Tracy Jarratt never intended to be a sheep shearer.
About seven years ago, she was given four sheep and decided to shear them herself when she could not find anyone to do the job.
The Irricana, Alta., resident now shears small flocks of sheep, llamas and alpacas part-time. She is also a hand weaver and spinner and her flock of four has grown to 40, with a variety of specialty sheep. That leaves little time for her hobby.
“They are like the cobbler’s children. They are the last to get done,” she said during the North American Sheep Shearing Challenge at the Calgary Stampede.
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At the competition, men and women compete on equal terms because the work requires speed, finesse and strength, she said.
She has a vertebrae problem in her back that has improved because sheep shearing has strengthened her abdominal muscles in the last seven years.
“I’m fitter and my back stopped aching,” said Jarratt, who lost 140 pounds since she started. She burns about 150 calories per sheep.
“The pounds just fell off. I call it my Pilates,” she said.
“A gym bores me. I can’t quit halfway through a sheep.”
At the shearing event, Hilary Gietzen of Minot, North Dakota, captured the $2,000 prize. He shears about 35,000 sheep each year.
