There was a really interesting article in our local newspaper yesterday about a man who shears sheep for a living. Our area does not have many sheep but the article was from another area of Virginia that does. This man's name was David Todd (I think) and he has sheared sheep all over the world including New Zealand (thought immediately of Maggie). He works from March to August each year, 12 - 14 hours per day and goes from farm to farm shearing sheep. He can shear a sheep in just a few minutes and is able to do it so that the wool is in basically one piece except for where the legs would be, etc. There was a picture of the farmers pushing the sheep to him. It took 4 of them to motivate the sheep but once the shearer gets the sheep he holds him by placing his thumb in the sheep's mouth and moves the sheep around by straddling him and using his legs to turn him. I can't do the article justice but it was fascinating. I would love to see this actually being done. I believe his price was $85 to come and set up at the farm and $5 per sheep. I have no idea if that is average or good or even bad.

Who has sheep and what do you do about getting them sheared? We have talked about getting some just for "pets" but the kind we have checked into do not have to be sheared, they shed like a goat. I'll have to ask Mel what their name was. As it is though, we probably have all we can take care of now.

I don't have sheep either, but I think this would be very interesting. We used to know some friends who lived "down on the farm" in IL. They had sheep. I LOVED feeding the lambs every spring when we would visit. :)