Its Sheering Sheep time!

Baa Baa Black Sheep have you any wool?  Yes sir, yes sir, 25 bags full!

Sunday morning the sheering crew showed up to the Hollenbeck Ranch in Molt, Montana and it was quite the experience.  I'll show you the step by step process of how the situation goes down.... or at least from my view point, which could be entirely wrong.

Step 1: Tell the sheep they are very pretty, but they are about to get a woolcut (haircut/woolcut).

all the paint marks mean something

Step 2: Politely ask sheep to move through gates aka, start poking them until they move the direction you want them to go.

Step 3: Push Sheep up ramp into trailer to their inevitable death uncomfortable sheering adventure.

Step 4: Cheer from the sidelines as sheep get shorn? Shore? Sheered? whatever, their wool gets taken off by a group of 5-6 guys (one girl was in there for a few head, GO GIRL).  These guys are QUICK, 3 were from Montana, and 2 are from Australia, one of whom I referred to as Michael Jordan of  Sheep Sheering. 

inside of the sheep sheering trailer

Here is a 10 second clip video:

Step 5: Once the wool is taken off they push the sheep out of those little windows behind them.  This is where the sheep thinks "what the eff just happened in there?"  I'm assuming it would feel like a bender in Vegas when you wake up in the bathtub with a clown costume on (not that I am speaking from experience).

I'M FREE!!!

Step 6: Where does the wool go?  On the opposite side of the trailer are two girls sorting the wool.  They make different piles depending on the quality of the wool.  They also sort off the belly wool since it get sold separately.

Step 7: the girls would put the wool in that trailer thing-a-majigger and pull a lever and then the trailer would compress the wool into a large sack.  For those of you wondering, no I did not get inside.  Safety first.

yes, those are purple coveralls, jealous?

 Step 8: Take a 15 minute break.  As you can imagine sheering a few hundred sheep a day would do a number of your back, legs, arms, neck, etc. so every couple hours the crew would take a break.  This was when I would go play with Freckles (shhhhhh...it was on "break")

Step 9: While Steps 1-7 are taking place its time for Gilmer to paint brand all the freshly shorn/sheered/shore ewes.  I attempted to help however hearing how many he got done today by himself I realized I seriously slowed him down.  (Noted: Don't get in Gilmer's way)

Get your mind out of the gutter Lesa, that is a Bell shape!  

Step 10: Feed the crew multiple times a day.  I was on food duty.  Remember that blog post about being uncoordinated?  Yeah, well it happened again.  I was taking out a full plate of muffins and when I tried to balance it while opening two latches on a gate shit went down.  I almost cried, it was so sad.  But guess what?  God made dirt and dirt don't hurt!  Right?  No one complained if their muffins tasted a little dirty...but its not like they could tell with where their hands had been all day.  Right?  Right?  

I'm just waiting for this to happen to me...

Step 11: Go to bed at 8pm because after a day of sheering over 1,000 ewes you are a wee bit tired.

And I leave you with this gem from youtube, although its labeled a goat, its clearly a sheep.