SHEARING board design hasn’t changed all that much since the wool boom of the 1950s, but thanks to wool harvesters and Australian Wool Innovation funding a “blueprint” of a new design will be available free.
The result of more than 12 months hands-on research by professionals in the wool harvesting industry will soon be released onto the AWI website.
Project facilitator, Peter Schuster of Schuster Consulting Group, Dubbo, said after AWI agreed to the concept, a workshop was convened which clearly identified the need to consult with all stakeholders in the wool harvesting process.
“The project was looking at different approaches to wool harvesting which maximised animal welfare and worker welfare as well as efficiency in that process,” Mr Schuster said.
A reference group of the best shearers and shedhands from throughout Australia with wool classers was formed and inspected six sheds on a tour in the Central West.
“These professionals looked at the different designs, picked the eyes out of what worked and what didn’t and put together a checklist or review sheet which they completed at each shed then workshopped all of those ideas,” Mr Schuster said.
“From this feedback an online survey was submitted to about 500 shearers, classers and wool producers seeking feedback on what they saw as the critical elements affecting welfare and efficiency in the woolshed and wool harvesting process.”
With that feedback a prototype shearing module was built at Help’Em Shearing’s Dubbo property of Hilton Barrett, Arrow Park, who instigated the project concept when he decided to build a new woolshed.
“We’ve been working in old floor plans developed in the 1950s which haven’t changed much since,” Mr Barrett said.
Prototypes had been built and trialled at the Arrow Park property with the third version now approved.
Mr Schuster said it was a constant process of trialling different angles, different stand positions.
“We’ve now got the catching pen right, a really good front-fill (downward) gentle sloped catching pen which works efficiently,” he said.
“We have minimised a shearer’s turning and (sheep) drag which optimises efficiency and welfare of the shearer.”
Australian champion shearer Jason Wingfield, Cobram, Victoria, one of the professionals, said sheep are now bigger and we took into consideration designs that would make it easier for people to move those bigger sheep around.
“Changing the angles of catching pens so we are dragging (sheep) out to the board in a straight line and when finished shearing drop the sheep straight down a wider chute takes the big corners out,” Mr Wingfield said.
