sheep that are usually shorn once a

year.

Bred for the high quality meat, the Suffolk and Poll Dorset were introduced to the farm 70 years ago by Anthony’s dad, Les Duffield.

Popular in Japan, Mr Duffield has played host to the overseas visitors who have come to hand pick their choice of sheep.

Teresa Duffield hopes to carry on the family tradition and take over the stud side of the farm.

This will include taking on the breeding program, identifying breeding stock and show stock and implementing new strategies to produce a higher feed rate.

For now the family are focused on

working as experienced rouseabouts around shearer Rodney Wood during the two hour run. The mass shearing of sheep follows a well-defined workflow with Tyson

Duffield catching the sheep in the pen before handing them over to Rodney to quickly shear.

Sweeping and removing the wool, Anthony passes the fleece on to Teresa who throws it onto the wool table.

The fleece is then cleaned or skirted to remove the sweat fribs and other less desirable parts of the fleece.

The removed pieces largely consist of shorter, seeded, burry or dusty wool which is still useful in the industry.

Following the skirting of the fleece,

it is folded, rolled and examined for its

quality in a process known as wool

classing.

Based on its type, the fleece is placed into the relevant wool bin ready to be pressed and when there is sufficient wool, made into a wool bale.

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