The girls had seen a different game plan to me when it came to pen choice for awaiting the shearer.
While the barn yard was not ideal, we worked to minimise the sneaky-sheep nooks and crannies available and apologised in advance for any undignified games of chasing. Nathan and Allan weren’t phased in the slightest and got on with the job like the professionals they are.
Twenty minutes later, the flock was waiting impatiently at the gate to be reacquainted with their lambs who were all a tiny bit frightened by their mother’s panicked demeanours.
Chaos ensued as lambs and mothers hustled and bustled, seeking each other out and then – peace. Business as usual…
until next year.
Union Homestead 
What a traumatic time for the sheep and lambs! It must feel wonderful to be free of that heavy fleece but spring weather is so changeable and often heavy rain or frosts make me so sorry for our local naked sheep.
I do a lot of hand wringing over it but they seem to cope way better with it being cooler than those hot, blustery days we get at this time of year. Fingers crossed we’ve seen our last frost of the year
Oh, my! Quite a process.
The hardest bit is penning them up and, in the past, things have become very fraught and undignified. We are getting much better at herding, encouraging, and going with the flow.
Practice makes perfect, they say.
And it’s very true! Mainly practice tells you to quit while you’re ahead.
I am guessing the lambs took no notice of their mothers’ new trim look. What happens to the fleece?
Not in the slightest. This time the shearer got all the wool. Sometimes I keep a fleece but this time, much to their puzzlement, I just wanted the dags. Storage gets to be a problem and none of our flock really have fleeces worth anything close to the effort it is takes to sell them