By Chris Oldfield
IT IS 7.15am and “Stubbie” walks up the steps of a South East shearing shed.
Along the shearing board, he stops at number three stand and clicks his handpiece onto a down tube connected to an electric motor.
Stubbie checks the tension of his comb and cutter.
With a greasy little oil can, once silver but now covered in grime, he dribbles lubricant across the razor sharp 88mm width of steel.
Flicking the handpiece in and out of gear, he inspects it again, ensuring it is ready for the day’s first 2.5 hours of shearing known as a ‘run’.
“Sleep in?” Stubbie says to the shearer on number one stand who is usually the first to arrive at the shed, but not today.
Stubbie is one of four shearers who between them will shear around 800 sheep a day, until almost 6000 sheep are shorn.
Then they will move on to the next shed on another farm.
The four shearers and three shed hands all have nick names and their hard work is underpinned by humour.
“Only six Prime Ministers until Christmas,” Stubbie says, flicking his cigarette butt down the chute next to his stand.
“I know ‘cos I read it on Facebook.”
Others mutter and groan about Facebook.
But Stubbie laughs as he pulls his first sheep for the day across the board and tugs his handpiece into gear – it’s 7.30am, exactly.
The early morning banter continues with the wool classer claiming Stubbie got his nick name “because he’s short and empty from the neck up”.
“What do you call a sophisticated Australian?” Stubbie yells out.
“A New Zealander,” he replies before anyone has time to answer.
There’s a giggle from two roustabouts, both from New Zealand.
One asks Stubbie if she can shear a sheep before morning smoko.
He nods and explains her nickname is Pothole “because she’s always in the road”.
By the end of the day she will have shorn her first four sheep, sparking her shearing career.
A shearer averaging 200 sheep a day will earn more than $3000 per week.
Wool classers earn around $300 per day and roustabouts almost $235 per day, sometimes more.
Thanks to the efforts of respected stalwarts like David Brooker, Steph Brooker-Jones and Shannon and Catherine Warnest, the industry includes many elite sports men and women.
In addition to working in the sheds, they compete in speed and sports shear competitions at local levels through to world-wide championships.
Mr Warnest OAM – who has won around a dozen national shearing titles and two world championships – last week told daughter Trixi on the ABC Australian wide program that drought was affecting the industry.
With the South East shearing season in full swing, some shearers and shed hands were moving from drought areas to our region in search of work.
Some people were predicting the national sheep flock to drop from almost 70 million to 50 million – a long way short of the 130 million of 1993 and 180 million of 35 years ago.
Less sheep meant less work for shearers and shed handlers who would leave the industry.
However, as the South East was a reliable area Mr Warnest believed shearers and shed hands would be in demand.
He believed the industry was perfect for school-leavers in their gap year.
Enabling them to keep fit, have fun and compete in various competitions, school leavers could also earn a lot of money in comparison to many other jobs.
But they always need to be ready to start work on the dot at 7.30am.
Chris Oldfield can be contacted by email at christobel47@bigpond.com
