Sheep Shearing 101

Sheep shearing is a team effort. To minimize stress on the animal, it is important to shear quickly, but with thin skin, going too fast can draw blood from the smallest nick.

What I most loved about WRR was the variety of animals. I don’t mean the diversity found in a zoo setting–African savannah or Arctic exhibits, for example–but rather the categories of animals. I grouped the critters under one of four labels: companion animals, native wildlife, exotics or livestock. Each type requires specific protocol for handling, rearing and maintenance. Livestock upkeep involves annual sheep shearing, and equine hoof trimming is being introduced at WRR as well. During the course of an internship, it is important to be assertive, especially in the zoological world. I’ve been performing manual labor for free (zero, zip, nada), so to make sure I learned the absolute most from my time at WRR, I weaseled my way into helping with the livestock.

Sheep shearing is as hard core as it gets. The process takes a great amount of focus, commitment, teamwork, communication and muscle. You might be thinking, Baaaah, they’re just grass-eating fluff balls on peg legs. How hard can it be to shear one? Allow me to paint the picture in more detail.

First, all the sheep must be corralled from one pasture into a smaller penned-in area called a lock out. That’s actually the easy part because the sheep tend to follow the food. If you shake a bucket of feed, they’ll more than likely go right where you want them. The hard part is the one-on-one. Minimally–excluding sheep shearing experts–the sheep wrangling takes two people. Sheep must never be looked at straight on because they view this as a challenge associated with predators. As animals of prey, they flee. Honing in on one sheep agreed on by the wranglers, no individual in particular, both people side waddle toward the animal, arms stretched wide. Essentially, this creates a wrestling arena that gets increasingly smaller in size.

We sheared llama, too! They are perhaps even less cooperative than their sheep brothers.

When one of the wranglers senses good timing, he or she initiates the contact. Basically, the wrangler dives right in and either grabs the horns or clenches a tuft of fleece. The sheep will buck and jump and thrash and kick, so it is important to be aligned out of harm’s way. Once the sheep has been grasped, he is pulled toward the shearing station. A strong grip must be maintained because the sheep will fight the entire time. If the wrangler loses hold, the sheep becomes so skittish that catching him again in the same day is unlikely.

At the shearing station, the wranglers flip the sheep onto his back by squeezing the legs together and turning him over. Someone comes in with the shears while the sheep is pinned to the ground. Getting the job done as fast as possible minimizes stress on the animal. However, sheep skin is thin and can be sliced almost effortlessly with the blade. While the shearer wants to move quickly, he or she has to keep in mind how much pressure is being put on the blade. If a sheep does get cut, spraying a liquid wound sealer helps minimize blood loss. The metallic silver shine of the spray gives the sheep a hip look, too.

Just like shaving a beard, the blade is a particular width relative to the thickness of the sheep’s coat. The amount of wool that falls off of one sheep would make enough toupees for ten bald men. At WRR, we used the wool as enrichment and bedding. Non-profits make a rule out of the triumvirate idiom “reduce, reuse, recycle.” (Innovation cuts down on finances.)

We discovered a colony of maggots inside the necrotic horn of a male sheep during his shearing. No matter how much we flushed out the area, the wrigglers continued to appear. The odor given off by this dying, infested tissue was even more unbearable than the trailer skunk smell. I think I reached a personal record for time to hold my breath. I didn’t think my job could get more intense than being dragged around on the dirt by an angry sheep, but when you add in the maggots, I think it does.

All the wool was kept as enrichment for the animals. Some make beds with it while others simply throw it around their enclosure.

Hoof trimming on horses, mules and donkeys can be particularly challenging the first time around. Equine hooves are really just giant toe nails. Eating a diet too rich in protein can cause the nails to grow exponentially fast. Hooves can also grow too fast if a horse is given too much water after overheating. Without a rough surface to naturally file the hooves down, caretakers have to manually trim them. All of our equines were rescued from neglectful circumstances in which their hooves foundered. This means they were overgrown to the point that they curled at the tips. The quick in a hoof, or the supply of blood vessels, lengthens during foundering thereby increasing blood flow. Consequently, the hoof becomes hot to the touch. Foundering, also called laminitis, is incredibly painful and, unfortunately, irreversible. But the damage can be lessened if caught in the beginning phases and by continued treatment. Otherwise, the hoof bone can rotate and puncture through the hoof, in which case, due to intense suffering, the animal is humanely euthanized.

In order to make the hoof trimming process run more smoothly, and in the interest of both the animals and caretakers, we implemented tactile training sessions to get the animals accustomed to our touch. Half of our equines feared humans, a result of their abusive past. We needed to earn their trust and gain their comfort in this medical situation. Some days, walking into the pasture with a bowl of carrots and apples, the equines still were not interested in me. To prevent them from regressing, back-pedaling from the progress we’d made up to that point, I would have to postpone the session to another day. Training takes a great deal of patience, which I sometimes don’t have but thankfully am learning to build.

The “Special” Pasture

Emus, rheas and ostriches are from the same avian family but are found in different regions of the world. A family of emus and one rhea found refuge at WRR.

Of the exotic animals I worked with in Texas, the mischievous, annoying emus were a definite favorite.   Emus and rheas are similar to ostriches, all large flightless birds with long necks.  Their coloring differs as does their place of origin, emus hailing from Australia and New Zealand, rheas from South America and ostriches from Africa.  Though I found the one rhea on property more beautifully plumaged than the emus, the bird’s elusive nature kept me from having any close encounters.  But in an avian beauty pageant, emus would come in a close second.  As they mature, the iridescent black along their necks pewters out to just their heads, leaving their soft, finely-bristled body feathers a light speckled brown.

Six emus roamed inside one of the pastures, the enclosure dually dubbed the “Special Pasture” and the “Land of Misfits.”  Co-habitants of this field included my three amigos, Rocky the sheep with paralyzed rear legs, and the kid goats Zeus and Dash, both a little off their rockers in goat standards.  Long Horn, the extremely skinny yet surprisingly well-nourished Texas Longhorn with a non-descript name, roamed among the goats, pigs, sheep and emus.  Mr. Tumnus the goat could easily be mistaken for a sheep or a sheep dog, his eyes often undetectable under a layer of woven hair.

Though not as plentiful as sheep, a handful of cows called WRR their home, including a friendly Texas longhorn.

Also inside the gate were two pigs with uncontrollable metabolisms, leaving their chins sagging so low I feared the day they tripped over their chin fat.  Like Rocky, Puddin’ the goat was amazing to watch as she moved around.  She was from a litter of triplets.  Sometimes, triplet births are difficult for goats.  The babies can be stillborn or handicapped, exemplified by Puddin’ who was born with inversed knees on the front legs.  It would be like a human walking around on all fours using elbows in the front but feet in the back.  Puddin’ got along just fine, developing calluses over the years to protect her knees from daily wear and tear.

Every morning that I opened the gate to feed the Land of Misfits, an emu ambush was inevitable.  They attacked the buckets of feed, nudging the low-riding livestock to the wayside.  In addition to stealing the food not intended for them, the emus had a fetish with my hair.  Something about my long ponytail, light-colored enough that it looked shiny (or maybe Herbal Essence does give it that extra silky shine) made them fixated on my scalp.  Instead of galloping away to steer clear of bird thieves, I ran to protect my head from incessant pecking.

Rocky the sheep was my favorite animal at WRR. Paralyzed in his back legs and with an overbite so severe we had to feed him a special soft food diet, Rocky amazed with his perseverance.

On a blustery night while working the clinic closing shift, we received word that a storm was raging, honing in on little rural Kendalia.  Texas is not prepared for rain, or for any weather other than blistering heat.  When it rains in Texas, it pours.  Flooding is imminent, and therefore animals in enclosures need to have access to higher ground.  The night of this storm was the first night Zeus and Dash were out in the pasture, having graduated from the clinic to the big open yard.

Myself and two other co-workers drove the cart to the fence line, stirring up puddles of mud like we were on a paintball shooting range.  Earlier, I traded in my contacts for my glasses, a mistake when attempting to forage through a lightning, wind and rain storm.  Our only light came from my head lamp, but the beam did not penetrate far through the thick sheet of water that splattered our vision and drenched our clothes.

Dash was brought to WRR as an orphan soon after Zeus. Though they are not brothers, they had fun head butting each other (and their human caretakers) when their horns began growing in. I owe my newfound love of goats to them.

Expecting the goats to be under the lean-to, we were disappointed when the whites of their eyes were not staring back at us among those of the other livestock.  Calling for them, we heard their baying just before a flash of lightning lit up the pasture, revealing a lengthy, sharp, pointed horn not more than six inches from our faces.  Long Horn was standing right next to us, and while he’s not a mean fellow, he doesn’t realize his goring potential.  And in a loud storm, he could easily be startled.  Taking deep breaths, we retreated a couple steps and wound our way through the dark toward the baying goats.  They did not resist handling as I scooped up Zeus and someone else picked up Dash, the third co-worker guiding us blindly back toward the cart.

After retrieving a few other animals from outdoor enclosures with the help of some off-duty workers, the clinic floor was left with a stagnant river of muddy footprints and hay.  Changing into some dry clothes and finishing up the remaining feeds, we only had to clean the clinic before we could call it a night.  In the end, we got out of work at three a.m., only three hours before the morning shift arrived to dirty up our freshly mopped floors all over again.