19yo Burekup shearer loving life on the road

When Burekup teenager Luke Armstrong started his shearing business last year, he had a feeling he would be busy. But a year down the track he is fielding calls left, right and centre and having to turn down jobs, with the young gun and his team of three booked out until April next year. The 19-year-old graduated from the WA College of Agriculture — Narrogin in September last year, where he honed his skills before embarking on his venture as Ewe Beaut contracting. “It’s been busy apart from a couple of months in the middle,” he said. He is joined by a mate who is also on the shears and his girlfriend who roustabouts, with the trio travelling between sheds from Manjimup and Bridgetown to Margaret River, Harvey and Narrogin. “It’s good ‘cause you get your morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea,” he laughed. It has been an unprecedented year for learners and young shearers, with the State’s workforce — which is heavily reliant on workers from New Zealand and elsewhere overseas — more than 350 shearers and shed staff short due to coronavirus travel restrictions. Contractors are taking on up to four times as many learners as they work day-in, day-out to get through the backlog of thousands of sheep and get the wool off WA’s flock. “We’ve seen a lot of young ones getting a run,” WA Shearing Industry Association president Darren Spencer said. “This year there won’t be the break that there normally is near Christmas as teams will still be working and then they’ll need to start their summer runs.” Manjimup farmer Jodi Johnston who, with her husband Matt, runs a small flock of 260 cross-bred Merino poll dorset ewes and lambs on 39ha, considered having young shearers in the shed a win-win. “Because we’re such a small mob, we found that with shearers, getting a big group in you’re always pushed to the end of the line, which is understandable...because they are needed for the bigger flocks,” she said. “Normally by now, we still wouldn’t have been shearing, normally (we shear in) December. By then, we could nearly get rid of some of the lambs. “And it’s an opportunity and a way to get the kids into it without it being intimidating like when you go into a big team. The Johnstons, who have also planted 1200 avocados and 1500 feijoas, brought Luke and his team in for the ewes, but their three sons Jared, 19, Zack, 17, and Blake, 15 — who have all attended WA College of Agriculture - Harvey — will be shearing the lambs. “The average age of our shearing shed is 17.5,” Mrs Johnston laughed. “So we’ve got the youngest team and the oldest press, our Ajax Wool Press is more than 40-years-old.” Zack also recently achieved a significant milestone for someone of his age, getting his owner/wool classer ticket approved by the Australian Wool Exchange in January. The registration allows him to class the wool of his family’s flock and follows on from his studies in Advanced Wool Handling and Wool Clipping Preparation training. “We’ve got a small mob and it’s just more convenient being able to do it ourselves,” he said.