For Chinchilla's Schoff family, working in shearing sheds runs in the blood.
Phil Schoff is an experienced shearer while wife Michelle is a wool classer. Their two eldest children Alex, 21, and Grace, 19, have also started building their own careers around the shearing sheds as a wool handler and shearer respectively.
Their passion for the industry also means that the family are also familiar faces around shearing competitions, including at the Australian National Shearing and Wool Handling Competition held in Dubbo in November, where Phil was one of two open state shearing representatives and Grace competed in the intermediate shearing semi-final. In the wool handling side of the competition, Michelle was a national judge and Alexander competed in the national open final.
Phil Schoff grew up around Tara and began shearing in the 1980s.
Mr Schoff said it was great to see his two eldest children also go into the industry.
"We used to have property down south [near Cobar, NSW] and they used to help me shear my own sheep," he said.
"They've been involved with it all their lives.
"They're keen... Grace did Year 12 and got out of school, had one week off and then started shearing. "
Mr Schoff said both Grace and Alexander had acquitted themselves well at the national competition.
"Slim [Alexander] has been doing it for a couple of years now but to get up in the opens and put it up against the rest of the people in the other states and achieve getting into the finals in one year, it's a fair effort," he said.
"And Grace has only been shearing for about 12 months, I take my hat off to her.
"It's all about doing a job and doing it right."
Mr Schoff, Alexander and Grace have been travelling to work at shearing sheds around the country, while Mrs Schoff has stayed at home on the family's 121 hectare cattle property, Teetree along with younger children Holly, 15, and Carl, 14.
"We started down around Cooma [this year] and then we went down to Tasmania for six months and then we went from Tasmania to Kangaroo Island for three months," he said.
"It is a bit of a shame we've got to travel so far to work but unfortunately that's the way it is.
Mr Schoff said shearing competitions were a vital chance to develop the industry's next generation.
""There's a lot of young competitors coming through now, which is a wonderful thing," he said.
"It's all about the kids... they're keen on it and that's why we go along and it would be nice to see other young people want to be involved in it."