SHORTAGE OF SHEARERS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19824, 29 December 1938, Page 13

SHORTAGE OF SHEARERS

RUNHOLDERS’ WORRIES MUSTEKERS SCARCE The shortage of shearers is becoming a serious difficulty with a number of Canterbury runholders in the high country this season, and, combined with the changeable and wet weather that has predominated all over the South Island for the last six weeks, it has become an almost insurmountable problem. A reporter who visited the North Otago and Central Otago districts was told that in the Lake Pukaki district there were three sheds within 20 miles of each other shearing with only one shearer each. A number of sheds which- usually employ from' four to nine shearers this year have only two and three men on the board. Shearing in this manner becomes very costly, as elassers and shed hands have to be employed for so much longer, and also the sheep have to be kept in on .small blocks near the homestead, and this, with constant handling and dogging, tends to weaken and spoil their constitution. A number of sheep men contend that after a severe winter such as the last one sheep are better shown as early as possible, as they pick up in condition much quicker after shearing and can be left unmolested till, the autmn muster. Fortunately there seem to be more Australian shearers in New Zealand than usual this year, and any that have come have found positions almost immediately. Machine-shearing is mostly generally used in Australia, and as blade shears are mostly used in the South Island the chances of relief being supplied from that direction is lessened.