The Rural Voice, 1987-05, Page 21by
Mary -Lou
Weiser -Hamilton
SHEPHERDING:
A FAMILY
TRADITION
There was a strong hint of surprise
and skepticism in the sheep
farmer's reaction when the sheep
shearer came to shear his flock. He
had envisioned a 200 -pound, six-foot
man, but when J. Miller arrived, she
stood five feet tall and weighed little
more than 100 pounds.
Judy Miller is accustomed to
that kind of reaction. She's the only
licensed female sheep shearer in
Ontario, and last year sheared 6,000
sheep within a 60 -mile radius of her
father's Bentinck Township farm.
She often shears in the Toronto area
as well.
Now 29, Miller obtained her
shearer's licence 12 years ago. As
children, she and her brother, Doug,
were shown how to shear sheep when
the shearer came to the farm. By 1975
she was demonstrating sheep shearing
as Sheep Queen at the International
Plowing Match in Walkerton. When
a spectator suggested that she get her
shearing license, another man watch-
ing said, "What would she want it for?
She's a girl."
"I got my licence," Miller recalls
with a glint of determination in her
eye. She and her brother sheared
together for six years until back pro-
blems forced Doug to stop shearing
professionally. Miller hasn't had the
same problem with her back, but she
shears about 150 Angora goats each
year and "that's when I have back
problems," she says. "They wiggle
and squirm and don't sit up and their
skin is very delicate." Lambs are hard
to shear for the same reason, she adds.
"Five years ago it 'was unheard of to
shear a lamb, but it's been discovered
that they will eventually produce a
better fleece if they are sheared at five
months."
Miller has had to develop her own
method of shearing because of her
height. "Because I'm short I have to
make a longer swipe," she says. She
was taught to shear with either her left
or right hand, a difficult task for some
shearers.
As a record, her personal best is 17
sheep sheared in one hour and 100 in a
day. "If the guy can flip them, I can
shear them," she says. While Miller
has sheared some American Suffolks
that weigh 300 pounds, she prefers the
125 to 175 -pound category. "The old
rams are the easiest," she adds, "be-
cause they're big and fat and sit there."
Miller's prices range from $2.50 for
under 10 sheep to $2.00 for more than
100.
On their father's 100 acres near
Elmwood, Miller and her brother,
Doug, work together. Each has
livestock but operating expenses are
shared. Doug and his wife, Dianne,
also own 100 acres across the road.
There is friendly rivalry between
brother and sister as to which breed
of sheep is better. Judy is convinced
that her 135 Suffolk ewes are easiest
to handle and have a high feed to meat
conversion, although with a higher
feed intake. Doug owns some North -
country Cheviots and is in the process
of changing his commercial flock of
Southdowns to purebreds.
Judy plans her breeding program
to have lambs arrive for the Christmas
and Easter market. The new -crop
lambs weigh about 65 pounds when
they are sold at eight weeks of age.
Miller tries to send her Iambs to mar-
ket slightly before the Christmas and
Easter rush to avoid the glut on the
market. She receives between $1.65
and $1.75 per pound. The Iamb mar-
ket is expanding, Miller says, and
there is much more Iamb eaten — and
not only by the ethnic population —
than many people realize. But it is
difficult to determine just how much
lamb is sold when many farmers,
including Miller, sell at the farm gate.
Doug's lambs are kept on pasture
over the summer and sold as feeder
lambs. He flushes his ewes by pas-
turing them on rape for two weeks
before the ram is turned in with them.
The high protein feed makes the ewes
ovulate with more eggs, and Doug has
a high percentage of twins and triplets
in comparison to Judy's results. Be-
cause her ewes are bred to Iamb in
December and January, no rape is
available for pasturing. She has a
flock average of 1.8 lambs per ewe.
Lambing season is the busiest
time for Miller. "You've got to be
on call 24 hours a day," she notes.
An intercom hooked from her bedroom
to the barn enables Miller to hear
everything that happens in the barn.
When a lamb is born, the ewe and her
offspring are separated from the flock
and placed in a claiming pen for 48
hours. This helps to create a bond.
The newborn Iambs are needled to pre-
vent white muscle disease, and both
the ewe and her Iamb are branded with
a painted identification number. In
many cases, this number is more a
formality than a necessity. Miller
finds that her ewes each have a distinct
personality and it is not difficult to tell
one sheep from another. She has
named each of her ewes and many of
the lambs too.
Miller obviously loves her work.
"Sheep are easy to handle and I can
understand sheep better than I can
people," she says. "I can usually find
the problem if there's something
wrong with them." Of particular
MAY 1987 19