Sheep Shearing

Sheep Shearer in Colorado, circa 1920 - 1940
photo courtesy of:
Western History/Genealogy Department, Denver Public Library

One of the favorite times we had at the ranch in Haswell was in the summer when it was time to shear the sheep. For weeks the several herds had been working their way towards the ranch in preparation for the shearing. Everything had to work like clockwork when the shearing crew would arrive.

These crews were from Texas, and would consist of about 8 shearers with a trailer that had an engine to run the clippers and about 8 stations, four on each side. The trailer had doors so they could just lower the doors, lock them, and be on their way to the next ranch. With a schedule set up according to how many sheep the ranch had to be sheared, everything had to be ready or they could not arrive at the next ranch at the appointed time.

The herders would have the sheep on the hills where they could get water from the two lakes and still not get mixed up with the other herds. But that was not all that had to be done. Grandma Davis had to have sufficient supplies of food to feed the shearing crew plus the extra hands needed to work the ranch during this time, ad well as the family. It seems there were always visitors to watch the shearing also.

Shearing time was always a good time to cull out sheep that were getting too old to be profitable any more and to locate sickly or others for making up a new herd to be prepared for immediate sale or treatment of some kind.

Sheep chute
photo courtesy of: flickr

The men would run a herd through a long chute coming out of the large barn. Usually it was Grandpa who was telling the man at the gate which way to send the sheep, and he would switch the movable panel to send the sheep to the pen on the right or on the left. When finished sending a herd through the chute, men would put the different groups into smaller corrals according to their condition.

After this was done, the different groups would go to the shearers to give up their wool and then they would be herded off to special pastures by their herders. Those needing additional treatment would be kept back to have more added to their groups as the next herd would be sorted out in like manner.

Sheep shearing - circa 1900

photo courtesy of flickr

Next came the actual shearing. They grab the sheep by the front leg and set him up on his hind quarters and start shearing the belly first. A good shearer will end up with the wool all together as though they had skinned it! When they finish with one sheep, the man who picks up the wools give the shearer a token (like a coin) and he is paid by the number of tokens he turns into the boss when the day is over. So the faster they shear, the more money they make.

When the shearers break for dinner at noon, they consume a great quantity of food, for they work very hard, very fast, and it is very hot down on the plains of eastern Colorado. As kids, we helped some with the meals, but mainly we shared in the eating because we used up a lot of energy playing and working around the shearing pens and helping to get herds into the barn for separating and many odd jobs that had to be done.