I had noticed that my sheep were starting to look like bath mats from behind….<\/p>\n
….but I didn’t notice it until I was quickly feeding the animals before dropping Pretty off at volleyball, picking up Big from lacrosse, getting Middle into his baseball uniform before The Other Half got home from work and rushed him to his game, taking Little to soccer, and frantically calling my parents to let them know which child had been left stranded where and needed to be rescued and carried on to the next activity.\u00a0 So there wasn’t much I could do about it at the time.<\/p>\n I was determined to shear my sheep myself.\u00a0 I learned shearing from an experienced shearer.\u00a0 I knew about positions and unzipping the wool and first and second cuts.\u00a0 I knew about clippers and blades and cuts and grazes.\u00a0 I also knew I wasn’t going to buy an expensive pair of clippers.\u00a0 And I knew that I wanted to try shearing without the motor and the noise and the danger of the clippers taking off huge chunks of skin (my skin or the sheep’s skin).\u00a0 So I borrowed a pair of hand shears and reviewed some shearing sites.<\/p>\n While I was reviewing the sites and their accompanying photos, I remembered how much my back hated the proper positions of sheep shearing.\u00a0 Plus, I remembered how similar the positioning of the sheep was to wrestling with the sheep.\u00a0 Also, I remembered that shearing is best with an assistant to help:<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0 Wrestle<\/span> Herd the sheep into a containment pen.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0 Wrestle<\/span> Position the sheep during shearing.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0 Keep the tarp\/sheet\/plywood in place that is protecting the fleece from the dirty barn floor.\u00a0 That’s because the tarp\/sheet\/plywood is sure to get knocked out of place during the wrestling<\/span> positioning of the sheep.<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0 Toss the soiled bits of wool (i.e those soaked or encrusted with urine, poop, or disgusting unidentified debris) off the tarp\/sheet\/plywood so that it doesn’t get mixed with the good, clean fleece during the wrestling<\/span> positioning of the sheep.<\/p>\n With The Other Half at work and the children still in school, waiting for an assistant was likely to push the 2014 shearing into 2015.\u00a0 So I did what any dairy goat farmer who happens to incidentally own sheep would do.\u00a0 I put those woolies on the milk stand.<\/p>\n There is a special relationship between a dairy goat farmer and her milk stand.\u00a0 The milk stand is a sacred tool for a dairy goat farmer.\u00a0 It is for milking, trimming hooves, giving shots, applying DE, and, occasionally, holding a doe still for breeding.\u00a0 Or around here, a step stool for the little bucks to reach the big does during breeding.\u00a0 It is for sitting on, keeping tools arranged on while working on a barn task, and stacking buckets or supplies when not in use.\u00a0 It is the ultimate jungle gym for goat kids during kidding season.\u00a0 It is even a roost for the annoying Silkie pair that insists on sleeping (and pooping) on it every night, regardless of how I try to block off their access.\u00a0 A dairy barn just isn’t a dairy barn without a milk stand.<\/p>\n And if what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, then what’s good for the goat is good for the sheep.\u00a0 Probably.\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 Eh.<\/p>\n I started with Isaac and Simon.<\/p>\n Since they were raised here as bottle fed lambs they are extremely gullible.\u00a0 They don’t know that sheep are normally skittish and standoffish.\u00a0 They think normal means a chin rub every morning and wagging your tail when you get a good chest scratch.\u00a0 They assume other sheep ride in the back of the truck, follow the farmer back into the barnyard after the goats lead everyone out during an escape, and wait patiently outside the garden for the weeds to be thrown over the fence.\u00a0 They don’t even mind a horn trim with the tree clippers.<\/p>\n Suckers.<\/p>\n Sure enough, all it took was handful of hay to convince them to climb onto the\u00a0 milk stand.<\/p>\n Suckers.<\/p>\n Then I just picked up my borrowed shears….<\/p>\n had a seat on the 5 gallon bucket<\/span> milk stool, started at the bottom of the sheep’s belly….<\/p>\n and worked my way right over the top.<\/p>\n Getting started was a bit sketchy.\u00a0 Differentiating between the muck that needed to be clipped off from the genitalia that was best left in place was kind of tricky from the milk stool position.\u00a0 But once I arrived at the top of the sheep’s back, I was in standing position and the weight of the wool pulled the fibers quite tight and away from the skin for easy shearing.<\/p>\n Oh, to be sure, it was a study in second cuts.<\/p>\n And some received a more bizare hack job than others.\u00a0 For no known reason.\u00a0 I felt like I was shearing Samantha the same as everyone else.\u00a0 But apparently my subconscious was thinking, “Wouldn’t zig zag look nice for spring?”<\/p>\n In spite of everything, the sheep looked quite majestic as they shed that winter wool.<\/p>\n Plus, each fleece came off in a single, complete, hangable, washable, baggable piece.<\/p>\n The only injuries were to the thumb I used for blocking the shears when working around thick mats or sensitive areas.\u00a0 By keeping my thumb just in front of the blade when I couldn’t see clear to the skin, I ensured it didn’t go down into the flesh but stayed close to the surface.<\/p>\n There’s an obvious market for sheep shearing thimbles.\u00a0 Among dairy goat farmers.\u00a0 Who shear their sheep on the milk stand.\u00a0 Why am I always part of the overlooked niches in farming?\u00a0 Is it me?\u00a0 Really??<\/p>\n Anyway, the sheep might have looked goofy with their home haircuts….<\/p>\n but they were nice and cool for summer.<\/p>\n Besides, we’ve had worse DIY hairstyles around here.<\/p>\n And Little’s mohawk was leading him to a goal-scoring soccer season.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/bath-mats.jpg\" "\\"bath")
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