babbling brook

The shearers cook. In early times, the cook was paid by a subscription from the shearers and shed hands. Nowadays the cook is paid by the property owner or contractor.

bait layer

The shearers cook. The men who cooked for shearers in those early times, like the shearers themselves, were a tough and rugged breed and their cooking prowess was not always their greatest asset. More often than not, the shearers' opinion of their cook was not a case of 'who called the cook a bastard', but rather 'who called the bastard a cook'.

bare-bellied yoe

A sheep with completely-shaved belly.

blades

The hand shears used by shearers before the advent of the machine-driven shears.

blind blow

The blow that a shearer takes when opening up the fleece up the neck of the sheep, when they are unable to see what the blades, or handpiece is doing and have to go by feel alone.

blow

A single sweeping cut in the fleece that a shearer takes with the blades, or handpiece.

blue-tongue

A shed hand, many of whom were young boys. The shearers alleged that these boys spent most of their time catching flies, as does a blue-tongue lizard.

board

The floor along the wall of the shearing shed where the sheep are shorn.

bog-eye

The shearer's handpiece. The word comes from the Aboriginal word 'bogii' meaning lizard. The original handpieces had a resemblance to a lizard.

boots

The boss of the board. The man in charge of operations in the shearing shed. Often this was the first evidence the shearer saw of the boss. It was the warning the shearers called when the boss was around.

bowyangs

Boot laces that were tied around the legs of trousers just below the knee, to hold the trousers in and keep them clear of the shears.

brownie

A popular shearers smoko cake.

brownie gorger

A shed hand boy. In early times, many of the shed hands were young boys and like all young boys, they were always hungry.

catching pen

The small yards, or pens situated inside the shed next to the shearing board, where the shearers caught the sheep to shear them. Two shearers sheared from each pen.

chaff

Second-cut wool. Short wool that has taken more than one cut to remove it from the sheep.

chaffer

An inexperienced, or poor shearer. A shearer who has to take many second and sometimes third cuts to remove all the wool from the sheep.

chinaman

A sheep with a tuft of wool left on its rump,

chute

The opening in the shed wall next to each shearer, where the shorn sheep exit into the counting-out pens.

cobbler

The worst sheep to shear left in the pen until last. A sheep shunned by each shearer, who hoped his mate would get it to shear.

combs and cutters

The cutting end of the handpiece. The comb, with its many long teeth, is fixed to the base of the handpiece and the three-toothed cutter is driven back and forth across this, cutting the wool picked up by the comb.

counting-out pen

The pen situated outside the shed opposite each individual shearer, which held the sheep shorn by the shearer. These were counted by the shed boss and added to the shearer's tally.

cracker

A very old sheep, usually toothless and worthless.

cut-out

The completion of the shearing in a shed for the season.

dags

The dried excreta hanging to the wool around a sheep's tail.

ducks on the pond

Ladies in, or approaching the shearing shed, so watch your language. The warning called by shearers when ladies were around.

expert

The man who was in charge of all the machinery. He sharpened the combs and cutters for most of the shearers. Some shearers preferred to sharpen their own combs and cutters.

flea taxi

The sheep dog.

guesser

The man who classed the wool.

gun

A top class shearer, or the best shearer in a shed or gang.

handpiece

The business end of the machine shears that the shearer holds to shear the sheep. That part of machine shears that drives the cutter back and forth over the comb to cut the fleece from the sheep.

hogget

A yearling sheep.

hollow log

A sheep dog,

in the grease

Shearing sheep with unwashed wool. In the old blade shearing days, the wool was washed on the sheep's back before they were shorn. However, the rams and ewes heavy in lamb were not washed for fear of damaging them and they were shorn in the grease. Since the advent of machine shears, all sheep are shorn in the grease.

jewellery

The shearer's combs and cutters. The condition of these pieces of equipment affected how a shearer was able to shear and they were treated like pieces of jewellery.

jumbuck

An early term for a sheep, mostly used by shepherds and shearers.

lizard

The shearer's handpiece. Some early handpieces looked like a lizard in their shape.

locks

Short second-cut wool that falls through the rollers of the skirting table, or is swept up off the shearing board.

long blow

The long sweeping cuts the shearer takes along the first side and back of the sheep.

lounge-about

Young shedhand boys.

moccasin

The homemade footwear shearers use, usually made from bag or felt.

monkey's eyebrows

Short wool shorn from lambs.

penner-up

The shed hand responsible for keeping the shearers catching pens filled with sheep.

pick-up

The oldest and most experienced boys in the shed, whose job it was to pick up the shorn fleece from the shearing board and carry it to the skirting table, where they threw the fleece out on the table with the outside up.

plumb jams

Lambs.

pony boy

Usually the youngest most inexperienced boy in the shed, whose job it was to carry the rolled up fleece from the skirting table to the classer's table.

quart pots

Very young lambs.

red eyes

Wethers.

ringer

The fastest shearer in the shed.

rosella

A sheep that has lost part of its fleece.

rouse-about

An adult shed hand.

run

A two hour shearing period.

screen

The skirting table.

second-cut

Short wool resulting from a shearer not taking the wool off close enough to the sheep's skin and having to make a second cut to remove the rest of the wool.

sheep-o

The call from shearers for the penner-up to fill their catching pen with sheep.

skirting table

The table, or tables set in the centre of the shed, the tops of which are made up of wooden rollers. The shorn fleece is thrown out on this with the outside up, so the second cut wool will fall off and the stained wool can be removed from around the edges.

snagger

An old shearer, who is past retirement age, but doesn't want to retire.

snob

A bad sheep to shear.

snowed-in

A condition that occurs in a shearing shed, when one part of the shearing team is unable to handle the amount of wool that is coming from the shearers, thus causing a bottleneck and a backlog of fleeces in that department, which eventually brings the shed to a halt.

socks

Wool left on the legs of a sheep between the knee and the foot.

squeezer

The wool presser.

stand

The place on the shearing board occupied by each shearer.

steel beak

A shed hand.

sweat rag

A shearers towel.

sheep-up

A shedhand boy, whose task it is to sweep each shearer's stand clean of wool after the shorn fleece is picked up.

swagger

Lucky fellow

tally

The number of sheep shorn by each shearer.

tally-bound

A psychological barrier that a shearer appears unable to break, when his tally reaches a certain number. A shearer's description of the counter, when he believes he has shorn more sheep than he is credited with.

tar boy

A young boy shed hand whose task it was to put Stockholm Tar, a special tar dressing, on the wounds of badly-cut sheep.

tassel

A lock, or tuft of wool left hanging on a shorn sheep.

team

All the people working in a shearing shed during shearing.

tick squasher

A wool presser.

tongs

Shearing blades, or hand shears.

tube

The metal down-tube that carries the flexible drive-shaft that powers the handpiece.

tussock jumpers

Station hands.

weeding the garden

Plucking wool from a sheep that has been missed by the shearer.

wether

An adult male sheep that has been castrated.

whipping side

The short quick blows taken by the shearer around the side of the sheep while it is in the sitting position.

white wash

The removal of just enough wool to make a sheep's fleece white, usually applying to lambs when they are first shorn.

wigging

The removal of wool from around the eyes of a sheep to prevent wool-blindness.

Wolseleys

An early term for machine shears. Wolseley developed the earliest machine-driven shears.

wool-away

A shearer's call to the pick-up boy to clear the wool from his stand.

wool blind

Sheep that are unable to see due to the amount of wool around their eyes.

wool roller

A person working on the skirting table, removing the stained wool from the fleece.

wooled-up

The situation that occurs in a shearing shed when the shearers are shearing quicker than the wool can be handled. When wool gets caught up in a shearer's down-tube, or the back joint of the handpiece, causing overheating of the equipment.

yoe

An early shearers' term for a ewe, or an adult female sheep.