Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Shorn Sheep and many bags of wool


We had our shearers come on Saturday and in about five hours, fifty-six sheep and two llamas got shorn.
Fourty-two of the sheep are mine and friends brought their sheep to have shorn.
I can't believe I have this many sheep, it is amazing how fast your numbers grow with sheep.
I started out in the fall of 2007 with two ewes.  In the summer of 2008 bought three more ewes and two llamas, that fall bought a ram.  Had nothing but ram lambs born those first two years.

Began to learn more about fiber and what I wanted in a fiber.  Micron tested my flock and began to learn more, one being that ram I bought wasn't a good buy because his micron numbers were terrible, but back then I didn't know any better.

Since then we have added a few more ewes and much better rams.  Remember, that ram you buy will be 50% of your flock.  Today we have five quality rams in our flock.  Some of those original ewes are still here and will always be here, but in the last 5 years we have had some really nice lambs with quality fleeces being born.

Three years ago I started crossbreeding some of the shetlands, those you will see in the above picture....all those white girls.  They are bigger and produce a very consistant staple length fleece across their whole body.

The shetland's fleeces are smaller but quite nice.  I have many greys, musket, several moorits, a couple of blacks and some I would call fawn.  I have not put coats on my sheep so some VM will be in fleeces.
I plan to begin skirting fleeces soon, if interested in raw fleeces send me an email.
All raw fleeces are $16.00 lb plus shipping.

 


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