Kōrero: Shearing

It is often believed that the advent of machine shearing meant the end of blade shearing, but, as this interview with Graham Jones shows, there are still many gangs of blade shearers. The table of shearing methods used in Canterbury indicates that over a quarter of all sheep are shorn with blades. These sheep are predominantly in the high country or on Banks Peninsula, which are prone to snow and very cold conditions, because blade shearing leaves a protective covering of wool on the sheep. Snow combs, which are used on the handpieces of shearing machines, also leave a layer of uncut wool, and so are more commonly used in the colder hill country rather than on the plains.

Transcript

Interviewer: Your one of the blade shearers in the gang, how many people that are in the gang here can blade shear? I guess people out in the public perceive it is as a bit of a dying art.

Graham Jones: Well the public are quite ignorant of it really in general. There's quite a few blade shearers around but only blade shearers sorta know blade shearers. It's a small, it's a circle in its own.

Interviewer: Do blade shearers just blade shear, or machine shear as well?

Graham Jones: No, there are a few that do both. I do both. There are a few in this gang that do both, but the majority just do blade shearing. yeah.

Interviewer: What's the difference?

Graham Jones: The only thing they have in common is that they both shear sheep. It's different in regards to preparing your gear, your shears and to hand pieces, cutters and combs, it's quite a different aspect of it. And the actual positioning of the sheep and shearing it's quite different too.

Interviewer: What makes a good blade shearer?

Graham Jones: A good one is generally quite a consistent one. That doesn't shear big tallies, but the same tallies every day, more or less within a reasonable number, yeah.

Interviewer: You're obviously shearing far fewer than you would be a using machine shears?

Graham Jones: Yeah, definitely about half as many.