Though fewer in number, sheep shearers still create a buzz

Jim Davis singled out a sheep from a nervous flock in Diane Stroh’s barn in Homer Glen, and with a wrestler’s grip, he quickly maneuvered the animal into a corner.

At more than 250 pounds, the raggedy animal was above Davis’ weight class, but Davis still won the match. In minutes the ewe was about 7 pounds lighter. Davis, a sheep shearer, had given her a buzz cut, first trimming the underbelly, then the back, removing her thick winter coat in one big piece of wool.

Spring is an important time on farms with sheep. Nursing lambs bleat for their mothers, and Davis, one of a few professional sheep shearers left in the state, is busy six days a week getting flocks ready for summer.

“It might look easy, but it isn’t,” said Stroh, 68, who has raised sheep on the family farm since she was 6. “Jim’s just very good at what he does. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

More than 200 Illinois farmers might say the same. As sheep numbers have dropped fairly steadily in Illinois since World War II, so have the number of shearers who are essential to the business of raising sheep. And younger people aren’t rushing up to take the clippers in hand.

But for sheep owners, the job still needs to be done. Shearing helps prevent heat stress in the summer, keeps the animal cleaner and healthier, makes nursing easier and of course provides an abundance of fleece.

Davis began shearing 37 years ago with his father, Harold Davis, on their central Illinois farm near Odell. According to those with knowledge of sheep raising, Jim Davis is now one of few shearers left in Illinois, and he shears thousands of sheep each spring.

“There are not that many people who want to work that hard,” says Harold Davis. “I’ve seen hundreds who think they’re going to be a sheep shearer, that they’re going to make a lot of money. But they don’t last long.”

Jim Davis says that at 55 he is old for a shearer and not as fast as he was. The work is rigorous. The pay is generally about $5 per head, plus transportation, depending on the size of the flock. And most shearers walk away by middle age with backache. But the job is also about technique and knowing how to accomplish the task efficiently and without injury to shearer or sheep.

Davis says he enjoys it.

His father worked as a shearer for more than 50 years — from his teens to retirement in 2002, and he still does shearing demonstrations including one at the DuPage County Fair every summer. The exact number of shearers in the state is unknown. Shearers are not required to be licensed, but Harold Davis knows the numbers are fewer than the past. He remembers when there were 40 steady shearers like him in Illinois, and five in LaSalle County alone.

At 81, he also recalls an Illinois countryside with “sheep everywhere you looked.” But that was awhile ago.

The USDA head count of Illinois sheep and lambs totaled more than 950,000 during the mid-1930s, compared with 57,000 this January, says state statistician Mark Schleusener in Springfield.

Numbers have consistently dropped since 1942, falling below 100,000 for the first time in 1994.

“It’s because there’s no money in it, that’s why,” explains Jim Davis. “Corn and beans will make you more. Wool prices haven’t gone up, and sheep are a lot of work. People have them because they like ’em, and because they like them as grass eaters. They’re good mowers.”

Nationwide, the sheep herd has also declined, even in the biggest sheep states like Texas and California, where the climate is good for fleece and there’s more open land for grazing.

“We’re not seeing as many sheep now because the land is just too valuable to use for pasture land. And wool prices aren’t good,” says Harold Davis.

He and his son raise sheep, corn and soybeans. They have 2,300 acres in crops and Jim Davis has 125 adult breeding sheep and 175 lambs. Last year, he sold purebred sheep in eight states, most through the Internet, he said.

His own sheep get shorn between jobs. His 250 customers with at least 12,000 sheep among them to shear are generally within 100 miles of his farm, in central and northern Illinois plus Indiana. He estimates the ones in Illinois represent one-third to one-fourth of the state’s sheep population.

Ninety-nine percent of the shepherds sell him the wool he removes from the sheep, and he in turn sells to Groenewold Fur and Wool Co. in Forreston, Ill. Some stays in the U.S. and much of it goes to China, with the price running around 50 cents a pound, according to Harold Davis and Greg Groenewold.

Harold Davis says he has seen wool as low as 5 cents and as high as $1.50 a pound.

Jane and Paul Zeien of Belvidere are among the few who keep the raw wool. They have a fiber mill where they turn wool from their 35 Shetland sheep and other fibers like alpaca into yarn.

Jane Zeien, an officer for the Illinois Lamb and Wool Producers, says their members help organize shearing contests at the Illinois State Fair each August. Jim Davis has won Best Illinois Shearer 19 times, and in 2011 was best overall shearer in a contest open to shearers from out of state. He also judges contests in Indiana, Michigan and Florida.

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Shearing contests are based on fastest time, handling of the sheep, how the wool looks when it comes off and how the sheep looks. With electric clippers called a “hand piece,” Davis, in competition and at work, shears “New Zealand style,” pinning the animal between his legs and following the same routine on each. The goal is to work quickly and finish with one large piece of wool. Different blades accommodate different thickness and textures.

All of the contestants who entered the young shearers’ competition at the state fair last summer were from out of state, said Jane Zeien. She added that the University of Illinois Extension Service’s decision to eliminate the position of sheep extension specialist and to stop their statewide shearing classes didn’t help to encourage newcomers in the field.

Richard Cobb of Champaign, the shepherd at the University of Illinois from 1975 to 2000, was the extension sheep specialist from 2000 to 2010, and taught those classes.

Extension shearing classes dropped from the traditional five a year statewide to two in the ’70s, he said. The last was held in 2010. Ten to 15 people usually attended class, but Cobb believes that not many stayed with shearing.

“It’s one thing to shear a sheep with people telling you how and what to do next, but if you’re one man in a barn with a bunch of sheep to shear, it’s a whole different story,” said Cobb. “Many guys think they want to do it until they try.”

In downstate Waterloo, Richard Woodcock, 70, refers to himself as “a very old shearer.” His assistant helps catch the sheep and bag the wool when he shears on weekends, but he couldn’t drive to all the scattered southern Illinois farms with small flocks just to shear a few sheep, he said.

Woodcock helped organize the Shawnee Lamb and Wool Producers Association to answer shepherds’ need. Area producers now bring their sheep to the Union County fairgrounds for shearing on Sheep Shearing Day every April, and in mid-June return for Wool Collection Day when an Ohio buyer picks up the locally produced wool.

And gradually, Woodcock’s young helper is seeing how it’s done, he said. He’s learning what some are calling the dying art of shearing.