whos selling wool to the irish , ?

[Frank-the-Wool]

Whats wool making over with you lads? .50 cent a kilo here at the minute gone beyond a joke!

Have heard reports the Irish firms are paying 60p/kg (white wool) round me.

Well that is interesting.

The last BWMB auction 3 weeks ago the average Greasy price per kg was £1.08, now bearing in mind this was the last auction of 2017 wool and was very much a clearing up sale of odds and sods you can see why they want to buy as much wool as possible off farms.

I will be very surprised if the new season wool at the first auction is not higher than this unless too many people have already sold direct.

 

[tepapa]

IMO, its a bad year to sell to the Irish. I link wool price to the price of oil as its main competitor in the production of fabric. With oil prices up it will likely have a affect on wool. The Irish buying at 60p/kg now will only be good for them.

 

[ThatsSomeSheep]

Irish. Yup. Every year.

TSS

 

[sheepwise]

He means that potential earnings of £400 a day is enough to put people off clipping[/QU
£400/day is easily achieved by an experienced shearer if you can get a big mob of sheep on a well organised farm.However these days have to be balanced out with the days when you spend half your day moving between farms,getting rained off or waiting for sheep being gathered or lambs being shed off.etc.
Becoming a 400/day shearer doesn't happen without a lot of hard graft.dedication,investment in gear,training,etc, which includes many days at the start of your career not earning any more than an average hourly rate. In all my years of contract shearing there were not many farmers who grudged us our income as most knew what it was like to do the job themselves. You get a decent top joiner or builder in for a few days and find out how much sweat they lose for £400.

 

[Sheepandcalfs]

Think texacloth only quoteing 40 pence a kg over here‍

 

[sheepwise]

How much more do you need?... £2k a week is a bloody good earning in agriculture

Anybody is allowed to do the job so no need to knock those who are skilled enough to be at the top of their profession.

 

[Dyffryn]

You try shearing 300-400 a day day in day out and then come on here and complain that shearers are making to much money! They deserve every penny they get! It’s a job that rewards hard work.

 

[Nithsdale]

Anybody is allowed to do the job so no need to knock those who are skilled enough to be at the top of their profession.

I am not knocking anyone at all.

I'm putting the earning into perspective within the rest of the industry.

The financial reward is in numbers shorn. You do not charge more simply because you are capable of shearing more...

 

[sheepwise]

You try shearing 300-400 a day day in day out and then come on here and complain that shearers are making to much money! They deserve every penny they get! It’s a job that rewards hard work.

No we only make it look hard so nobody else wants to do it! Keep all that lovely money to ourselves!

 

[M-J-G]

Every penny a shearer gets is earned. I wouldn't say they make huge money for what they do.

It's a sort season, and things like weather delays, traveling, disorganised farmers will lead to the average weeks earnings not to be anything special, particularly when hours away from home are counted up.

 

[tepapa]

I am not knocking anyone at all.

I'm putting the earning into perspective within the rest of the industry.

Ah, don't compare it to the ag industry. Compare it to other skilled trades .What other professions take a sweat towel to work and use it!

 

[Hilly]

The sheep shearer who leaves school shears sheep around the world buy s lovely house raises a family and retires comfortably well off dose not exist.

 

[Nithsdale]

Ah, don't compare it to the ag industry. Compare it to other skilled trades .What other professions take a sweat towel to work and use it!

Ah, but there's no real qualification to shear. Any one can go do it... you don't need your BWMB certificate (which to this day I'm waiting on arriving ) so it's not a skilled trade compared to most others, ergo does not demand skilled trade wages








(sorry I'm just arguing for arguing sakes now. I made my point, some clearly didn't really read it - not you, you actually did - my circuit is very small compared to some but big compared to others... It has let me see things from both sides)

 

[Hilly]

If your interested in shearing a good film to watch is called Sunday too far away, i know a man who was their then, tells me he learned too fight cos the Aus boys went on strike so the brits went over to shear the sheep in the fifties, good old film.

 

[tepapa]

Ah, but there's no real qualification to shear. Any one can go do it... you don't need your BWMB certificate (which to this day I'm waiting on arriving ) so it's not a skilled trade compared to most others, ergo does not demand skilled trade wages




)

But you are confusing skill with qualification. Anyone can do a BWMB course and pass with a blue seal but have they got the skills to peel out 300+/day regardless of breed, condition, age?

Its all good debate @Nithsdale Farmer

 

[jackstor]

[QUOTE="Frank-the-Wool, post: 5208712, member: 699"



The Irish don't any more as they are owned by the scouring companies, who do buy wool at the auction, they would prefer to buy direct off farms than through the auction as they can rip people off as very few farmers know what their wool is worth.[/QUOTE]

Does the BWMB know what the value of the wool they market is worth? It seems every year they advertise that the wool you send them will be worth £X amount, then near the end of the season the chief executive comes out and says due to difficult trading conditions etc, that the prices they quoted at the start of the season were to much and in fact they're just going to pay you half of what they quoted!

The 'Irish' provide a service to farmers where they will pay an agreed p/kg for the wool with payment being made within a few days after it has been dropped off at a collection centre.

If farmers weren't happy with the service being provided by the 'Irish', then the Irish wouldn't get any wool!

 

[Nithsdale]

But you are confusing skill with qualification. Anyone can do a BWMB course and pass with a blue seal but have they got the skills to peel out 300+/day regardless of breed, condition, age?

Its all good debate @Nithsdale Farmer

But the qualification is the proof of the skill without having to go and prove your skill
I mean, you don't get a lawyer in just because he says he can do it


Blue seal is just for turning up, isn't it? I only went one year and they 'gave' me the bronze straight away, said I'd get the silver if I came back the following year.

I'm not 300, but I can do 200 a day. I don't often get the chance of that many in a day though due to other jobs to do before and after a day shearing.


Maybe I'm not right in the head, but I do wish sometimes I had left the farm and got stuck into shearing properly. It's a job I love doing - and despite what some have picked up, I am certainly not knocking the job or those who do it

 

[tepapa]

Maybe I'm not right in the head, but I do wish sometimes I had left the farm and got stuck into shearing properly. It's a job I love doing - and despite what some have picked up, I am certainly not knocking the job or those who do it

No you did the right thing by not. After 20 years at the British season, i can't say I'd do it all over again. Well I would still go shearing but in oz and nz, where you can get full days 6+ days a week in main shear with only a hand piece and combs/ cutters. None of the you have to put up with shearing in the UK. This is the first summer since school that if the sun's out I haven't had to go shearing, and I've even got a tan from wearing shorts and not shearing jeans!
I fear the age of the self shearing sheep is approaching!

 

[Nithsdale]

No you did the right thing by not. After 20 years at the British season, i can't say I'd do it all over again. Well I would still go shearing but in oz and nz, where you can get full days 6+ days a week in main shear with only a hand piece and combs/ cutters. None of the you have to put up with shearing in the UK. This is the first summer since school that if the sun's out I haven't had to go shearing, and I've even got a tan from wearing shorts and not shearing jeans!
I fear the age of the self shearing sheep is approaching!

Before I left school there was a Kiwi used to come here... somebody Meikle - maybe Chris?? (we are talking maybe 20yr ago). He toured the world doing the circuit - NZ, Aus, Falklands, UK, Europe... finished in Norway (?) shearing lambs in the slaughterhouse before going back to NZ to start again... I thought he was mental. Now I look at it thinking what a great way to see the world...

 

[Paul E]

Well, back to the original topic.............
My wool is going to Ireland when it's done.
The last time it went to BWMB, they wanted money off me to take it!! (eventually that is, when they got around to 'paying' for it, and difficult trading conditions meant it was worth less than they thought.)
Don't confuse BWMB with MMB.
Anyone willing to gamble on the sales of their main commodity (milk) wants their head looking at. Anyone willing to gamble a little bit with a byproduct is welcome to in my book.
It wasn't that long ago mine got the swan vestas treatment, and I didn't go bankrupt.
At least with the Irish I know when I set off what it's worth. You wouldn't set off to the mart and not have a clue what your lamb was going to be worth now would you?
Or is it just me?