412 MANAGEMENT ON RANGES IN THE WEST 



this way they do not have to feed on costly feeds while in the 

 shearing camp. 



Both hand and machine shearing are practiced. The latter is 

 the more rapid, saves more wool, and perhaps causes fewer cuts in 

 the skin of the sheep, but apparently there are good reasons for 

 supposing that some regions will never adopt it. There are places 

 where a sudden drop in temperature is likely to occur shortly after 

 shearing. Unless thick combs are used machine shearing takes the 

 wool entirely too close to enable the sheep to go through such 

 periods without injury. In some other places the hot sun will 

 blister the skin if the wool is removed by machines equipped with 

 thin combs. 



In practically all shearing camps, helpers called " wranglers " 

 drive the sheep into small pens bordering the shearing floor, so that 

 by merely turning about the shearers find the sheep within their 

 reach. If machines are used the fleeces are tied and the shearing 

 floor kept clean by laborers called " tyers " and sweepers. Hence, 

 all the shearers have to do is to remove the fleece, but in camps 

 where hand shearing is done it is common for the shearers to tie the 

 fleeces. In such camps there is seldom a common shearing floor, 

 but a series of pens in which half of the ground space is floored. The 

 shearing is done on the floored part while the sheep awaiting shear- 

 ing stand on the unfloored part. After the fleeces are tied they are 

 pitched out of the pens into a long, flat-bottom trough, thirty inches 

 wide, from which they are gathered and sacked. 



Hand shearers vary widely as to the number they are able to 

 shear in a day. The poorest may not shear more than 50 by be- 

 ginning at seven in the morning and ending at five in the evening 

 while the best may shear 125 and sometimes more. Expert machine 

 shearers will shear 200 sheep in a day. In both hand and machine 

 shearing the number of fleeces removed in a definite period of time 

 depends on the size of the sheep, the nature of their skins with re- 

 spect to wrinkles, and the density and condition of their wool. It 

 takes longer to shear a big, strong ram than it does to shear a ewe of 

 ordinary size and it is impossible to remove the fleece from a sheep 

 having numerous wrinkles in the skin and extremely dense oily 

 wool as quickly as that from a smooth, less oily sheep. For these 

 reasons, extra charge is usually made for rams and if a band of sheep 

 carries more wrinkles and folds than is common to the region, an 

 extra charge is usually made. 



