Back in late October I had finally managed to secure a local shearer for my flock of English Leicesters. We agreed roughly on mid November weather permitting. “Call me in a couple of weeks” he said …

Then the rain stopped and the weather warmed up. Things dried out and everyone (and their sheep dog) was after shearers. I called, sent txt messages, left voice mail every few days with no reply. Then early on a Friday afternoon at the start of December I finally managed to catch him on the phone. “I can do them tomorrow …”

Ok, there goes my afternoon …

Sheep shearing, like alpaca shearing, requires some organisation. Animals are best penned under cover overnight and kept off food and water so they are more comfortable being handled (imagine doing a fun run or a gym class on a full stomach and bladder …) and dry for easier and safer shearing.

Friday afternoon: We use one of our alpaca sheds to pen the sheep, so the floor has to be raked, excess straw (think VM) removed, sheep panels put up with separate pens for the rams and their wether companions, and a separate pen for the ewes and their lambs. And the alpaca (girls) have to be shut out of the shed paddock and restricted access only to the larger southern shed.

Getting the ewes (and lambs) in was pretty easy – just leave the top gate open. Only had to chase one ewe and a lamb who’d decided to chill in the shade under the mulberry trees. Penning was a little more challenging but we won that round too.

With the ewes (and lambs) secured, the pens were re-jigged for the first of the rams and wethers. Each group had their own pen, with solid sheep panels between. I’d fixed shade-cloth on the dividing panels to try to reduce eye contact and ram head-butting behaviour, but rams will be rams.

The plan: one group – George and Lamb Chops (AKA “Mildred”) will have the far end pen. George is the biggest head butting dork we have. The middle pen will house V2, my biggest and sweetest ram, and his companion Zombie. The pen closest to the ewes with ply panels as a visual barrier intended for my black/brown/grey coloured English Leicesters Lordie, Mattie and Buddie.

Just to make things more interesting we also had two alpacas that needed moving – a 12 month old weanling boy, Cedrick, who’d been living in a paddock close to his mom and the girls, and his bad tempered buddy Reaver who’d been confined to the transit lane for beating up on Cedrick. BUT … We needed that transit lane to move the sheep. It took a little duck shoving and planning but in the end it all worked.

Moving the rams and wethers proved pretty straight forward  requiring only a little re-setting of gates down the transit lanes.

By the end of the day alpacas and sheep were all where we wanted them. Nothing more to do except hope the rams don’t get too violent overnight and everyone is still there in the morning.

Saturday morning: And they were. George had tried (without success) to get at V2 judging by the pens all being pushed nearly a foot in that direction – note to self: put in a stronger anchor for the end panels for next time!

The three lambs that were penned in with their moms overnight were all pulled out, given their booster shots (which were due) and released into the top paddock before the shearer arrived. Then it was just work though the pens – sheep in, shorn, sheep out. Spit, rinse, repeat.

Ewes out the front; coloured ram and wethers out the back; George and “Mildred” back out the transit lane to their old paddock; V2 and Zombie out the transit lane to their new paddock.

All done and dusted by lunch time … except for Blue Juice, our dorper cross wether, who decided he was too old and wiley to fall for this malarkey and refused to be penned. You’ll wait mate, there’s always next year and we have a plan …

Blue Juice (and friend).

Side note:
When we moved the weanling alpaca boy Cedrick he was put into a paddock beside our “retirement” paddock, where our most elderly retired herd sire and his charge – Ghillie the village idiot who can’t be trusted in the big boys herd – lived. Cedrick was too young and small to put in general circulation with the older boys. It was intended that he would stay close to the other alpacas but keep a safe distance from everyone until he grew some more.

This worked well for a couple of days. He seemed happy sharing a fence line with the two older boys and they did not seem to mind him being there. Then on the morning of the third day we found him *in* the retired boys paddock! The little bugger had crawled out under a fence panel and into the adjoining paddock. We found him quietly grazing with the other two boys like he belonged there.

Reaver was returned to the main boys herd a few days later after a short isolatio/re-introduction.

Now the fun starts – scouring the fleeces! Now that’s worthy of an article all by itself, especially as the lateness of shearing meant the mulberries were ripe and falling … onto the backs of the ewes grazing on the low leaves!