Sheep Gal Blog | Foxfire Fiber & Designs

Brown and White and Wooly all Over

March 2, 2010 | 10 Comments

I am so enjoying the different colored fleeces in the wool clip this year!

Thought you'd like to see these photos of Latte's first shearing. Such a peanut, Gabriel scooped him right out of the holding pen and sat him down on the board. He and his sister Bailey have the finest wool of the four moorit yearlings. I am loving every second of comparing the shades of brown, the different textures and varying lengths of the wool staples. Since the fleeces are now snugly wrapped like "wool burritos", I haven't snatched any lock samples for close-up shots, but hope to get to that in the morning.

In one comment yesterday (or maybe the day before?) someone asked how we judge thick or thinness a sheep is who's still wearing a heavy fleece. Gauging body condition ("condition scoring" in sheep talk) is more difficult in winter since everyone looks round and woolly. You have to use your hands to see what's really happening underneath all that wool. By working your fingers beneath the wool to palpate the pelvic area, you can check the prominence of the back and pelvic bones. We try to do this whenever we're changing coats or trimming hooves. Sometimes we re-arrange groups mid-winter, based on what we see.

Up until yesterday, I had been a little concerned that Latte hasn't been getting quite his share at the feeder, since he's housed with the big boys. It's so interesting, even though he's the smallest, no one bullies him and we don't see him getting boxed out at the feed bunk. He's just small framed and slower growing. And he's become quite calm and social with us, much more confident in our presence. I really like this guy. Since he is a wether, I suppose he could be housed with his sister and the yearling girls – though I know he'd hate to leave his friends Chai and Cinder. When his fleece came off I could see that he really isn't bony, just small framed. And pretty darn cute.

Categories: animals/wildlife, Craft, fiber farm, Handspinning, and sheep.
Tags: fiber farm, moorit sheep, New England, shearing, and sheep.

Men at Work

March 2, 2010 | 10 Comments

Day two of shearing and we're still not done. Finished the boys today and made good progress with the bred ewes. Will finish that group on Wednesday and then on to more ewes next Monday. Looks like shearing will span more than a week this year. A little bit like the winter Olympics, minus spandex tights . . .

Decided to change things up a bit with a new skirting technique this year. I hate bagging fresh fleece in plastic. A steamy, freshly shorn fleece exudes sheepy moisture and needs a chance to breathe. And I hate the way a fleece gets jumbled when you squeeze it into the sack. Sometimes it's a nightmare to sort it all out when it comes time to enter in competition. So this year I bought me a huge roll of kraft paper with the idea of wrapping fleeces so they would stay intact. Since I've had no time to work out the particulars, I put my R & D team to work.

And they devised the clever little system shown here. Taking the fleeces directly from the shearing board to the skirting table, we threw them onto sheets of paper, arranging them almost as they were on the backs of the sheep.

The edges of the paper get folded in, first at the sides and then at the ends. And then the whole fleece gets rolled up like a sleeping bag.

The guys perfected this method last Friday. When Adrian and Mark arrived to help today, Mike was able to show them exactly how it all worked. Adrian ran with it.

As you can see, I've got quite the tidy stack of fleeces, all perfectly well skirted. The bulk of them won't stick around for long, having a date at the fiber mill. A handful will hang around for entry into upcoming fleece competitions and then sold as handspinning fleeces. Or hoarded for future use. We'll see.

Cilantro already has big head so I'm not sure I want him to know just how spectacular his fleece is; but thanks for all your nice comments on his shearing. It was fun sharing those shots.

I know there have been many very good questions among the comments over the past few days and apologize for not having time to respond individually. But since several of you have expressed concern about shearing in late winter I wanted to assure you that the sheep are coated, well-bedded, and housed comfortably indoors – and everyone is doing just fine. I came in from checking on them about an hour ago and took this picture with my phone. They were zoning out, some chewing their cud, others fast asleep in the straw. Like me, they're exhausted from the busyness in the barn over the last few days. It's downright balmy out there and if gets any warmer, I'll need to turn on their fan. Thank you for your concern about their well being.

On top of a very busy day, I had an amazing opportunity this evening: to meet and interview Temple Grandin for my upcoming book. She is a renown expert in the humane handling of livestock and gave a talk at Old Sturbridge Village tonight. Holly, Andy, Mike and I joined her for dinner before her lecture for a fascinating conversation. There's an excellent bio pic on HBO this month about how her autism enables her to see the way animals see and has led her to become an advocate for improving the handling and understanding of livestock. More about that in another post.

(note: post edited to correct links)

Categories: animals/wildlife, Books, fiber farm, Film, and sheep.
Tags: fiber farm, shearing, sheep, skirting, and Temple Grandin.

Cilantro’s Awesome Fleece

February 28, 2010 | 20 Comments

Cilantro is a handful. If you're a regular here, I'm not telling you anything you haven't heard before. Although he was wethered at an early age, he is just as combative as any ram. The bad boy of the big boys, we give him plenty of room. One of the things I like about shearing day is working closely with each animal. In the confines of the holding pen, there's no room for a ram to draw a bead on you. I enjoyed wrapping my arms around Cilantro's wooly head to extract him from the pen, and he didn't give me half the fight I'd expected.

His fleece is a crazy patchwork of swirls and spots. We see this pattern on rare occasion in lambs of Cocoa's lineage. I view them as unique and special gifts. Cilantro, Comet, and Helena are the only other patchwork sheep in the flock. It's exciting to watch their fleeces peel off like speckled robes.

Cilantro was well mannered for Andy on the shearing board. In this photo I am holding the neck and head wool away from the rest of the fleece. The neck area is full of chaff, especially right at the line where the elastic from the sheep coat creates a bit of a channel in the wool. If you let that dirty section flop backwards onto the rest of the fleece, it shakes a year's worth of dirt onto the clean blanket of wool that you've worked so hard to maintain all year. I separate the neck and head wool as soon as Andy finishes his last blow (pass of the shears) at the neck. It's a pound or more of fleece. If there's good wool there, we'll make use of it – but not for yarn or handspinning fiber.

Big drama when Andy threw Cilantro's fleece on the skirting table declaring, "Now that's a show fleece." The fleece held together beautifully and was so large it draped over the edge of the table, spilling onto the floor. My skirting pros took extra time arranging the fleece and carefully rolling it in paper for storage. It's a gold medal handspinning fleece, for sure.

For comparison, here's Cocoa's fleece (below) shorn earlier the same day. She's about 100 pounds lighter than Cilantro (her grandson, standing near the fleece in the holding pen in this shot) and her fleece fit neatly on the table. Her staple is not as long as his and her fleece is not nearly as dense.

I've just realized that I haven't said a word about the moorits. That was another exciting moment, watching the velvety brown fleeces come off the merino-cross yearlings I purchased from Alice Field last summer. Delectable. Here's Cognac's fleece. Amazing color and length. Her sister Bailey was the finest. Latte is still waiting for shearing in the group that's yet to be done. I'll post some closeups of the moorit fleeces later this week.

Tomorrow is going to be an exceptionally busy day. We start with shearing round two – the rest of the boys and the bred ewes. Stay tuned. . . .

Categories: Craft, fiber farm, Handspinning, and sheep.
Tags: fiber farm, shearing, and sheep.

Ready, Set, Shear!

February 27, 2010 | 9 Comments

I so look forward to shearing season, but two feet of snow two days before shearing nearly caused a major snafu this week. With shearing dates are booked months in advance, a shearer's dance card is pretty darn full at this time of year. If you're unprepared or if the sheep aren't dry, good luck trying to reschedule at the last minute.

Tuesday night's storm dumped two feet of heavy, wet snow taking out the power lines for a day and half. On Wednesday, Mike and I melted pots snow over a burner and trucked it down to the flock. On Thursday I hauled water from the fire station in the village. If the power hadn't been restored on Thursday afternoon, we would have had to scrap our first of three shearing dates.

But we managed to shear on Friday, right on schedule. In round one we tackled rams and hogget ewes. Although it snowed all day our focus was indoors, harvesting fleece.

We rounded up the boys and brought them into the holding pen. They feel much safer when crowded together and we don't have to chase them when it's their turn. "Savory" was first up. This is the way to hold a 275 lb. ram. Keeping the head up says, "I've got you, pal". A sheep with its head lowered is stubborn and powerful. Get the chin up and the sheep relaxes once it realizes you're in control. At least that's the theory. You can lead a sheep this way but it really helps to have another person pushing from behind, especially if the sheep doesn't want to budge.

Since rounding up the flock is a major production, shearing day is a great time for annual maintenance tasks. I'm fortunate that my shearer Andy Rice doesn't mind tending to hooves, cdt vaccinations and deworming. Some shearers only want to shear.

Savory gets a pedicure (above) and haircut, below.

While his twin brother, "Cilantro" watched over my shoulder. ( I know they don't look like twins, but that's what you get sometimes when you breed a cormo ram to a cross-bred ewe). I have more to say about Cilantro's shearing in a separate post.

Although we worked steadily, didn't quite finish with this group by day's end. There are still ten rams yet to shear. There's no sense rushing, especially with fine wool sheep. The fleeces are dense, the skin soft and full of wrinkles. It takes nearly the same amount of time to shear a 120 pound hogget as a full grown ram, but a ram will give five times the amount of wool. The hoggets are more wrinkled and still haven't grown into their skin. It's easy for a shearer to nick a skin fold if he doesn't take his time.

We'll finish up the boys on Monday when we're slated to shear the bred ewes. Then we'll finish the remaining fine wool sheep on March 8. (And in case you're wondering, the Border Leicesters have their turn a bit later in the spring.)

Shorn hoggets at the feeder.

We have a huge stack of beautiful fleeces to show for a long day's work. I promise to share some shots of the goods in another post.

Categories: Uncategorized.

White Out

February 23, 2010 | 11 Comments

Holly took the hoggets for a stroll in the snow today – moving them to the big barn for their very big date with the shearer on Friday. Since fleeces need to be absolutely dry for shearing, we moved them as early as possible this morning to get them tucked into the most protected building before the storm really got cranking. Which it is right now. I can barely make out the barn from my window. It's suppose to storm all night and we could get as much as a foot here in the hills before it's over.

An update on my neighbor's little ram lamb: Last night Barbara happily reported that the lamb is on his feet, nursing and back with his mother and sibling! I'm hugely relieved to know there was a happy outcome. To Barbara's credit, she worked on keeping him warm and fed until he was able to do things for himself. I'll try to stop by her barn on the way to town tomorrow to get a picture of the little family.

Off to the barn to check on everyone one last time for the evening. Let's see how the hoggets are settling in at the big barn. Wishing all my N.E. neighbors a safe homeward commute tonight.

Categories: fiber farm, Handspinning, and sheep.
Tags: fiber farm, shearing, sheep, snowstorm, and winter.

Early Arrival

February 22, 2010 | 12 Comments

My game plan was to immerse myself in working on my book this weekend. And while I got quite a lot of that accomplished, a call from a neighbor Saturday morning put a different spin on the weekend.

My neighbor Barbara (another Barbara; funny, there are three shepherds living here in the Patten, all Barbaras) had a newborn lamb in her kitchen when I arrived with my lamb emergency kit. Her eldest ewe surprised her with an early delivery of a seemingly healthy set of triplets on Friday night. Oddly enough, by Saturday morning one had died and another, a white ram lamb, was not looking so great. He was weak, not nursing, not even standing, so Barbara had brought him indoors and had been trying to get some colostrum into him using a small syringe. There was very little swallowing reflex and most of what went in trickled out the side of his mouth.

He wasn't cold, so we tried taking him back to his mother, to see if her presence or the presence of his surviving sibling, a little ewe much smaller than him, would stimulate a response. But this little guy just stood there, completely out of it. I stripped more colostrum from the mother and showed Barbara how to stomach tube a lamb. It sounds scarier than it is, but it's the sure-fire way to get a couple of ounces into a lamb's belly and sometimes once they've had that, they rally.

By the time I checked in later that day, Barbara had tubed the lamb again, but he was still lethargic and weak. She had mixed some of the lamb milk replacement I had brought along and was managing to get a few ounces into him. When I stopped in on Sunday morning, the lamb had taken up residence in a cardboard box on the dining room table. While Barbara's family had breakfast, Barbara and I took the little guy's temperature and mused about his condition. It's a puzzle. He is reasonable in size and otherwise looks healthy. But sometimes there's more to a situation than meets the eye. If he makes it through to today, maybe her vet will have some answers.

And so I am reminded of how once lambing starts, you never know what each day will bring. My visits to Barbara's barn (and dining room!) have kicked my brain into lambing mode a few weeks ahead of schedule, since my flock won't begin until late March. It's not too early to place that order with Pipestone Sheep Supply and restock my kit for the season. As soon as we're done with shearing later this week, we had better prepare the lambing pens.

Categories: animals/wildlife, fiber farm, and sheep.
Tags: fiber farm, lamb, newborn lambs, and sheep.

Wild & Windy

February 19, 2010 | 4 Comments

The wind was fierce last night. When I arrived for evening chores I discovered a barn window had blown in and shattered on the floor. Glass everywhere, but not in the sheep pen. The barn makes all kinds of god-awful sounds on a windy night. Gusts force their way through every little chink and crevice. The sheep were spooked – probably the combo of the glass shattering and the constant thumps and rattles shaking the barn.

It was quiet a bit before dawn, but then the wind picked up right where it left off for morning chores. Here are some views of breakfast for the the rams.

Hauling hay.

Finding a clean patch of snow to feed on the ground.

Watching out while doling out hay. I need eyes on the back of my head when feeding the rams. It's not such a good idea to let them surround me with no quick exit. I try to keep the sled between myself and Cilantro at all times. Cinder is at the far right; you can see how he's catching up in size to the big boys.

Getting ready now for evening chores. I was hoping for a break in the wind, but it hasn't let up all day. Better wear my hat!

This weekend I need to focus writing that book I've mentioned once or twice. And so you won't be hearing from me again until Monday. I hope you have a grand weekend.

Categories: animals/wildlife, Books, fiber farm, and sheep.
Tags: sheep, sheep farming, and winter weather.

Apologetic?

February 18, 2010 | 9 Comments

A quick follow up to yesterday's post. This morning Butch made amends for his fresh behavior earlier this week (much to Caitlyn's approval).

Whatta sweet guy!

photos by Michael Parry

Categories: Uncategorized.

Peaceable Morning

February 17, 2010 | 7 Comments

It's been a week of cantankerous critters. On Monday Butch brandished his horns at me as I tugged the hay sled through the barn door. The Leicesters were sparring at dinner time. For the life of me I couldn't separate Deluth and Maia who were more intent on bashing the c*#! out of each other than eating. Several other ewes weighed in; others kept their distance.

In the carriage barn, Cilantro took a cheap shot at Teaberry. Those two have been at each other off and on for days.Occasionally Parsley and Savory jump into the fray. It's hard to say who's on whose side – or if it's every ram for himself. Sheep politics are tricky.

Even the hoggets are feisty. I was minding my business, filling buckets yesterday, when little Miss Pumpkin smashed me in the arm. Really, these sheep need to mind their manners. They should never butt the hand that feeds them.

Lovey, in a mellow moment.

Maia

Today the flock feels more settled. For whatever reason, the cloud of restless energy has dissipated. Morning feeding was peaceful. The girls shared the feeders without shoving. Cilantro and Teaberry seem to have declared truce.

I can't help but think that having so many unbred ewes this season is contributing to the bouts of fractious behavior. The bred ewes are the only group at ease. I'm sure the boys keenly aware – there's a barn full of cycling ewes on the other side of the road. And the girls sure know where the boys are!

Categories: animals/wildlife and fiber farm.
Tags: goats, sheep, and sheep behavior.