A calling to shear joy

How many Yale graduates who run their own web design business do you know who also shear sheep and llamas at farms in a number of different states?  I’m betting zero. 

I only know one and I wanted to ask her about her interest in and, in fact, love of shearing animals.  I learned that is now a second career for her that brings an enormous amount of happiness.

Anne Shroeder, now of Boyds, Md., is someone I first met more than twenty years ago.  Back in those early days when internet access started to become a household staple nationwide, she was using her IT experience to help create a website called Metropets.  The site posted photos and bios of animals up for adoption, integrating material from websites of a number of D.C. area shelters.  The goal: simplifying the search for potential adopters by allowing them to go to one site, rather than several.

Then, a few years later, Anne moved to Boyds—located in one of the more rural areas of Montgomery County, Md.  There, she started Star Gazing Farm on the property where she lives.  The farm, a charitable nonprofit, offers a lifelong sanctuary home for farm animals unwanted by previous owners. 

While also running her own web design consultancy, Anne has also been in business running her farm for almost two decades.  I have visited a few times and plan to do one of my future blog articles on the Star Gazing operation.

Just after she moved to Boyds eighteen years ago, Anne suddenly became interested in shearing, an activity in which, I have noticed over the years, she has become increasingly involved.

When I lived in Norfolk, I saw Anne a few years ago while she was in town for one of her shearing jobs on a rural Tidewater farm.  In the afternoon, she finished her job sweaty and covered in dirt.  She looked like a farm laborer—and she was.  That evening, we went out for a bite to eat and then to an event; she was all dressed up.  Two contrasting images that accurately express this one person’s different sides.

Mostly, Anne shears sheep and alpacas.  She also works with a smaller number of llamas, angora and pygora goats and even a camel.  In addition, she has clipped ponies, donkeys, horses, and cows.  Anne has groomed livestock guardian dogs and trimmed pig hooves and tusks.  One of her favorite activities is clipping Ferdinand, a shaggy Belted Galloway cow who lives in Florida.

She was motivated to learn shearing after she hired a shearer when she was new to farm life in Boyds.  But reality didn’t quite equate with her preconceived vision of the activity. 

“At my first day of class, I got through half a sheep,” said Anne, who contends with scoliosis and an old back injury.  “I sank down to my knees and said, ‘Oh, my God, who does this?  This is so hard!’”

Anne has attended many training classes since her first sheep shearing lessons in 2004.  Now, she is looking forward to returning to South Dakota in February for a class given by a master Australian shearer.  She also has attended three alpaca training courses, which are offered less regularly. 

“It takes many years and a lot of animals to even begin to know the craft,” said Anne, who seeks continual education opportunities so she can enhance her skill level.  She sees training under experienced shearers as the only true way to learn.  

There is not a shearing license in the United States, but one can obtain American Sheep Industry (ASI) certification.  Even though Anne is certified, she regards this designation as less about ensuring safety for the animals and people involved, and more about protocols involved with handling wool that are not always relevant to her clients.

“When you sign up to be certified, you promise that you will not shear on tarps because the plastic material can get mixed in with the wool and contaminate it, as well as to shear white sheep first, black-faced white sheep second, and dark sheep last.  This protocol is more relevant for wool that will be going into large bales and sent to wool pools or industrial processors,” according to Anne. 

Training and a little bit of experience helped launch Anne into another career of professional shearing—something I bet she never imagined when she obtained that diploma in New Haven.  In only her second year of shearing, Anne began receiving requests to help out on certain farms. 

“I tried to caution them that I was a rank beginner, but at that time in this area, there were just not enough shearers—so luckily I got the chance to learn while I worked and people were quite patient with me,” said Anne. 

What she calls her “regular route” these days begins in March.  She goes south, shearing in all the southeastern coastal states.  Next is a period of about two weeks in north Florida, followed by a swing northward through Alabama, Georgia and central Virginia.  The bulk of her season, however, is concentrated in Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, although she once traveled to Wyoming to shear.

Her longest trip is the three-week jaunt to Florida.  Otherwise, she is typically not gone more than two or three nights at a time. 

Anne has two farm caretakers who feed and care for the Star Gazing Farm animals even when she is in town.  They handle nine of the fourteen feedings each week.  When she travels, they handle all the feedings and one stays overnight.  Too, volunteers regularly come to the farm to interact with the animals, clean, fix fences and take care of other tasks—whether she is in town or not. 

I asked this former Ivy Leaguer and IT entrepreneur why she would elect to shear animals, rather than stick to her consulting work, especially when her own nonprofit farm places a considerable number of demands on her on top of her regular work. 

“The thing is, I really love animals,” she explained.  “I don’t really love computers.  I can take a computer or leave it.  I feel a personal commitment to each animal that I work with, and to every farmer who hires me.”

“I love being on the road,” she added.  “Getting the truck loaded up with my gear at the beginning of the season and driving out on beautiful country roads is the best feeling.  When I worked in offices, I felt like I was incarcerated.”

In addition to the necessary travel, meeting a diverse array of people who raise, care for, and sell sheep is a pleasurable aspect of her shearing work.  Many of her clients have become friends whom she communicates with throughout the year. 

“It’s been a humbling experience working with so many different kinds of people.  I’ve never met people who work harder than farmers,” claimed Anne.

Plus, she loves the end result of her work: wool that can be used as fabric.

“Fiber is just beautiful.  It’s soft, has lovely colors, and can be used for so many purposes,” she said.  “Also, it’s biodegradable and uses no petroleum products, unlike a lot of the vegan alternatives.  People who throw it away are just adding to the landfills.”   

Anne charges a minimum show-up fee, a per-head fee and extra fees for services like tooth trimming or horn trimming.  She is paid more for alpacas and llamas than for sheep, but alpacas and llamas require a paid assistant and blades get duller faster than with sheep because the fiber (not wool, since only sheep have wool) has no lanolin, like wool.  In addition, fiber-bearing animals roll on the ground; dust, dirt and sand also wear down blades.

On the other hand, sheep shearing is more physically taxing but goes a lot faster.  Angora goats, she noted, can be uncooperative but their cuteness can make the hassle worthwhile.

Anne donates a certain percentage of her shearing income to Star Gazing Farm.  Some people she has met in her shearing travels have become supporters of the farm, usually donating hay or other goods, but sometimes giving monetary gifts.

Because she works on so many farms, people frequently ask her from which farm can they obtain a certain species or breed of animal as well as to which farm some animals no longer wanted can be transferred.  She assists in these transactions as a way of keeping animals out of auction houses.

She is saddened when some owners make comments about sending animals to auction or developing plans for slaughtering animals who display difficult behavior.  One family told her a male alpaca was “real mean, so we ate him.”

“That’s hard,” she said.  “I try to be mindful of the fact that it’s not my animal, it’s really not my place to judge someone, and the reality is that while I don’t eat meat, most people do.”

“I think it’s practice for me to learn to keep my mouth shut and not make assumptions. Quite interesting things can be learned when you go into a situation not assuming you know more than someone else,” she added.

Anne calls shearing “a real art,” even a calling among some people who shear more than 10,000 sheep per year.  One colleague of hers has a PhD but left behind her office job to shear.

“I never had the idea to do it professionally but I’m a stubborn person and decided that I wouldn’t stop trying to learn it until I’d learned it,” she said.  “One never stops learning how to shear.  So, I’m still at it.”

Anne professed that one must shear 1,000 sheep before one truly understands the rhythm of shearing properly.  She believes her education benefitted by working on small flocks along the East Coast.

“Practicing this art gives me the greatest joy.  With every single animal I shear, I am trying to shear more smoothly and more efficiently, handle the animals better, and get the wool off more cleanly.  It’s sort of a Zen state you get into,” claimed Anne, who related that getting dirty is part of the fun and that she doesn’t mind the grime or smells.  

I was curious if Anne had ever been injured during her shearing work.  She said she’s been “thrown around a bit” and bruised a number of times. 

“The more you understand how an animal moves and thinks, though, the less chances there are of getting hurt,” she claimed.

Fortunately, she has only been to the emergency room once—and that was not due to shearing. Anne was trimming a pig’s hoof when the animal kicked her hand so hard that she thought it was broken, but it wasn’t.

In the primary shearing season in spring, Anne brings a full-time assistant with her to ensure animals are safe and comfortable, and that the working area is as ideal as possible.  Other factors also shape the safety of the session; however, many are not under Anne’s control.

The farmer’s job starts well before the shearer arrives.  The goal is to catch and confine animals with minimal stress for all concerned.  Spaces must be flat, well-lit and well-ventilated.  No small children, dogs, or other animals should be present such that the animals to be shorn are not distracted from being calm.  Sheep must be fasted at least twelve hours before shearing and put in the pen before the shearer arrives. 

“A sheep who is full of feed is uncomfortable, and will struggle and can hurt itself or the shearer.  A sheep, or any animal, who has been chased around the field improperly and not put in a stall or small paddock to rest hours before shearing has an elevated heart rate and adrenaline flowing.  They can actually die if they get too worked up,” warned Anne. 

The rescue farm headmistress from Boyds stated that she has enjoyed much laughter in her shearing pursuits, so I inquired about vignettes from her experiences.

In 2019, on a rainy September day, Anne traveled to Virginia to shear goats and sheep but realized well into her drive that she’d left her wallet at home in Maryland. The first farm had a male goat, known as a buck, in rut.

“These guys pee all over their beards and legs in order to attract the females,” Anne explained.  “It’s such a distinct and unpleasant smell that you’ll never forget it once you’ve experienced it.”

At the final farm that day, a small sheep had a sore on her chest, an area known as the brisket.

“It’s quite common for them to have hardened callouses, but hers started to bleed a bit when I put my knee against her body.  No problem, we treated it with medicine and stopped the blood with cornstarch—a lovely way to stop blood that doesn’t sting, like styptic powder,” she explained. 

Once done and ready to head home, Anne was soaking wet and cold.  Then, her truck began to have engine trouble.  Ultimately, AAA agreed to tow her 100 miles back to her local auto shop.   By the time she arrived, it was after midnight so Anne used Uber to get a ride back to her house and farm.

“When the guy came, I had filthy pants covered in blood and cornstarch, I smelled like a randy goat, my hair was all over the place, and I had a big bath towel wrapped around me since it was the only warm thing I could find in the car,” Anne laughed.  “The driver was not interested in making conversation.”

On another occasion, one protective male alpaca decided to lie down on top of another male alpaca who was being shorn.  He refused to get up, but eventually allowed his friend to be sheared.

In Florida, Anne once trimmed the significantly overgrown hooves of a 400-pound pig named Peaches.  Anne’s best friend Rita, who had no prior livestock experience, was along for the ride. 

“Pigs don’t cooperate with pretty much anything, so you have to just keep them still while they are lying on the ground.  It was Rita’s job to press down on the hip pressure point so Peaches could not kick,” explained Anne.  “She was having a bit of trouble, so she perched her hip on Peaches’ hip, and poop came flying out.  Rita never forgot that she has scared the poop out of a pig.”

I asked Anne whether shearing was inhumane in any way, knowing that many people refuse to wear wool because of their concerns about shearing.

“Across the board, shearing sheep—or any fiber animal—is not inhumane,” she said.  “It’s inhumane to not shear them.  Period.”

Shaping her opinion are visits to farms that have not annually shorn their animals.

“The fleeces are super heavy, often matted and stuck to the skin.  An animal who is not shorn every year is a neglected animal, with everything that goes with that: poor nutrition, no hoof care, no vaccinations, etc.  A good farmer shears his animals,” she stated.

She has seen some videos online of inhumane shearing incidents but believes that the people in them seem to be completely untrained based on their foot positions and hand strokes.  She theorized that these shearers were “incompetent and mean” and rare exceptions to the rule of professional practices.

Anne pointed out that she is an East Coast shearer, meaning that she works on small flocks, often on hobby farms.  Her perspective is a result of limited experience; she is not shearing massive numbers every day as they do in the Midwest, Australia or New Zealand.   From her vantage point, she is not aware of animals being skinned or flayed.

“They are not killed,” she said.  “Why would a farmer kill a sheep who grows nice wool every year?” 

“Fiber animals have been domesticated by humans for thousands of years and it’s our responsibility to take care of them, which includes manually removing their fiber,” Anne pointed out.

Once the wool is removed, she and the farmers can see issues affecting the sheep, including low body weight, skin conditions, cancerous growths, festering scars, maggots, and mastitis.  Such conditions are not the norm, according to Anne, but not shearing means they may go undetected.  Getting so close to the animal also allows for comfortable, extended looks at teeth, eyes and ears. 

“The only thing I do mind is when the animals have been neglected and are in bad shape. That hurts my heart,” she said.

She once sheared alpacas at a farm where they lived in the dark basement of a barn.  She successfully offered to adopt the animals from the owners for a reimbursement of the shearing cost.  The alpacas still live on her own farm.  

I asked her if animals are ever injured when shorn.  Serious cuts are rare, she pointed out, and most shearers are prepared to treat cuts.

“Shearing is hard work and takes a long time to learn—and you’re using a very sharp tool.  You’re going to make mistakes,” said Anne, who brings a fully stocked first aid kit for animals to her jobs.  “I don’t know one shearer who hasn’t cut themselves often, nor do I know any shearer who has never cut an animal.  It’s just a hazard of the work.”

The vast majority of professional production shearers, she explained, “are fast, know exactly how to keep the sheep comfortable, and you just don’t see many nicks or cuts.  Amongst those large sheep shearing contractor operations, those who are rough with the sheep, poor at taking the wool off cleanly, and cut up the sheep are not keeping their jobs for long.”

She added that people who don’t want to buy wool products from retailers can reach out to small farmers who will let you come to their farms, meet their animals, see them being shorn, and sell the wool at that time.