Learner Shearers At Pigeon Bay

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31161, 10 September 1966, Page 9

Learner Shearers At Pigeon Bay

A two-day course for learner shearers was held this week in the 80-year-old Annandale shearing shed at Pigeon Bay. It is one of a series of courses being held by arrangment of Federated Farmers, in conjunction with the Board and Department of Agriculture, to help train new shearers, improve the efficiency of those who can already do some shearing and also help in improving wool handling methods.

The course on Banks Peninsula is held annually, according to the president of the Banks Peninsula branch of Federated Fanners (Mr R. K. Craw) and almost exclusively the Annandale shed Is the venue, for there are few sheds with the number of stands of this shed and

therefore suitable for such a course—the shed has seven stands of which five are now used. The Annandale estate was 'always very co-operative, said Mr Craw, and this week the [wether hoggets for the shearing had been shedded for I three nights before the

course began to keep them dry. There were about 12 young persons present on Thursday morning as the course got under way. Two were from Sumner. They were Richard Roberts and Warwick Beere, who said that they hoped to become professional shearers. Richard, who left school six months ago, said he had done some work in a wool store but he had not been in a shearing shed before. Warwick Beere left school at the beginning of this year. In the group was also a young woman, 21-year-old Mrs R. E. Hopkins, of Akaroa. Originally from Gisborne, she is the wife of a professional shearer, Mr Noel Hopkins, and for the last two years has been fleece picking in sheds where her husband has been shearing. She said she hoped that learning something about shearing and looking after wool might be useful when she and her husband were able to get a farm some day. In charge of the course was Mr R. I. Kidd, who is the new shearing instructor for the Wool Board in the district from Timaru to Kaikoura and the West Coast.

In U.K. Mr Kidd, who comes from Albury in South Canterbury, was a professional shearer for seven years before taking up his present appointment on August 1. Last year he spent three or four months shearing in Britain, including about two months working for the Lister Company instructing Young Farmers’ Clubs and demonstrating at i shows. At courses such as this one the learners would frequently have had no previous experiene at all and the idea was to give them some idea of shearing and perhaps encourage them to take up shearing, Mr Kidd said. Most of the course members were from Banks Peninsula and as some were farmers’ sons who will be working on their fathers’ properties and may be involved in wool handling, Mr L. Galloway, sheep and wool instructor of the Department of Agriculture, was on hand to give wool handling demonstrations.

Mr Galloway said that wool handling standards in New Zealand were the highest in the world but these standards had to be maintained. A twoman inquiry team had recently travelled through New Zealand to look at the clip and wool handling and they had found that handling in New Zealand was not bad.

Mr Galloway said that there were buyers on the bench in New Zealand who would buy poorly prepared lines or semi-skirted wools, but the number of these people was

limited and in the main buyers required a high standard of wool handling. Two other types of shearing training are also being given. There is a type of course known as the Lincoln College course but these may not be necessarily held at the college. The young shearers often have to be taken to other districts where sheep are available’ for shearing. These courses are sponsored by the Wool Board, which meets all costs. They are for junior and senior shearers. The junior courses last for about two weeks and according to Mr Kidd, are for men who preferably can shear about 50 sheep a day. The senior courses, of about four or five days’ duration, are for those w’ho can shear 150 sheep or more a day. Some seven such courses are being held between january 11 and January 27. One of these was a blade shearing course which has already been held in a shed at Rakaia. Application to join these courses may be made to Federated Farmers.

An innovation this year is what is called “in-shed” training, which Mr Kidd thinks has not been conducted elsewhere in New Zealand. A pioneer spirit in this has been Mr R. Oliver, of Hororata, who organised this sort of instruction three or four years ago with quite a lot of success. It has been begun again this year in the Hororata district and Mr Kidd has since extended it to the Cheviot and Waikari districts. Mr Kidd said it involved calling in on sheds where professional shearers were working and helping and advising them where the shearers wished it. In the Hororata district, Mr Oliver had advised the shearers that he would be calling, Mr Kidd said. If they could improve the work of these men and make their job a little easier for them then they would be happy. The shearers seemed to appreciate this sort of service he said. The better type of shearers realised what was involved in doing good work and were only too pleased to have some help.