Summer busy in the shearing sheds
Once one of the busiest times in the farming calendar
Daylight saving and the long, lazy days of summer are on their way. With this comes a sense of freedom as time marches steadily towards Christmas and family holidays. However, during the 1850s onwards for those living on Hawke’s Bay sheep stations, the summer months heralded one of the busiest times in the farming calendar — the shearing season.
Anticipation of the shearing season began the day the musterers left the homestead block to herd sheep from the station’s furthest boundaries to the homestead paddocks.
A team would set out, each with five to seven working dogs, and once at the musterer’s hut tramp in different directions searching for sheep.
The work was arduous, lonely and depending on the terrain, often dangerous. A packman would load his packhorse with all the necessities required for the group to survive. At the musterer’s hut he was cook and butcher, in charge of killing a few sheep to feed the men and the dogs.
In the ensuing days, all those left behind would listen keenly for the loud cacophony of bleats, strident whistles and barking of dogs,
indicating the return of the men.
Suddenly the welcome sight of a huge flock of sheep moving like an enormous wave would appear over the horizon. The peace that had reigned for so long was shattered and all the familiar sounds and smells of shearing would begin.
This Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust’s photograph captures Elmshill Station shearing shed during the late 1880s-90s. Shearing has possibly come to an end, enabling the group to pose together in their best clothes.
There are various humorous and playful moments in the photograph: a sheep lying on its back wearing a hat; a man holding a handful of playing cards as though in the middle
of a game and four men posed along the front seemingly in the middle of shearing sheep with hand-blades. The photograph exudes warmth and familiarity, the group at ease and enjoying each other’s company after a long day of hard work.
Most of the shearing gang pictured are Mā ori men, women and children. Mā ori shearing was particularly prevalent on the East Coast during the 1880s, with shearing gangs able to contract to the big Hawke’s Bay coastal and inland stations.
For Mā ori, contract rural work enabled them to be employed seasonally in their extended whā nau groups. Shearing, in particular, provided a steady source of income each spring and summer.
In November 1859 when Frederick John Tiffen purchased Elmshill, situated about 17 miles or 27 kilometres from Waipawa, most of the land was swamp. It took many years of hard work to drain the area and turn it into farming land.
The main stock on Elmshill were made up of 11,977 Lincoln-Leicester cross-bred sheep, of which 6000 were ewes. English Leicester rams were also bred on the station and the lambing season averaged an 85 per cent success rate.
Tiffen built a “comfortable dwelling house” which was pleasantly situated on a rise. Below it was the woolshed with 16 shearing stands, several sorting tables and night pens which could accommodate up to 900 sheep. Next to the woolshed were four whares in which farmhands and the shearing gang slept and cooked, stables, and a storage building along with a concrete sheep dip.
Throughout Aotearoa New Zealand shearing sheds had a similar floorplan. One of the earliest descriptions was by Lady Barker who in December 1865 visited a new shearing shed close to Christchurch.
The shed had 25 shearing stands and beside each was a trap door through which the shearer pushed shorn sheep down a ramp into a small outside pen. It was here that the manager would inspect the quality of shearing and count any cuts.
Using hand-blades, the average daily tally of sheep shorn was about 80, whereas a fast shearer could remove 120 fleeces a day.
Lady Barker inspected the wool tables to “which two boys were incessantly bringing armfuls of rolledup fleeces”. These were laid on the tables for the wool sorter to open up and inspect the quality of wool.
From there the fleeces were carried to bins which were constantly emptied and taken to the press.
“Once tumbled in”, a heavy screwpress forced the fleeces down into a bale which was kept “open in a large square frame” until full.
The top of the canvas was then tightly sewn together, then four long iron pins removed so that the sides of the frame fell away disclosing a symmetrical bale.