to work with. It must also take a lot of practice to get the sheep into just the right position to shear efficiently and quickly.

 Some of the shearers use harnesses to shear, as bending over all day is really hard on the back. They usually start at 7:30 am, work until about 10, take a 15-minute break and then work till noon. After an hour-long lunch, they work all afternoon with a 15-minute break about 3 and finish around 5:30 pm. That would be a lot of bending and wrestling sheep. With seven shearers, they can shear over 1,000 sheep in a day.

 The wool came really nicely off the back of the sheep. It made me remember a wonderful sheepskin we had at home when I was a kid.

 The shearer is almost done, and you can see the huge pile of wool on the floor. It seemed nearly as big as the sheep!

 Then the shearer opened a little door, directed the sheep in the right direction...

 ...and out went the sheep. The whole process took about three minutes.

Time to clean up! This was the last sheep for this shearer before lunch, so he cleaned his clippers, oiled them, and got tidied up before leaving his work area.

 This sheep shearing outfit is owned by Cliff Hoopes, seen above. He's from Wyoming and shears in several states.

 He stopped and talked to me before heading to lunch. He wanted to know if I was involved with the water effort, referring to the opposition of Southern Nevada pumping thousands of acre-feet of water from the desert in east-central Nevada over two hundred miles south to the Las Vegas area. I said yes. He said he wanted people to know that he was against that pumping. If the water tables drop and the sheep don't have all the food and water they do now, he'll be out of business out here. He currently shears about 45,000 sheep in the area, and he said he's just one of the shearing outfits.

 In addition to the shearers, he also employs folks to operate the wool press. This expensive machine compacts the wool.

 Wool from each bin is pressed.

 It's getting smaller.

Then the bag is closed and marked with a number, the brand (Okleberrys) and the quality of wool.

 Desert Girl had fallen asleep on the way out to the sheep shearers', but Desert Boy was eager to check everything out, and Morgan was so nice to show us around. While she answered Desert Boy's questions, I wandered around a bit, taking some photos.

 I talked to Edwin, who agreed to pose for a photo when he realized that he had taken video of me dancing at the Sheepherders' Party. It must have been a pretty funny video, because he kept laughing as he mentioned it!

 This was the lunch spot for this young man.

 On the way back to the van we passed the empty chute, where the sheep are painted with the brand.

 There was also a branding iron in the fire, but I didn't see any sheep branded. Anyone know which sheep get branded? (Please leave a comment if you do.)

The sheep look really strange after being sheared, in particularly they look so bony! You can find out a little more about shearing from this article in The Prairie Star, written this January about Cliff Hoopes' shearing operation.


Finally, I wanted to end with a photo that really shows what a fenceline can separate:

The unsheared sheep sure don't look too concerned about how they will soon look. With hot weather fast approaching, I bet they don't mind losing their heavy wool coats.

Sheep Camp

November is the month when sheep usually come into our valley for winter grazing. In the old days, it was a rush to bring sheep from more populated areas along the Wasatch Front in Utah out to our isolated valley. There would be one or two sheepherders for each 2,000 sheep. A sheepherder would live out of his wagon, going to a rural store every few weeks to get supplies. Otherwise, it was him, the sheep, his horse, and his dogs. A pretty solitary life.

Today it's still a fairly solitary life for sheepherders. Not many people want to do it, and sheep operators often have to recruit men from other countries to be sheep herders. We see quite a few Peruvians come to this area, spending a year or two watching sheep before they go back to see their families.

Our ranch doesn't raise sheep anymore and hasn't for quite awhile, but we still have this old sheep wagon. The other day I decided to take a peek at it to try to get some insight into what it was like being a sheep herder.

The interior is sort of like an ultra-mini-RV. There's a bed, folding tables, and built in seats with storage space underneath.

One big difference from today's RVs is the presence of this coal/wood burning stove. Because sheep herders are out in these wagons on the desert valleys in the winter, it can get really cold. Sometimes they even get trapped by blizzards for days at a time.

Here's a wider view of the "kitchen/living area" of the sheep wagon. A sheep herder really doesn't have room for a lot of extra stuff.

There are some compartments on the outside of the sheep wagon, like this one for coal. There's a big one under the bed for spare tires, fuel, and other equipment. Often a separate wagon is left next to the sheep wagon carrying hay for the horse.

The wagons are simply built. A back window is a bit of a luxury. There are no shocks on the chassis, so everything has to be well secured before moving the wagon to a new location. Nowadays, the wagon is moved every week or two as the sheep continue moving to graze available forage.

The wagon above is obviously old, and you're probably wondering if sheep herders still live so primitively.

The answer is no. This is a newer sheep wagon. It still has small windows, a small shape, lots of storage compartments, and a wood burning stove. But it also has solar panels.