Summer Shearing

All farms buzz with activity around shearing time.  Farmers are flat strap, and contract shearers work hard to get sheep shorn so that they can be moved back out to the paddock as quickly as possible.  Everyone plays their part in the orchestra that is shearing, so that sheep are shorn, treated and efficiently moved back out to water and feed.

Summer shearing can reduce wool length during the spring blowfly season and thereby flystrike risk.  It can also be helpful for farmers who are tied up with other aspects of their farming business during the winter months.  If you are lucky enough to have a shearing shed with effective breeze flow, or fans in your shed, all the better.  You will have earnt your cold beer at the end of summer shearing.

Regardless of the time of year, shearing is of course incredibly challenging work.  Even the initial catch and drag of an adult sheep out of the catching pen and onto the board to be shorn is extremely physically demanding, let alone the shearing process itself.  Kerry McGawley, Sports Clinician at the University of Western Australia notes in a Shearing World article that shearing is one of the most physically demanding occupations in the world because it involves intensive physical work over extended periods of time.  The higher heat and humidity associated with summer shearing means that shearers are working at peak physical capacity during this part of the year.

Shearers always need gear that works, because they don’t need their job to be any harder than it already is.  We stock a wide range of quality shearer’s supplies, including the highly popular Heiniger Evo portable shearing plants and down tubes, Red Heat grinding paper, Supershear pro grind emery paper, Heiniger glue, Heiniger shearer’s oil cans, tally counters, stencil spray and One-Shot marking cartridges, amongst other shearing products.

Farmers are of course at their busiest around shearing time too.  Sheep must be mustered in, drained off, given protective treatments for lice, worms, and other issues (with some products requiring application within 24 hours of shearing), and then moved back out to the paddock.

FarmCo Moora and Yerecoin supply off shears backline lice treatments (with power dosers available for farmer use).  We carry a range of products, including Extinosad Pour On, Avenge and Eureka Gold for lice protection, and Coopers Maverick for lice and worm protection.  We also stock all your general shearing supplies, including wool bales, bale fasteners, marking cartridges and ink.

Just call us on 9651 1312 or drop into our Moora or Yerecoin stores; we’re a local family-owned business and we love helping our customers.