New shearing methods on show

The future of shearing was on display last week at the AWI field day at Conargo and it was a radical change to one of the nation’s oldest professions.

Shearing sheds of the future could look a lot different from today, judging by the technology displayed at an Australian Wool Innovation field day at Conargo in the NSW Riverina last week.

The event showcased the latest race delivery systems and shearing platforms aimed at making the traditional art of removing a fleece easier, safer and more efficient.

Watching the new technology was challenging for those raised on traditional shearing methods.

Sheep being shorn laying on moulded fibreglass platforms, with the shearer starting at the head and moving down the neck. Rams being clamped in air-operated crushes before being completely flipped upside-down and leg-clamped for shearing. Wool sometimes falling off everywhere and not coming off in a neat pile to be picked up and thrown.

But for shearing contractor Jim Murray, of Muddy’s Quality Shearing, which had 30 shearers out on jobs last week, the uptake of new technology was a “no-brainer” for everyone in the industry.

Decision making on what technology to adopt will not be simple for producers, and could vary around number of sheep being run, the focus on wool quality and how it is harvested such as fine wool Merinos compared to crossbred ewes, existing shearing shed facilities and how equipment could be retrofitted, as well as budget and cost.

The other consideration is that this state of the art technology still requires some form of training.

The Weekly Times talked to manufacturers and users of the three main shearing systems displayed at Conargo last week.

SHEAR ANYWHERE

Developer of the “Shear Anywhere” system Grant Burbidge makes no apologies for traditional shearers generally not liking his platform.

“This is disruptive technology and by its very nature, it challenges existing technology and the people who use it,” he said.

“Conventional shearers don’t like the system — I’ve never had one who wanted to use it. That will probably change as the system becomes more widely accepted.”

But in a way that is a compliment, as he has designed it so people with no background in the shearing or wool industry can quickly be trained to remove a fleece.

Using the Shear Anywhere platform was 19-year-old Brad Radovanovic, a Canberra resident who didn’t want to finish an electrical apprenticeship and was looking for some summer work.

He said by the end of the first day on the platform he could get a sheep onto the table and control it and remove the fleece. After about eight weeks he could shear 100 a day on “good sheep”.

“I think it is good you don’t need an agricultural background as it opens it up to a much wider audience or pool of labour that can shear,” Mr Radovanovic said.

“I was fine body-wise (after shearing 100 in a day) — there is a lot less stress on the body compared to what conventional shearers do.”

Mr Burbidge with his wife Annette, operates Burbidge Farms which runs properties at Simpson and Tarcutta, NSW, running a combined 28,000 Merinos.

The platform has a moulded fibreglass table which the sheep lies on, with leg hooks used to restrain the animal. The shearer starts at the head and then goes down to the belly area, with the wool skirted by the shearer as they work.

“The biggest efficiency of this shearing platform is the skirting is done by the shearer,” Mr Burbidge said.

“The fleece goes straight off the table and into the wool press, with superior quality assurance coming from the classer or rouseabout if required.”

With shearing costs on the rise, he said by reducing wool handling he was able to get the fully contracted price of shearing to bale under $7 a head.

They are currently working on a new design of the fibreglass table to better cater to different sizes of sheep. He said the ballpark cost of the unit was $12,500.

Mr Burbidge said they were also in talks with TAFE in Wagga Wagga about developing a training package for the Shear Anywhere.

HAYNES RACE

The Haynes race delivery system was one of the most watched at the field day, offering farmers an answer to getting sheep onto the board without the need for the catch and drag process which is under the spotlight for the injury and health risks it presents to shearers.

Two prototypes were on display.

Chris Haynes with the Haynes race delivery system.

The first was an automated model which was air operated and carried a single sheep out towards the shearer before tipping up and depositing the animal in a sitting position.

The second as a mechanical version, whereby the shearer was able to open the catching door on the race to access a standing sheep which was then pulled sideways over a trip rail to sit on the board.

Female shearer Ella Picking, weighing in at less than 60kg, was on one of the stands using the mechanical delivery system and said it was a game changer in how it cut the amount of physical effort needed to get a sheep out on the board.

“At the end of the day you are nowhere near as tired,” she said.

Developer Chris Haynes said simple arithmetic highlighted how shearers couldn’t be expected to catch and drag today’s big sheep.

“You’ve got shearers weighing a lot less than 100kg, look at Ella, yet they are expected to catch and drag up to two-tonne of sheep every day (200 sheep at an average of 80kg = 1.6 tonnes),” Mr Haynes said.

Haynes Engineering, based at Hamilton, has just expanded to a new factory to increase production of its race-delivery units.

Mr Haynes said he had spoken to producers looking at building new sheds and others hoping to update existing facilities.

For those building new, he said the old days of having big sheds with standing areas to hold hundreds of sheep on grating was superseded. Instead he said it would be more cost efficient for farmers to put a roof over stockyards and have a race system into a shearing platform.

The Haynes platform has been designed to be portable, and could be moved with tractor forks and stacked aside when not being used. It measures 3.3m long and 2.4m wide, designed to fit on a truck or trailer for transport. Mr Haynes said the full mechanical unit, with a race to hold three sheep and the shearing board cost about $16,000 to $17,000.

They were also designing just the delivery race and box with trip-rail that could be retrofitted into existing sheds.

SHEAREZY

Shearing rams can be spectacular to watch, a sometimes David and Goliath battle for shearers and require the animal to be sedated.

Rarely does it look “easy” which is how many onlookers described the action on the latest version of the Shearezy which was on show shearing British-breed rams at the field day last week.

Bill Byrne, from Peak Hill Industries, which designs and builds the shearing platform at Peak Hill in NSW, said the new model was fully automated using pneumatics.

“It is all powered by air so there is no physical exertion required by the operator except to push the handpiece,’ he said.

Difficult to describe in words, the sheep walks up a race and enters an air-operated clamp-like crush which holds the animal while it is flipped upside down and the legs then clamped. The leg clamps are movable to fit any size animal. The platform the sheep lies can gently roll the animal to give the shearer access to all parts of the body for shearing.

In commercial production, it has proven popular with contractors including Doug Baker who in the past 18-months has built a business around shearing rams using the Shearezy.

Based at Harden in NSW, Mr Baker has used the machine to shear 7000 rams and 3000 stud ewes in his latest venture, which follows on from a 35-year career as a traditional shearer.

“When I first started the business people couldn’t understand why I was doing it,” Mr Baker said.

“But when they see how much safer it is and how there is less stress on the animal as you don’t have two or three people trying to hang onto a big ram their attitude quickly changes.”

He said the shortage of workers had boosted business as shearers became more selective on what stock they were willing to work on.

He said he was called to one property after the owner had weighed all his meat breed rams and written the weight on each animal so he could work out the correct sedation dose.

“When the shearers saw them and asked what the numbers meant and he said it was their weight, they said no they wouldn’t shear them. The heaviest ram was 181kg and the lightest was 156kg.”

He said rams didn’t need to be sedated using the Shearezy, as it was robust enough to securely hold the biggest sheep making it safe for both the operator and animal.

Mr Byrne said the Shearezy was mostly being used by contractors or producers with high value sheep that were more concerned about the harvesting of the fleece or the welfare of the animal than speed.

But he said attitudes towards shearing platforms were “absolutely changing due to a combination of a shortage of shearers and higher shearing costs”.

The ShearEzy machine itself is valued at about $30,000 and the complete set-up with race and yards would be in the vicinity of $40,000, Mr Byrne said.