The shearing team that fleeces the competition

An all female shearing team took to the board last week near Bendigo, as more women take up the handpiece across the industry.

The cry of “ducks on the pond” used to go out in shearing sheds when women walked in, but how times have changed.

An all-female team – shearers and shed hands – took to the board on the Barber family’s Coliban Park at Sutton Grange last week.

The all-female shearing team wasn’t planned by contractor Adam Webb – he was simply looking for people to get on a handpiece and handle the wool.

Woolhandler Maddie McKenzie; shearers Marnie Ross, Kristen Fitzpatrick, Abbey Curnow, Holly Crombie, and Alice McKay and woolhandler Siale Pitson — the all female team shearing at Coliban Park, Sutton Grange. Pictures: Holly Byrne/AWI

It just so turned out that those available at the time were all women.

“In my contracting business, we have a few female shearers and I think it has encouraged others to give it a go,” Mr Webb said.

Two of the shearers, Alice McKay and Marnie Ross, are the guns in the team and have shorn more than 200 for the day and average between 150 and 160.

And the others are well on their way, jumping on a shearing stand whenever they can.

Mr Webb said the reaction from sheep producers was overwhelmingly positive, given they simply wanted “the best job done by whoever can do it”.

The Coliban Park team hard at work last week.

Duncan Barber said his all female shearing team was “certainly is a sign of the times”.

“We have gone from women not being allowed in the shed at all to now shearing,” Mr Barber said.

And Mr Barber said women in the team had changed the atmosphere in the shed.

“It doesn’t matter who shears them, so long as they shear them and take pride in the job that they do,” Mr Barber said.

“At the end of the day, they can look at the job that they have done and be able to say, ‘look at that, I shore those sheep and they look good’ and not, ‘I shore those sheep, hope the farmer doesn’t notice how rough they look!’.”

And while it was a one-off for a few days, Mr Webb said the all-female team could be repeated again.

“I like to run a good team and the work is there for anyone wanting to have a crack,” Mr Webb said.