Hawke's Bay lockdown or no lockdown the wool must come off

Shearers Lou Hakiwai (left) and Tare Aramakutu made use of lockdown in their Hastings quarters by cleaning their combs and cutters. Photo / Warren Buckland

It's sometimes slow going but it's essential to get the wool off the sheep's back in a shearing season peak in the middle of the Covid-19 level 4 lockdown.

Colin Watson Paul, of Flaxmere-based Shearing NZ, had about 5000 sheep lined up when the first lockdown announcement came last week, and shearers quartered waiting to get out to work.

"We were booked solid, but there had to be a whole lot of sheep let out to the paddock on Tuesday night," he said. "There were four gangs lined up – about 30 people."

But staff in his Hastings quarters, several from outside Hawke's Bay, were confined to their digs, while arrangements were put in place for crews to work as essential workers, with social distancing and working within bubbles, shearers working only on alternate stands, which in effect would cut the output of a day in the woolshed by half.

His gangs resumed work on Saturday and by the time of the latest Government Covid-19 announcement had shorn close to 10,000 sheep over the last three days, mainly hoggets and ewes, as shearing gangs throughout the country strive to avoid a backlog.

It's also a case of getting in before the rain, but none is forecast in Hawke's Bay until the weekend.

"It is a busy time in the sheep business, and they all need shearing for various reasons," he said. "They are part of the supply chain. The wool must come off."

By contrast the March-May lockdown last year had come at a comparatively quiet time in his shearing calendar."

The Ministry of Primary Industries says shearing is considered an essential service only where it is necessary for animal welfare and it cannot be deferred, or if it's undertaken to enable hygienic processing of the sheep.