Shearer
What the work is
Removes wool and hair from sheep, goats, alpacas and other animals.
Would you enjoy the work?
These are the main tasks in the official description. Mark how each one sounds to you.
- Selects and prepares shearing equipment
- Catches and positions animals for shearing
- Shears and removes wool and hair from animals
- Identifies contaminated fibre and injured, infected and diseased animals
- Treats skin cuts on shorn animals
- Returns shorn animals to let-out pens for counting and checking
- May service, maintain and repair shearing equipment
- May shear stud animals with hand shears or special combs
Try it
A simulation and a case study from this kind of work, set in a fictional woolshed on a sheep property during shearing, with a board, a wool table and a team of six. They are fictional.
The kind of days you could have
Good days
- A clean, even fleece comes off in one piece and drops onto the board just right
- The shed hums, the team keeps pace, and the final tally is a good one
- A wool classer looks at a bale and knows exactly what the buyer will think of it
Hard days
- A hot shed, a bent back and a tally to hit while keeping the sheep calm
- A rainy week that delays the whole run and backs up the shearing teams
- A fleece with something in it that spoils the whole line and has to be explained to the grower
Written by Career Calling as a general guide. Real roles vary by employer and place.
Work a mission
Step into a simulated workplace in this field, with a brief from your manager.
Description and tasks: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Occupation Standard Classification for Australia, 2024, Version 1.0 (opens another site), occupation 343331, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The skill guide above is our plain English summary.