Lessons in sheep shearing

By CAROLYN LUCAS-ZENK

Stephens Media

Onslow looked relaxed and comfortable while lying on his back on a platform Thursday inside Kahua Ranch’s shearing shed.

The 8-year-old Romney ram, weighing more than 200 pounds, looked like he was in sort of a lounge chair-like position with his legs up in the air and his head resting above expert sheep shearer Jim Bristol’s knees. The buzzing of electric clippers, occasional bleating from other woolly sheep, and being spun around didn’t seem to bother him.

Less than two minutes later, Onslow was liberated of 11 pounds of thick gray fleece taken off in one piece without a nick. And, Bristol added yet another to the thousands of sheep he’s shorn over the past 40 years.

Bristol is a founding member of the American Sheep Shearer’s Council and co-owner Bristol Lamb, a 250-ewe commercial sheep farm in West Branch, Mich. He’s active in all aspects of sheep production, but came to North Hawaii to lead a two-day class of 13 new shearers.

At age 10, Bristol started raising sheep as a 4-H member. Four years later, he began shearing sheep, and started his commercial shearing business in 1989. He later married the granddaughter of his first customer.

Today, Bristol is a wool handler and board director for Mid-States Wool Grower’s Cooperative, handling roughly 60,000 pounds of wool annually. His specialty is the New Zealand shearing pattern, which removes fleece in one piece.

The class, which ended Thursday, was organized by the Hawaii Sheep and Goat Association in an attempt to encourage a new generation of sheep shearers and address a long-standing need, said Jan Dean, the association’s president, who owns Hawaiian Homegrown Wool Co. and Maluhia Farm.

There’s a shortage of local sheep shearers who are properly trained and a lack of education opportunities teaching this skill. The association often gets calls from people statewide looking for shearers or wanting to learn how to shear their own flock, Dean said.

Last year, Dean said a hired shearer quit in the middle of shearing her Romney flock, which made things “incredibly difficult” for her small-family farm in Kalopa Mauka. She has also noticed a growing of new and younger farmers interested in increasing the state’s sheep flock.

Lamb and wool prices are at an all-time high, and there’s a lot of confidence in the industry that this will be a long-term trend, making the sheep industry increasingly attractive to farmers. There’s also a robust demand for product, as evident by the military clothing more troops in high-performance washable wool products, Dean said.

The industry is also typically easier and less expensive for farmers to get involved in. The sheep industry has a denser stocking rate when compared with the cattle industry. Sheep have gestation of approximately five months and twin births are most common. While cattle arrive at harvest from 18 to 24 months on average, most lambs are brought to market at about eight to 11 months, Dean said.

Class participants from the Big Island, Oahu, Maui and Kauai learned shearing techniques, the New Zealand shearing pattern, equipment care and set-up, sheep and wool handling, as well as product handling. Kahua Ranch supplied 29 market lambs while four ewe and three rams came from Maluhia Farm, Dean said.

One challenge of shearing is every sheep is different. For instance, Merino sheep carry a heavy, wrinkly hide while Suffolk sheep is a large breed, Bristol said.

Shearing is also physical. Participants Thursday were constantly moving, turning the sheep, flattening skin, working the clippers with long, smooth strokes and trying to keep the sheep calm. There was a sequence of movements for the shearer and the sheep.

“It’s definitely a dance,” Dean said.

It will typically take 1.5 to 2 minutes to shear a sheep and less than 45 strokes. A sheep, weighing 8 to 11 pounds, will generate about 5 pound of fleece, Bristol said.

Anyone can learn to shear a sheep as long as he is willing to listen and practice, he said.

Alpaca was the reason Papaikou resident Ivan Gomez participated. He acquired three alpaca about four months ago and they need shearing. It was a problem Gomez was dreading until he found out about the class.

The first time Gomez attempted to shear Wednesday he was nervous, mostly because he worried about accidentally cutting the sheep and wasting the wool. Plus, the 180-pound sheep weighed more than him. He said the process took him 10 minutes or more.

But by Thursday afternoon, Gomez felt confident and faster. He said he couldn’t wait to share his new knowledge with his three children and make shearing a family tradition.

Email Carolyn Lucas-Zenk at clucas-zenk@westhawaiitoday.com