Editing Sheep shearing (section)

==Modern shearing in Australia==
<!-- Deleted image removed: [[Image:Rouseabout.jpg|thumb|upright|Shearer on a raised board and [[rouseabout]], [[Lismore, Victoria]]]] -->
[[File:Shearing 08.JPG|thumb|Throwing a fleece onto a wool table.]]

Today large flocks of sheep are [[muster (livestock)|mustered]], inspected and possibly treated for parasites such as [[lice]] before shearing can start.<ref name="sffmw">{{cite book |title=Sheep Farming for Meat and Wool |last=Court |first=Jane |author2=Sue Hides |author3=John Webb-Ware  |year=2010 |publisher=Csiro Publishing |isbn=978-0643102064 |page=183 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-zhY-uUUQboC |access-date=30 December 2013}}</ref> then shorn by professional shearing teams working eight-hour days, most often in spring, by machine shearing. These contract-teams consist of shearers, shed hands and a cook (in the more isolated areas). Their working hours and wages are regulated by industry awards. A working day starts at 7:30 [[12-hour clock|am]] and the day is divided into four "runs" of two hours each. "Smoko" breaks are a half-hour each and a lunch break is taken at midday for one hour. Most shearers are paid on a piece-rate per sheep. Shearers who "tally" more than 200 sheep per day are known as "gun shearers". Typical mass shearing of sheep today follows a well-defined workflow:

* remove the wool 
* throw the fleece onto the wool table 
* skirt, roll and class the fleece 
* place it in the appropriate wool bin 
* press and store the wool until it is transported

In 1984 Australia became the last country in the world to legalize the use of wide combs, due to previous [[Australian Workers' Union]] rules. Although they were once rare in sheds, women now take a large part in the shearing industry by working as pressers, wool rollers, rouseabouts, [[wool classer]]s and shearers.<ref>Taylor, Peter, Pastoral Properties of Australia, George Allen & Unwin, Sydney, London, Boston,1984</ref>

===Wool removal===
A sheep is caught by the shearer, from the catching pen, and taken to his "stand" on the shearing board. It is shorn using a mechanical handpiece (see ''Shearing devices'' below). The wool is removed by following an efficient set of movements, devised by [[Godfrey Bowen]] in about 1950 (the ''Bowen Technique''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/bowen.html|title=The Bowen Technique|access-date=26 August 2008}}</ref>) or the ''Tally-Hi'' method developed in 1963 and promoted by the Australian Wool Corporation. Sheep struggle less using the Tally-Hi method, reducing strain on the shearer and there is a saving of about 30 seconds in shearing each one.

[[Image:ShearersMoccasinsC2289.jpg|thumb|right|Shearers wear [[Moccasin (footwear)|moccasins]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www2.dpi.qld.gov.au/sheep/10042.html |title=Sheep parasites |access-date=10 November 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081202084159/http://www2.dpi.qld.gov.au/sheep/10042.html |archive-date=2 December 2008}}</ref> to protect their feet, grip wooden floors well, and absorb sweat.{{Citation needed|date=November 2010}}]]

The shearer begins by removing the belly wool, which is separated from the main fleece by a rouseabout, while the sheep is still being shorn. A professional or "gun" shearer typically removes a fleece, without significantly marking or cutting the sheep, in two to three minutes, depending on the size and condition of the sheep—less than two minutes in elite-competitive shearing. The shorn sheep is released and removed from the board via a chute in the floor or in a wall, to an exterior counting-out pen.

The [[CSIRO]] in Australia has developed a non-mechanical method of shearing sheep using an injected [[protein]] that creates a natural break in the wool fibres. After fitting a retaining net to enclose the wool, sheep are injected with the protein. When the net is removed after a week, the fleece has separated and is removed by hand.<ref>{{cite web |author=Cribb |first=Julian |author-link=Julian Cribb |date=26 June 1998 |title=CSIRO Media Release: REVOLUTIONARY WOOL HARVESTING TAKES OFF |url=http://www.csiro.au/news/mediarel/mr1998/mr98148.html |access-date=26 August 2008 |publisher=CSIRO}}</ref> In some breeds a similar process occurs naturally.

===Fleece skirting===
Once the entire fleece has been removed from the sheep, the fleece is ''thrown'', clean side down, on to a wool table by a shed hand (commonly known in New Zealand and Australian sheds as a ''[[rouseabout]]'' or ''rousie''). The wool table top consists of slats spaced approximately 12&nbsp;cm apart. This enables short pieces of wool, the ''locks'' and other debris, to gather beneath the table separately from the fleece. The fleece is then ''skirted'' by one or more wool rollers to remove the sweat fribs and other less desirable parts of the fleece. The removed pieces largely consist of shorter, seeded, burry or dusty wool etc. which is still useful in the industry. As such they are placed in separate containers and sold along with fleece wool. Other items removed from the fleece on the table, such as faeces, skin fragments or twigs and leaves, are discarded a short distance from the wool table so as not to contaminate the wool and fleece.

Following the skirting of the fleece, it is folded, rolled and examined for its quality in a process known as [[wool classing]], which is performed by a registered and qualified wool classer. Based on its type, the fleece is placed into the relevant wool bin ready to be pressed (mechanically compressed) when there is sufficient wool to make a [[wool bale]].

===Rooing===
In some primitive sheep (for example in many [[Shetland sheep|Shetlands]]), there is a natural break in the growth of the wool in spring. By late spring this causes the fleece to begin to peel away from the body, and it may then be plucked by hand without cutting – this is known as ''rooing''. Individual sheep may reach this stage at slightly different times.