If you’re a Campbell, you can sheer a sheep in two minutes

Three generations of the Campbell family competed at the Randolph Fair Sheep Shearing Contest this year.

The contest was first started by Jay Campbell in 1991, as a way to keep his son, Chuck Campbell, and other 4-H kids interested in the skill.

Chuck, the president of the Randolph County Fair’s sheep committee, is now 47 and was this year’s overall winner of the champions division at the fair. Chuck’s son, Mackenzie Campbell, 22, took second place. And Jay, 74, took second place in the golden years over 70 division.  

The overall winner of the contest is judged on the time it takes to shear, the contestant’s technique and the quality of the fleece after it’s been shorn, as well as the appearance of the sheep after shearing.

Although Chuck achieved a higher score and won the overall title, his fastest time to complete a shearing was 125 seconds; Mackenzie sheared a sheep in the contest in 122 seconds. 

Chuck learned to shear sheep from his dad, Jay, in 1990, when he was 12 years old. 

“There were four of us 4-H kids that wanted to learn how to shear sheep, and my dad started teaching us. And then he got the fair to start the shearing contest to keep the kids interested, because it’s a very hard job to learn, and with kids, it’s always easier to keep interest if there’s some competition there,” Chuck said.

Chuck and family use the Australian method of sheep shearing, an efficient technique that requires the sheep to be positioned on its rump with the shearer using their knees to support the animal. The method was developed to save time, to produce a better quality fleece, to improve animal welfare and to reduce strain on the shearer. First the belly and crutch wool is removed, then the sides, neck, head and back.

“You’re always concentrating on keeping the wrinkles out of the skin so you don’t knick or cut them. You always want to keep right down on the hide so that you can keep the wool two and a half to three inches long, so it can easily be spun into yarn. Anytime you cut it in half, you lose value in the wool, so you also lose points in the shearing contest,” Chuck said. “There’s a specific pattern that we use in the movements to keep everything in place, and when you’re done, the fleece should be laying in one spot, in one pile. On a good, well kept-together fleece, you should be able to take it like a blanket and, kind of, fan it out and be able to tell the sections of the sheep that each point came from, and that’s part of the scoring for shearing, too, is the condition of the fleece when you’re done.” 

Chuck said there are other fairs that occasionally have sheep shearing contests in Ohio, but other than the Ohio State Fair, the Randolph Fair’s contest is the only one that comes back year after year.

The senior shearer in the family, Jay, started to shear when he was 13 or 14 out of necessity.

“When I was 16, I went to Wooster for shearing school at ATI (Agricultural Technical Institute), a branch of Ohio State, then I spent several years just shearing by myself; it was good exercise and I had to shear my own sheep,” Jay said. “I was shearing hillbilly method, or however I could get it done. I didn’t know the Australian method. When we started with the kids in 1991, then I learned to shear the right method. We hired an instructor to come and teach us with the kids for two years.”

The Ohio State Fair’s junior 4-H shearing contest in Columbus has been won about 15 times by Portage County and Mahoning County 4-H kids. 

Mackenzie, the youngest of the Campbell shearers, started shearing sheep when he was about 12, at a time when his family’s sheep shearing business picked up more customers and needed the extra help. About six years later, on Feb. 3, 2022, he won the beginners division at the National Sheep Shearing competition at the Black Hills Stock Show in Rapid City, South Dakota.

“Probably the most proud I’ve seen my grandpa is when I went out to nationals and wound up winning nationals in ’22. That was the Rapid City, South Dakota competition,” Mackenzie said. “He was watching it live on Facebook with my aunt and uncle. I got a phone call right after the awards ceremony from him.”

Mackenzie, known as Mac by his family and friends, would like to spend some time in Australia working on a sheep shearing crew, to push his limits.

The Campbell family shears about 9,000 sheep a year for 220 customers and recruits two of their nephews to help them shear. 

Chuck said the average price for shearing a sheep is between $6 and $10 a head, so you have to be quick if you want to keep up with the competition from large flocks from western states, where there’s far more land for raising sheep.

“Ohio produces the most wool on this side of the Mississippi, and we have the most sheep this side of the Mississippi, but we also have the most sheep producers,” Chuck said. “There’s a lot of sheep, but there’s not a lot of really big flocks like there are out west.”