Shearing

Sheep shearing is the process by which the woollen fleece of a sheep is cut off. The person who removes the sheep's wool is called a shearer. Typically each adult sheep is shorn once each year (a sheep may be said to have been "shorn" or "sheared", depending upon dialect). The annual shearing most often occurs in a shearing shed, a facility especially designed to process often hundreds and sometimes more than 3,000 sheep per day.

Sheep are shorn in all seasons, depending on the climate, management requirements and the availability of a woolclasser and . Ewes are normally shorn prior to lambing, but consideration is typically made as to the welfare of the lambs by not shearing during cold climate winters. Shorn sheep tolerate frosts well, but young sheep especially will suffer in cold, wet windy weather (even in cold climate summers). In this event they are shedded for several nights until the weather clears. Some sheep may also be shorn with stud combs which leave more wool on the animal, giving greater protection.

Sheep shearing is also considered a sport with competitions held around the world.

The wealth of ancient Knossos, Europe's oldest city, derived from its sheep wool industry. The largest group of Linear B tablets is the great archive principally of shearing records though also of sheep breeding.

The medieval English wool trade was one of the most important factors in the English economy. The main sheep-shearing was an annual midsummer (June) event in medieval England culminating in the sheep-shearing feast. It had always been conventional practice to wash sheep.

In Australia, up until the 1870s, squatters washed their sheep in nearby creeks prior to shearing. Later some expensive hot water installations were constructed on some of the larger stations for the washing. Australian growers were influenced by the Spanish practice of washing their very fine wool after shearing. There were three main reasons for the custom in Australia:

The practice of washing the wool rather than the sheep evolved from the fact that hotter water could be used to wash the wool, than that used to wash the sheep. When the practice of selling wool in the grease occurred in the 1890s, wool washing became obsolete.

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