Sheep shearer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A sheep shearer is a worker who uses (hand-powered)-blade or machine shears to remove the wool from sheep.
In most countries with large sheep populations the shearer is one of a team of contractors that go from place to place shearing sheep and preparing the wool for marketing. The shearer collects the sheep from a holding pen, arranges it on the cutting floor and operates the shearing hand-piece. The wool is removed by following an efficient set of movements. In the case of powered shears the movements were largely devised by Godfrey Bowen (the Bowen Technique).
Gun shearers are highly-talented professional shearers who can shear more than 200 sheep per day, using powered shears, day after day. Herds of 4000 or more can only be shorn by large teams of fast or "gun" shearers working 9-hour days. Gun shearers using hand-operated shears can achieve much lower numbers, about 50 to 70 a day.
In competition sports shearers, using both types of hand-pieces, can achieve short-term rates that are 3 to 5 times greater than for day shearers.
