Sheep shearing
Sheep are shorn in all seasons including winter, depending on the climate, management requirements and the availability of a woolclasser and shearers.
The largest group of Linear B tablets is the great archive principally of shearing records though also of sheep breeding.
[citation needed] Australia and New Zealand had to discard the old methods of wool harvesting and evolve more efficient systems to cope with the huge numbers of sheep involved.
[7] By 1915 most large sheep station sheds in Australia had installed machines, driven by steam or later by internal combustion engines.
Importing labour during the Australian off-season has also become problematic because of delays in obtaining work visa and because shearers numbers are limited worldwide.
[8] Today large flocks of sheep are mustered, inspected and possibly treated for parasites such as lice before shearing can start.
Typical mass shearing of sheep today follows a well-defined workflow: In 1984 Australia became the last country in the world to legalize the use of wide combs, due to previous Australian Workers' Union rules.
Sheep struggle less using the Tally-Hi method, reducing strain on the shearer and there is a saving of about 30 seconds in shearing each one.
The shearer begins by removing the belly wool, which is separated from the main fleece by a rouseabout, while the sheep is still being shorn.
The shorn sheep is released and removed from the board via a chute in the floor or in a wall, to an exterior counting-out pen.
The CSIRO in Australia has developed a non-mechanical method of shearing sheep using an injected protein that creates a natural break in the wool fibres.
This enables short pieces of wool, the locks and other debris, to gather beneath the table separately from the fleece.
Machine shears, known as handpieces, operate in a similar manner to human hair clippers in that a power-driven toothed blade, known as a cutter, is driven back and forth over the surface of a comb and the wool is cut from the animal.
The original machine shears were powered by a fixed hand-crank linked to the handpiece by a shaft with only two universal joints, which afforded a very limited range of motion.
Animal welfare organisations have raised concerns about the abuse of sheep during shearing, and have advocated against the selling and buying of wool products.
The Guardian reported that the video showed, "sheep being roughly handled, punched in the face and stamped upon.
"[19] The Shearing Contractors Association of Australia "applauded" the investigation, and Wool Producers Australia president Geoff Fisken said the behavior shown in the video was "unacceptable and unsupportable" but that "we're sure it doesn't portray the 99.9% majority of wool shearers – and those shearers would be appalled by it as well".
Shearing the Rams, a painting by Australian painter Tom Roberts is like an icon for the livestock-growing culture or "life on the land" in Australia.
The expression that Australia's wealth rode on the sheep's back in parts of the twentieth century no longer has the currency it once had.
This seat was inspired by the combs, cutters, wool tables and grating associated with the craft and industry of shearing.
[24] Many stations across Australia no longer carry sheep due to lower wool prices, drought and other disasters, but their shearing sheds remain, in a wide variety of materials and styles, and have been the subject of books and documentation for heritage authorities.
Sheep shearing and wool handling competitions are held regularly in parts of the world, particularly Ireland, the UK, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.
The first World Championships were held at the Bath & West showground, England, in 1977, and the first Machine-Shearing winner was Roger Cox from New Zealand.
New Zealand also won the team event, and the traditional blade-shears World Champion is Ziewilelle Hans from South Africa.
