A six-strong South African team is in Alexandra this week competing in the 50th New Zealand Merino International Shearing and Woolhandling Championship. The team comprises four machine shearers and two blade shearers, including Zweliwile Hans , who is a three-time blade shearing world champion.
Team manager Hendrik Botha , the South Africa Sheep Shearing Federation president, said 60% of the country's sheep were merinos.
Blade shearing was more practical in the remote parts of the country without electricity and it was also done for the same reason as in this country - to leave a reasonable covering of wool on, to protect the sheep against cold weather, he said.
Shearing Sports New Zealand South Island committee chairman Gavin Rowland, of Rakaia, said yesterday only "a very small percentage" of sheep in this country were blade-shorn.
"Mainly it's only merinos on high country stations - a very small number compared to the overall number." Mr Botha said another reason for the popularity of blade shearing was the high number of mohair goats in South Africa.
Sixty percent of the people "harvesting wool" in South African were from Lesotho, a country surrounded by South Africa. Shearing was a popular occupation in Lesotho, with several generations of families involved, Mr Botha said.
It was a privilege to be involved in the tri-nations matches between New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, which form part of the shearing contest in Alexandra today and tomorrow "My dream was to have, from time to time, a match between our three countries, and now it's happening." Mr Botha is also an international shearing judge and said his main objective was to improve the skills of his country's shearers.
"Any improvement will flow on through to the industry back home and every year we compete internationally, we see that standard lifting."
Some of his team will remain working in New Zealand to get experience before the world shearing championships, which are being held at the same time as the Golden Shears in Masterton at the end of February.
Mr Botha farms on the eastern side of South Africa, running beef and dairy cows as well as sheep.
"One of the main problems we have is a terrible problem with vermin - foxes and lynxes - and also the theft of stock."
He is on a predation management forum which looks at ways of tackling the predator problem.
Foxes and lynxes are protected animals so shooting or poisoning are not permitted.
