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The first hint of summer weather, coupled with a shortage of sheep shearers, spells problems for many British farms.

Millions of sheep sporting heavy fleeces are sweating in the sunshine and may have to endure the discomfort for many more weeks.

Traditionally, hundreds of shearers have arrived from Australia and New Zealand at this time of year to clip the wool. But many feel that it is no longer worth their while because of the decline of the national flock by about a third, the low value of sterling and the increased cost of flights.

In the past three years the British Wool Marketing Board has trained 1,300 people to shear sheep, but most of them farm in their spare time, not commercially, and just wish to clip their own animals.

The sheep-shearing season is a short one and so even for someone trained it does not bring a regular income. In lowland Britain, sheep need their coats removed during May and June, while in the uplands the season does not start until July.

Even young farmhands who are keen to make extra cash as shearers often lack the skill and speed that the job requires. To develop the ability to clip off a fleece in one and a half minutes — or 40 in an hour — a contractor has to have sheared 10,000 sheep.

Elwyn Maddy has 600 sheep on a 220-acre farm near Hay-on-Wye, on the Herefordshire side of the Welsh borders. “As soon as the sun comes out, farmers start to panic,” he said. “We are lucky — we have got some contractors, but they have not come to us yet. We have to wait our turn. But when the weather’s warm we have to worry about the welfare of our sheep. I am hoping my sheep will be done within a couple of weeks.”

Sheep do not perspire in the way that people react to heat; those with heavy coats will blow and puff to keep cool. They also begin to smell. This is not just an unpleasant body odour akin to a person’s — this is the traditional pong associated with sheep droppings and cowpats.

When a sheep carries a heavy fleece it is unable to keep clean, and excrement clings to its coat. This brings a welfare problem: blowfly are attracted to the rear of a sheep and lay maggots that can eventually infest an animal. Left untreated, a sheep can die.

Mr Maddy suggested that the lack of shearers would be a significant problem in the future unless more people could be trained.

“This is a young man’s work,” he said. “You are at your best physically at 18 to 25, and 30 at the latest. That’s why I’ve given it up. It is really hard work and you wouldn’t get a lad out of the town to do it because he wouldn’t last five minutes. It is a very skilled operation in technique and capability. A good shearer can do 320 sheep a day,” he said.

Anthony Rooke, 26, a shearer who lives near York, is inundated with work. He said that there was a shortage of contract shearers in Yorkshire this year because many Australians and New Zealanders had decided to stay away.

He has been shearing for ten years and he can clip 40 sheep an hour. He charges £1.10 to £1.40 for each animal, depending on the weight of the fleece. The average weight is 2kg but some woollier breeds such as Romneys, which also have fleece around their heads and legs, can have coats that weigh about 4kg. They cost £1.40 to shear.

At least farmers can expect better returns from their wool this year. Last year the price dropped to 11p a kilogram after two anthrax incidents that halted exports to China. At a wool auction this week farmers were paid 43p a kilogram.

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