Shearing crews are the engine room of the wool industry, blending tradition with new standards of skill, safety and care.
Lee Harris is scribbling tiny numbers into an exercise pad—44 for Jim, 45 for Aaron—tallies for his shearing crew who’ve just broken for smoko. “To be honest, it’s been pretty cruisy,” he says, explaining that early runs are less about chasing numbers and all about reading the sheep.
“You’ve got to think: What are these sheep like? How are they going to shear?,” he says. This morning, for him at least, was a bit hit and miss until he landed on the right equipment. “My first tip was too bull-nosed and was pushing the wool over, so I needed something a bit sharper that would comb through those finer fibres.”
Shearing is somewhere between an art and a science—a highly physical job that done well looks liquid smooth. “Your mind can almost switch off,” Lee says, describing the moment when thought gives way to feel.
It’s hard not to be impressed when his crew is in full flight. Shearers back out of catching pens with a sheep in their grip and, in one fluid motion, tip it, take the handpiece and draw the cord of the machine. Minutes later, fleece lands on the board in a white swirl, scooped up by a rouseabout already crouched and waiting.
Good shearers can do 320 lambs in a day, and today, one has a headstart. Tui has brought his son to work the pens, so he can focus on the bit that makes them money. “Mostly I do lambs,” 12-year-old Hayes says as he grabs one, “but sometimes I’ll do ewes.”
Once the fleeces are thrown, it’s the wool classer’s job to skirt and sort them. Kruze Derrick is small but wiry and hoists a 200-kilogram bale without ceremony. His hands work so fast they’re a blur. “You’ve got to do the best job you can,” he says, “and keep up with the rest of the shed so it all flows.”
Numbers matter, but according to Lee they’re never the whole story. “Everyone’s asking the same questions now: Was this wool harvested humanely? Were these sheep treated properly?” he says. “That’s what gives people confidence to buy the product. Sheep are like any animal, they should be treated with respect.”
He’s put his entire crew through animal-welfare training—not because it’s required everywhere yet, but because he believes it’s where the industry is headed. “It’s all about being professional,” he says, “and about wanting to be taken seriously.”
Lee comes from a long line of shearers and has worked in the shed since he was 15. “I hated it back then, I’ve got to admit,” he laughs. “But then I saw one of the shearers’ cheques and I almost had a heart attack.” So he stuck it out, endured a few rough-ups from older blokes, and eventually became business partners with a local industry stalwart. “He had the experience and the wisdom, and I had the energy.”
Now he’s running the business himself, and that means constant recalibration. “Things can change on a dime,” he says. Someone falls ill. A farmer miscalculates stock. And then there’s rain. “Rain will absolutely muck you up.” The whole operation, he says, is like a Tetris game.
And with that smoko is over. Lee snaps his book closed and heads back to the board. Somewhere, a counter clicks back to zero.
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