Lightening Online

I wrote most of this post before we went away for the funeral but didn’t quite get it finished. If you missed my first two posts in this series you can find them at Shearing and More on Shearing. Anyway, my apologies for the delay in getting this posted.

Once upon a time you didn’t only feed the shearers during the day but they stayed on your property overnight. Around here this is less common these days although in station country it still happens (shearing works a bit differently on stations to farms).

Nowadays, even feeding shearers is becoming less common. Some people are making use of contracting shearing teams which will often include a cook as well as shed-hands and a wool-classer. The farmer pays the contractor a flat rat per sheep shorn and the contractor then pays everyone else and deals with things like workcover, tax and superannuation.

We still pay each of our shearers and shed-hands individually and have to deal with the tax etc side of things ourselves. In some areas, even if you do employ your shearers individually they bring their own packed lunch.

Part of our issue here is a shortage of shearers. It’s in your best interests to keep your shearers happy so they’ll continue to come back to your property. When you need to leave home at around 6AM, not having to pack your own lunch is a definite bonus. And as I mentioned yesterday, if you don’t feed them you need to pay them a lunch allowance which is a reasonably substantial amount. So we still feed our shearers.

The Shearing Day

The shearing day is divided up into 4 “runs”. Each run goes for 2 hours. So the day has a set timetable that looks something like this:

7.30 - 9.30 Run 1

9.30 - 10.00am Morning smoko

10.00 - 12.00 Run 2

12.00 - 1.00pm Lunch

1.00 - 3.00pm Run 3

3.00 - 3.30pm Afternoon Tea

3.30 - 5.30pm Run 4

One of the things some Farmer’s Wives find hard is the stringent timetable. When you’re trying to feed babies and work a day around children, it’s not always easy to have food ready by a set time.

Actually, most shearers are pretty laid back. It’s the farmers that can get testy if things aren’t running to schedule. Fortunately for me, Farmboy isn’t like that. And I tend to leave myself plenty of leeway when preparing food to allow for interuptions and delays.

What Do The Shearers Get Fed?

I was thankful that my MIL gave me some kind of guide as to how much food she prepares for shearing. What shearers get fed will vary from shed to shed and how much they eat varies from shearer to shearer (actually it’s often the shed-hands that eat a lot as they don’t have to bend over like the shearers do).

There is some kind of standard when it comes to food. I think it’s 2 biscuits for morning and afternoon tea and a couple of sandwiches for lunch. Something like that anyway. But I don’t know anyone who only provides the “minimum”. I think you’d get grumpy shearers if you did.

The following is basically the guide my mother-in-law gave me. I tend to provide just a little bit more than this (just in case).

Morning Smoko

1 and a half sandwiches per person or equivalent in other savoury items (eg party pies, pizza etc)

2 slices of cake/bun or equivalent in biscuits (I usually double the quantity for biscuits) per person

Tea & Coffee

Morning Smoko is often the first food shearers eat for the day. It’s common for them to skip breakfast so by Morning Smoko they can be a tad hungry.

Lunch

Lunch varies a lot depending on the location of the shed (some are close to a house and some not) and the weather. Things like salad rolls, cold meat & salad, lasagne & salad, quiche & salad, pies & pasties, yumbos (ham, cheese & pineapple melted in a roll) etc.

Dessert is always provided. I mostly keep it light by making it fruit based. Fruit salad, jellied peaches, fruit crumble. Generally with cream as that’s easier to put on the table and allow them to serve themselves than ice cream is. Not all shearers will eat dessert but I always provide it anyway.
Cold cordial and tea & coffee for beverages

Afternoon Tea

3/4 of a sandwich per person or equivalent in other savoury items

1-2 serves cake/bun. I usually do 2 different items but they might be smaller slices or I’ll add something like biscuits as the second item.

My kids LOVE shearing time as I tend to over-cater “just in case” so they enjoy the leftovers. In fact, Leighton was so used to going to the shearing shed only during food times that I’m sure he thought the word “shearing” was synonymous with “eating”.

My biggest fear with catering is not having enough. Often I’ll also do a container of fairly plain biscuits that get used as “extras” for the duration of shearing, just to be sure there is enough food. It’s pretty unusual not to get something come back from the shed but it does sometimes happen, although Farmboy will sometimes confess to having finished off stuff toward the end of the day . He doesn’t eat very large serves of the evening meal during shearing.

Cut Out

During the warmer months we provide cans of soft drink for the end of each day. Many sheds provide beer but we don’t drink it so stick with soft drink. Some shearers will bring their own beer but this is rare.

Cut Out is more commonly referred to when the shed is finished. Some sheds will provide a bbq and “booze up” at the end of shearing for the shearers, shed hands and neighbours. This isn’t a tradition that Farmboys father ever kept so we’ve never really worried. Our shearers seem just as happy to get on home as they are to hang around for a free “booze up”.

Here’s an image of Lamingtons for Maggie:

* image courtesy of www.questacon.edu.au

Lamingtons are well known as “shearers fare”. I’m too lazy to make them myself but will sometimes buy them for shearing. Mostly our shearers get an assortment of cake and bun. Sometimes homemade and sometimes bought depending on how busy things are leading up to shearing.

Footwear for Shearers

Just for Kelley, here is a photo of what most shearers wear while shearing:

* image courtesy of www.austshear.com.au

I don’t think they’re going for “style”. More comfort, non slip and functionality. These are only worn INSIDE the shed. Generally they arrive wearing something else (like thongs with socks *giggle*).

I was going to take a few more photo’s to show you a bit more about our shearing shed. However, I’ve found a few trawling the net that work just as well to give you the idea (and save me having to go up there again - it always stinks for the first few minutes when you’re in there, especially close to shearing time).

SHEARING EQUIPMENT

This image shows a close up of what a shearers handpiece today might look like. There are a number of different brands which vary slightly but the overall idea is the same. The vertical section clips into the shearing plant in the shed and the shearer holds onto it behind the comb on the section shown as horizontal in this image. Most shearers use a “rug” to cover the metal section they hold onto. That makes it more comfortable to hold and also reduces the amount of heat the hand is exposed to (the metal can get rather hot). The “rugs” I’ve seen look a little bit like a stubby holder type fabric.

* image courtesy of www.shearoutback.com.au

This image shows what shearing blades used to look like before sheds were connected to electricity. They’re still used in some places but are not very common anymore.

* image courtesy of www.leaderproducts.com.au

The skill involved in shearing a sheep quickly with a set of these must have been absolutely amazing.

SORTING THE WOOL

In my post yesterday I posted a photo of farmboy and his brother loading wool into the wool press. This is what the bales look like when they come out of the wool press.

* image courtesy of www.woolisbest.com

These are not our bales so the name on them has nothing to do with me (just an image I flogged borrowed used without permission with acknowledgement).

You might be able to see “AAAM” stencilled to the side of the bales (you can click on images for a larger view). This is pronounced “3AM” (just like the time) and is the mainline of wool from that propery (ie what you’ll get most of your money for).

By sorting out the “not so good” stuff from the “good stuff”, you improve the quality of your “mainline” and therefore get paid more cents per kilogram for that.

Heads and bellies - I made the comment in yesterdays post about the wool from the top of the sheep’s head and the belly being kept separate from the rest of the fleece. Both of these sections of the wool are shorter and the under-belly often gets matted and burred. Mainline wool has a minimum length it must be.

Classing wool is quite a complicated task and you are required to be registered and include your classing registration when selling wool. The margin of error allowed is quite small. Not only do you need to keep the pieces that are shorter separate but you’re only allowed a certain percentage of non-wool matter (such as dirt and grass) in with the bale.

Things like fleeces with a break in the wool (caused by illness or some other stress in the sheep as the wool is growing) need to be kept separate and sometimes you’ll get a sheep with a different wool micron (don’t ask me to explain that one!) so that gets separated from the mainline as well.

HOW MUCH DO SHEARERS EARN?

Shearers are paid per sheep they shear rather than an hourly rate. This means that the faster you shear, the more you earn.

The current rate we pay a shearer per sheep is $2.50

Now a learner shearer “officially” gets off their “L-plates” at 100 sheep in a day. So you could say the “base rate” for a shearer is around $250 per day.

An “average” shearer is likely to fall in the 125-200 sheep per day so around $300-$500 a day.

A “good” shearer can shear 200+ per day (some will get up around 250-300 but there are a lot of factors that will determine how fast the sheep are shorn). So anywhere from $500 - $600+ in a day.

Sounds alright doesn’t it? Bear in mind that this is a “before tax” rate AND shearers don’t always get paid superannuation (it depends how much they earn in a particular shed as under a certain figure in a month employers don’t *have* to pay superannuation). You also don’t get paid holidays, sick leave or public holidays. And most shearers shear for a maximum of 6-months of the year (picking up other seasonal type work in between).

Most shearers leave home around 6-6.30AM and get home around 6-6.30PM and then have to spend around an hour grinding their cutting gear ready for the next day. It’s certainly not a job for the faint hearted.

Next Instalment (if you’re not all totally bored already?): Feeding the Shearers

I snuck up to the shearing shed this morning and snapped a few pics for you to see.

Here is a close up of one of our shearers shearing a sheep. Don’t worry, it’s just like a haircut and doesn’t hurt.

Our shearing shed is what is known as a “two stand” shearing shed. That means that we are set up to accommodate two shearers at any one time. At the top of the picture you’ll see two red (ish) coloured motors. They are what is called “shearing plant”. Shearers bring their own handpiece which clips into the shearing plant. Everything is mechanised these days (ie the handpiece runs on electricity).

Many shearers choose to use a “back-aid”. That’s the sling like thing you can see them wearing around their middle. It looks a little bit like a jolly jumper in that it has a kind of spring that allows movement but at the same time gives the body some support and can avoid back injury and strain. It’s quite an art to hold onto the sheep you’re about to shear and get yourself into that sling. Most shearers will shear around 15-25 sheep per hour so it’s quite a lot of times to get in and out of the sling.

Once the entire fleece has been removed from the sheep, one of the shed-hands will pick it up and throw it onto a table (of sorts - it’s a special table designed for shearing sheds).

The wool industry is quite picky about quality. Around the edges of the fleece are bits of wool that are matted and may have prickles and sheep dung attached. The shed-hand “skirts the fleece” by going around and pulling all of those pieces away from the main fleece.

The wool from the top of the sheeps head and it’s belly are also kept separate. They come away as separate pieces and are usually picked up by the shed-hands before the main fleece has been shorn.

Once the fleece has been skirted, it goes into a bale. Once upon a time (and we still have a wool press that is pressed by hand) all baling was done by hand. Now we use an electric wool press. It helps to pack the wool down tight and also gives an approximate weight for the bale. There is a maximum weight that bales are allowed to be.

When the bale is full, it gets closed off with special pins and then marked using a stencil that indicates which shed the bale has come from (we have to be registered) and what type of bale it is (there are different codes for different types of wool).

I ran out of space on my small memory card so I might take some other photo’s later (need to go into town soon) and perhaps do a follow up post to this tomorrow. If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I’ll attempt to answer them as part of that post.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like to read More on Shearing.   

I think one of the greatest benefits I’ve discovered from being “out of action” has been Farmboys increasing appreciation for what I do as a stay at home mum. It’s not that he wasn’t appreciative before. It’s just that now he REALLY UNDERSTANDS what I do all day.

For instance, he used to get up and go to work by around 6am. Naturally I would get the kids organised and off to school for the day. At the moment that’s his job. And he can’t believe how much LESS he gets done at work these days. Not just because he leaves for work 2 hours later. But because he is so TIRED after the effort of getting the kids ready in the morning. His comment to me went something like “I’m amazed you have the energy to get ANYTHING done in a day after getting the kids ready for school”. I smile and nod and refrain from pointing out that most of the time I’ve been doing it I’ve also had to breastfeed a baby during that time.

Today we started shearing. Shearing has tended to be an ongoing saga in this family. At least until Farmboy took over running some of the sheds. He seems to have more success with getting shearers when he wants them than his dad ever has (it’s a long story).

Usually I cook for the shearers. It’s kind of expected around here. A long-term tradition. You don’t *have* to cook for the shearers. You can pay them a fee to bring their own lunch. BUT, shearer’s tend to get grumpy if they have to bring their own lunch so if you want to keep the shearers happy, you feed them. And you feed them well.

For the past couple of years, Farmboy has had to organise his own shearing food for the shearers. I just haven’t been up to the planning, shopping, preparation and execution of this task since my breakdown.

In fact, one of my biggest fears with marrying a farmer was the very thought of having to cook for shearing. At 19 years of age I had NO IDEA if that was something I would be able to manage. I really had NO IDEA if I could even COOK!!!!

(Inspired by Pioneer Woman’s Black Heels to Tractor Wheels story, I have been contemplating writing a series of my own about how Farmboy and I met and ended up together. My writing style isn’t quite as eloquent as hers though).

Anyway, away from shearing and back to the topic at hand - appreciation. Farmboy came in this morning and said to me “remind me to put you on the shearing payroll when you get back on your feet. This shearing cooking is a full-time job”. LOL. You think?

Usually I bake leading up to shearing.  He’s bought all ready made stuff. Often for lunch they’ll get something homecooked.  Farmboy bought chickens and a ready-made lasagne. Often I’ve had to travel to take the food to the shearers. He’s cooking for the shed right here. Yeah, cooking and preparing food for shearing is pretty much a full-time job for the duration.

Anyway, the point of this post wasn’t to complain. I have to admit cooking for shearing isn’t my favourite job as a farmers wife but thankfully I have discovered I do have the ability to do it (normally) and it’s not that bad. Of course, it’s still nice to be appreciated.

I wonder if he really WILL add me to the payroll……..????? Unlikely.  It’s the thought that counts.  Right?  RIGHT?