LOSSES THROUGH BAD SHEARING.

Dunstan Times, Issue 655, 6 November 1874, Page 3

LOSSES THROUGH BAD SHEARING.

A writer in a Victorian paper says : Few persons realise the losses sustained through bad or careless shearing. I have been assured Dy a large sheep-owner that with a too easy superintendent he had calculated that ho had lost, the year before last, sixpence on every sheep shorn, or LI2OO on the vvhole of his flock. This is perhaps an extreme case, but in another instance, in my presence, a squatter in the south took one of the shorn sheep from the pen when being counted out, and by re-shearing obtained nine ounces of wool from it. In reply to my query this gentleman asserts that the wool so left on the backs of the sheep is lost, tor it comes off in streaks afterwards. Not a season passes but we notice especially or exceptionally high prices for certain bales. The auctioneers tersely explain that these are “ well got up, ” that is besides quality, they have something else to recommend them. Judges who have been shearing on the continent and in England invariably state that not one-half the sheep in this colon}’ are properly shorn, and that we lose six-pence per fleece thereby. A gentleman well posted on the subject says : —“ The flockmaster wants a largo capital in the purchase and improvement of sheep, spares no expense, no toil, no care in putting on his flocks the best fleece that they are capable of bearing, washes them with reap and hot water, by means of an expensive apparatus, and brings them into the shed in as perfect a condition as possible ; and when there a careless, nasty, or unskilful shearer so mangles both sheep and wool, that a considerable portion of the squatters’ labor and expense is thrown away.” If flockmasters would only consider that while they pay 3s Cd to 4s per score for shearing, and lose 3d to 6d per fleece, or from 5s to 10s per score through “tomahawking” and “camping,” some active steps towards reform would perhaps take place. From what I have written it will be seen that the losses arise from two causes. First, through leaving too much wool on, and causing broken fleeces, with “ under and over’’cuts ; aud secondly, through brutal carelessness by injuring the sheep in cutting off skin and wool. Last year, when there were 18,000,000 sheep in the colony, we edimated at a low calculation, the losses through these combined causes were not less than a quarter of a million ster ling.