Considerations on value of wool

The decline in the value of wool is a strange sort of journey. If you go back far enough, the profits from wool paid for many fine buildings in our market towns. Most notable of these would be churches.

Indeed, wool profits were of more value than people, hence the Highland clearances that sent many Scots around the world to find somewhere else to live. They largely settled in the colonies and made their mark; when I went to school, all colonies and the Empire were marked pink on globes and maps – as our teachers used to say, “anywhere marked pink is ours”.

Shearing importance

When I first started working on farms, shearing was an important event in the farming calendar. We never used to shear before the middle of May. Late frosts could kill newly shorn ewes and sometimes did if shearing was done too soon.

Even then, wool was treated as a valuable commodity. I can remember that everyone used to wash their ewes, but I haven’t heard of washing being done for years. It wasn’t really washing – it was when the ewes were immersed in clean water.

Most farms had a sheep washing place, and it usually consisted of damming a stream up and making the sheep swim to get out. If you had a really good place for washing, people would bring their sheep to wash. If you were the youngest person there, it was traditional that you would be “washed” as well as the sheep. I came into this category several times, but I always contrived to fall in accidentally. Let’s get it over with, who else?

Washing and shearing were highlights in the farming calendar, it was the first of the big jobs, and heralded the start of summer and the better weather to come. Washed wool would “rise” and make shearing easier, and washed wool would be worth a bit more. I suspect that the wool “rising” was more important when people shore with hand shears; a real gap would exist between the skin and the wool after it was washed.

I never saw one used, but the early clippers were driven by hand, by someone turning a wheel. I bet this was a dreadful job. I bet if anything went wrong, like a ewe kicking, I bet the person turning the wheel had the blame. I didn’t learn to shear until I was in my 50s – this was a bit late, but I have always believed that if you are an employer you should never ask anyone to do a job that you can’t do yourself.

I used to go to shear about 3 flocks (must have been mad), but they were of about 150 ewes and could be done in one day.

Some new people bought a house near here and they bought two lambs to graze their orchard. These lambs were called Mary and Ivy, and they went away to take the tup. I went one evening to shear them. The lady said: “Mary has got a nice lamb, Mr Evans, but Ivy hasn’t had a lamb yet.” I said that I could see that. “Do you think Ivy is in lamb?” “No I don’t and I don’t think she ever will be.”

The lady was much agonised and wanted to know why. “Well you see this in the middle of her belly, this is where she pees and if she pees here she is a male sheep.” Ivy became Ivor and lived a happy life grazing an orchard.

Some friends of mine, who were good shearers, went contract shearing for several years. One year they got the contract to shear a big flock in mid-Wales, and we are talking several thousand sheep here. They were surprised that well more than half the sheep they shore were mature wethers. I wasn’t surprised at all.

At that time the European Economic Community paid a headage payment. So the nearest officialdom would get to count them; there is no way they would catch them and turn them over. From the farmer’s point of view, wethers could look after themselves on the mountain – no need would exist to attend to them; just shear them, count them and draw the subsidy.

The same gang used to shear quite a big flock that belonged to two elderly bachelors. Their age is only important because they didn’t want to catch sheep anymore – especially so if they could get someone else to do the catching. These two would watch the shearing intensely, on the lookout for ewes that needed their feet trimming. When they saw one they would dart in with their penknives and try to trim the feet while the sheep were being shorn.

The big thing with shearing is the ability to keep the ewe quiet and comfortable while you move her about to do your work. Having your feet trimmed at the same time as you have your wool removed is likely to make you kick.

Five were shearing in the gang one day and they repeatedly asked these two to stop the foot trimming. They didn’t listen, so the next time all the shearers let their sheep go at the same time. Some were part shorn, wool was everywhere, the sheep escaped to the field beyond and it took half an hour to get them back. The shearers took the chance to have a cup of tea and penknives stayed in pockets.

Act of kindness

I’ve written about wool because I have heard some animal rights activists describe shearing as cruel. The opposite is true – it’s an act of kindness and animal welfare. If wool becomes wet and dirty, you soon get fly strike, quickly followed by maggots. Unchecked maggots will eat a sheep alive.

Just to put it all into some perspective, when I was a boy sheep farmers would tell me that the wool money would pay the rent. When I kept sheep, the wool money would pay for all the vaccines and drench the sheep needed, and now it won’t even pay for the shearing. It has become an expensive chore. Shearers even charge more if the ewes have woolly heads – I think that has hastened the decline of woolly-headed sheep like the Clun Forest, which used to be so numerous around here.

Anyone who says shearing is cruel doesn’t really know what they are talking about. The highest profile of these – a man who thinks he knows more about nature and the countryside than anyone else – recently described horses as ruminants. You would think that after a gaffe like that he would keep his head down for a while, but not a bit of it.

It is possible to keep sheep that shed their wool naturally. These have not become as popular as I thought they would – probably because the wool is only discarded partially and the worry of flies still remains. Besides, who wants to see their fields littered with clumps of discarded wool that remains an eyesore for a long time? And who is to say that wool will not become valuable again? Certainly not me.