Two days. 2,800 sheep. 100 bales of wool.

As a sheep flips from its back to its front legs and scrambles out the small door of a trailer, it’s as much as 20 pounds lighter than when it entered a few minutes before. “Just like everyone gets a haircut,” said Kip Krebs, ranch manager of Krebs Sheep Company. It’s sheep-shearing season, and in about two days, workers will shear about 2,800 sheep at the Krebs Sheep Company before moving on to another operation to repeat the process. The company will then send about 100 bales of wool to Pendleton Woolen Mills, as they’ve been doing for more than 70 years. Krebs Sheep Company is one of a few large operations in Eastern Oregon. They raise Targhee and Rambouillet sheep, and Suffolk-cross rams. The business has been in the family for four generations. Kip Krebs, 28, was busy on Tuesday, moving bales of wool and loading a truck, and supervising the workers as they herded and sheared sheep. His father, Skye, was outside helping with herding, and his mother and wife do the books. The family lives on a ranch tucked in the hills of northeast Gilliam County, just down the road from the pens where they shear sheep. But the rest of those working at Krebs during shearing season live a more nomadic lifestyle. “In another month I’ll have three of these crews on the road,” said Bernie Fairchild. Fairchild travels from his home in Buhl, Idaho, each year with a crew of employees comprised mostly of men from Uruguay, in the U.S. on work visas. The crew does everything, including shearing, grading, and packing the wool. They work for about eight hours a day for two or three days at each ranch — and then move onto the next one...MORE