HOPEFULLY THEY DON'T MIND

With the random freezing temperatures, this is hard to gauge.

First off, I'm not an experienced sheep farmer. Never have been. I am still in my first year having sheep, and still in my first season shearing them. While I've worked my way through most of the Jacob's Sheep that we have, I hadn't sheared our Shetland/Finn sheep.

Some days down here, it has already gotten pretty hot. On other days, it still dipped down into freezing temperatures. With weather like that, it is hard to guess when the "proper" time to shear is. I didn't want my sheep to get too hot in the heat with a big wooly coat on, but I don't want them freezing without any wool either.

On the bright side I can now shear a sheep and end up with one solid fleece. Originally the goal was to just get the wool off. When we process and use it it'll be pulled apart anyway (I think) so it wasn't really that important to me to be able to keep it together. However, since that's kind of the "way people do it," I figured I would give it a go.

Here you can see the two ewes already shaven with the ram, "Buckington," still waiting for his turn. I noticed that the sheep missed one another when I was shearing one, and even though they came back with a "hair cut" the others eagerly welcomed them back into the little flock.

Since we had only seen these sheep with their wool on, we were not sure how big they were underneath. While they certainly are slimmer, they are much darker too. Their wool is originally a dark brown that almost looks black. As it grow out, the sun bleaches it and it turns a lighter color.

While I was at it I sheared "Bonita" our Angora Goat too. These goats are primarily used for their lustrous fiber and they can be sheared twice a year. I'm not sure the last time that she was sheared, but her fiber had already started to mat up and look like big flat dreads, so it may have been a longer time that usual. Now we can keep her on a shearing schedule though.

Learning skills like this are just ones that come with the territory, and personally I enjoy the work. It gives me an opportunity to continue building relationships with our animals and to save the cost of hiring jobs like these out. Plus, now that I know you can make cordage out of wool, I'm even more excited!

In case you missed my post yesterday I've decided to use homemade wool cordage to make hangers for our homegrown birdhouse gourds. Hopefully they will last and work out great for the birds. All I know is that I really like the look of them.