It takes a steady hand and hours of practice to get the wool ready for that cozy winter sweater. Nearly a dozen sheep shearers from the U.S. and Canada gathered at the Black Hills Stock Show for the National Sheep Shearing Championships.
Contestants reach into metal containers and pull their sheep onto stage. The animals are on the ground tucked between the shearer’s legs. The crowd cheers as the shearers turn on their razors.
The sheep stay quiet as contestants shave piles of wool onto the stage floor. Judges stand close to watch the details. They time each contestant and look for a clean, even cut.
The competitors all have their own story. Some like Mike Higgnes have grown up around shearers and have practiced their whole lives.
He says he’s been traveling to farms across the Midwest for nearly 17 years.
“Well I got into it because we had sheep as kids and my dad used to shear and my great grandpa used to shear. I just like it because (I) travel all over and just meet all these nice ranchers. I like the people I work with and work for.”
Higgnes says he runs a few shearing crews from trailers.
“I have a trailer up in North Dakota, just a smaller one. And we have two five man trailers down here in South Dakota. We go around from like Belle Fourche, Area Newell, up into probably Hettinger out into Wyoming and stuff. Just keep ten guys buy for like four months of the year.”
The team also shears lambs in the summer so they are busy year round.
Some shearing crews involve more than shearers. Leann Brimmer is a professional wool handler. She sorts the sheep’s coat by size, texture and quality as it’s being shaved.
“My job is to work with the shearer to make his job easier. And at the same time, I am trying to get the producer a better price for his product. So by sorting off the inferior parts of the fleece, then that fleece wool can go into a higher price valued line.”
Brimmer says her team travels to farms around the world to work during sheep shearing season. She says they’re like independent contractors.
“It’s a good way to travel. You get to see the world. You get to see new places. And a lot of it’s the people I work with. The guys I work with are a great bunch of guys. You have a laugh, the day goes much quicker. You can all make good money.”
Brimmer says they will shear anywhere from 10 sheep to a couple thousand depending on the farm.
She says shearing is a necessary chore for not only the health of the animal but also for the product.
“They do better without multiple years of wool on them. It’s for their benefit too that you take the wool off. You know, their fleeces get so heavy, it weights them down. They’ll get on their back. That’ll put pressure on their internal organs, and it’ll kill them actually. They get maggots, all kinds of parasites.”
Sheep have different types of wool depending on the climate they live in.
Weston Hyllested is a contestant from Minnesota.
“As far as the sheep go, today was kind of a fine wool day. They’re not like your Iowa, Minnesota sheep. They’re courser wool. These are western sheep. So they have really fine, dense wool. These are what go into socks and nice garments. It’s going to be a little tougher to get your comb into them. It’s going to be a little bit slower than what you might see in the Midwest with our sheep, but they’re still a pleasure to shear because you’re shearing stuff that really is going into something great.”
Hyllested has worked as a shearer nearly seven years. He says he dropped out of college pursue his dreams and travel the world shearing sheep.
“When I was younger, like when I was in high school and stuff, I thought the traveling was the coolest part because I grew up inner city with my elementary days and then My uncle who got my into it got me away from the city and I got to go see other places and it was really exciting when I was a kid.”
He says this year was one of his best performances in competition.
Hyllested placed third in the intermediate shearing category and Higgnes placed second in professional.