Post by Queue on Dec 4, 2011 21:21:54 GMT -5
Seth Jenkins grabs a black-faced Suffolk sheep around the neck and with Billie Fowler nudging from behind, they lead the nearly 200-lb animal onto a plywood board. The friends maneuver the ewe onto her rear haunches, exposing her belly, and with Jenkins wedging the furry animal between his knees, Fowler hands him a pair of electric shears.
What follows is the lesson of the day at sheep-shearing school at New Mexico State University: how to remove a year's growth of wool without nicking the sheep — or yourself — with the clippers. And how to do it without taking your back out.
It doesn't take long for rivulets of perspiration to trickle down Jenkins' face as he discovers the physical demands of the process. "We tried to do this on our own, but it was a joke," says Rick Banks, who, along with neighbors Jenkins and Fowler, raises farm animals near the New Mexico-Texas border as part of a commitment to self-sustainability. In 2007, it took them all day to shear eight sheep and already Fowler knows they can cut that time in half.