Shearing

SHEEP GROW wool and they continue to grow wool at the same rate, even if they have enough to keep them warm. Unless you're willing to learn to shear them yourself – a highly skilled job which takes a lot of practice to do well – you'll need to find and pay a shearer to cut it off twice a year. If you live in an area where there are many lifestyle blocks with sheep, there may be someone local who makes a business of tending to small flocks of sheep.

If there is no such service available, visit your neighbours who have sheep and ask them for help. It’s possible you can arrange to coordinate a shearing time with them and their shearer, which makes it more economic. It might mean you need to transport your sheep in a trailer to their property nearby so the shearer only has to set up his gear once.

Sheep with long wool may often have lice, usually a problem you’ll see in late winter. They will rub against trees, gates and fences to try and scratch, which causes their wool to break – it will look rough and won’t sit neatly. If you shear a lousy sheep, it will spend the first half hour after shearing scratching itself against anything it can find, since the long wool is no longer preventing good contact with its skin. Lice and ticks don't bother shorn sheep nearly as much as they do sheep in full wool.