8:00am Friday 19th March 2010
By Liz Watkins
A HEREFORDSHIRE young farmer has returned to the county after shearing 10,000 sheep in New Zealand.
Steven Rowberry from Allensmore went across the world last October and has spent more than four months in the shearing sheds there.
He sheared up to 300 sheep in an eight-hour day but said activities were delayed because of a very wet summer.
A member of Allensmore YFC, he learned the skills in the county and won the Royal Welsh junior shearing competition last July and the intermediate class at Kington Show.
Steven, who is 21, went to New Zealand in the autumn where he worked hard but had time for competition shearing, too. He won four junior shows, one second and two fourths.
After shearing 300 sheep in an eight-hour day in the sheds he moved up to intermediate class, reaching the finals on two occasions.
Steven is now back at the family Home Farm at Allensmore with his mother Sally and step-dad Bob Lawrence, where he is helping out before starting shearing again on local farms.
But he will be back on his travels again hoping to work in Australia and New Zealand and anywhere they have sheep to shear.
“It is a good way to see the world and work my way at the same time,’’ he said.
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