David Todd:
Shearing Maryland's Flocks

On a chilly January morning in Maryland, David Todd stands on the concrete pad at a shearing station and flips a North Country Cheviot onto its back. Nearby, a black and white border collie stands poised on a growing mound of wool, eagerly hoping the ram will squirm free so he can chase it.

Not a chance. After 19 years of experience, Todd is not about to lose his grip. The ram barely moves as Todd peels the heavy coat with practiced ease, then flips the animal onto its feet and lets it scramble back into the pen.

As far as Todd knows, he's the only full-time, professional shearer in central Maryland. There are several in southern Pennsylvania and a few part-time people in the area who shear on weekend. But he climbs into his white van nearly every morning and drives to appointments at farms outside Baltimore and on Maryland's Eastern Shore and Delaware.

In Australia and New Zealand, the 39-year-old shearer would be planning to hang up his clippers and find another job. Professional shearers in those countries are expected to handle 400 sheep a day. "They're like professional athletes. They can do a sheep in 40 seconds," he says. "When you do that, you're worn out by 35."

He should know, since he's spent some time at giant sheep stations Down Under. The biggest, in New South Wales, had 140-thousand sheep. He was part of a 12-man team. "We sheared all of the sheep in one month. We ate lamb and eggs for breakfast, lamb chops for lunch, and roast lamb for dinner," he recalls. "I was never so glad to get away from a place in my life!"

The small size of Maryland's sheep population allows him the option of continuing to shear. Barring injury, he expects to keep his shears sharpened until he's 50. Aside from some research facilities with flocks of one or two thousand sheep, most flocks in Maryland are about 250 head. Todd also works with many flocks of only 20 or so. Many of those are maintained for agricultural tax purposes or by people who have a few acres of land and don't want to mow the fields. "Then there are some by people who have a cottage industry. They make their own things, and let the sheep pay for themselves."

Todd honed is skills while working beside his father on the Isle of Arran off the coast of Scotland. After finishing school, he packed his bags and headed for New Zealand and Australia. About 15 years ago, he visited the U.S., was offered a job at a farm in Maryland, and decided to stay. "I was getting too old to live in a suitcase," he explains. He enjoys the slower pace of work in the States. "I like to meet all of the people at the different farms. There's something a little different every day."

One difference between the U.S. and Australia and New Zealand is the popularity of oversized sheep in show classes. It's a trend he doesn't like. "The sheep are bigger here than elsewhere in the world. Unless they are huge, they will not win." He mentions a show recently where the winning sheep was 460 pounds. "That's the size of a feeder cow. Breeders are crossing bigger breeds like Rambouillet and Targhees with Dorsets, but still calling them Dorsets. Sheep in New Zealand and Australia are still the proper size. They are almost half the size of winning sows in the U.S."

If there was a reason for this, Todd says he could accept it, but he doesn't see one. "They are just used for breeding and showing. You can't shear them because of the size of the machine. The machine isn't big enough. They're not sold for mutton or used for anything useful, just to breed even bigger sheep."

Even if the oversized sheep produced oversized amounts of wool, that wouldn't serve much purpose. The cost of wool is so low that there wasn't even a wool pull in Maryland last year. "So much is stockpiled because the bid was so low. No one wanted to sell their wool for that price. They can store it themselves, unless they have a private bidder. I think a lot of wool is going to cottage industry buyers for hand-made and smaller markets."

Although he has business in January and the other winter months, Todd isn't all that fond of winter, even the relatively mild ones of the mid-Atlantic. He's heading for Australia again in 2001, spending January through March working at the big sheep stations. He thinks it'll be enough to remind him of why he likes working on the smaller farms and the slower pace in Maryland.
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