SHEEP-SHEA RING MACHINE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 776, 2 March 1877, Page 3

SHEEP-SHEA RING MACHINE.

The following -extract from an English paper gives a description of the machine invented by Captain Turquand of the Household Brigade, for shearing sheep ; The most remarkable invention in the show is Captain Turquand’s sheep-shearing machine for steam or manual power. The sheep is secu-ed in a moment by pinioning his logs in clasps upon the inclined flap of a table, the cheep lying upon a web stretched within a frame. When one side has been clipped, the sheep is turned over almost instantaneously upon'another flap of a table, the clasps being transferred at a stroke byspring catches from one table to the other. Thejclipping tool, resembling ahorse clipper, is held in the hand, and passed over all parts or the animal, and can strip off the wool as close to the skin as possible, without liability to wound. The clipper is actuated with a high velocity by an india-rubber belt from a long transve.se roller mounted overhead, the belt traversing along the roller from end to end, according as guided by the position in which the clipper is held. The roller may lie driven by wheel and crank, or by any motive power. It is calculated that by this machine a man clips five times the number of sheep in the same time, as compared with hand work by the common shears. This invention promises to effect a vast saving in the time and cost cf clipping incurred by the colonial flockmaster, and will probably prove a great acquisition to lh ckmastcrs who are compelled to employ dear labor in England.