Judging a Flock By Its Cover

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Handspinners will pay $6 to $12 per pound for prime raw fleeces, with natural colored wools commanding higher prices than white. This is quite the opposite of the commercial bulk market, where easily dyeable white wool is preferred and purchased in tightly packed, 200-pound sacks. Bulk wool produced in the U.S. generally comes from well-muscled, quickgrowing market lambs raised for meat rather than wool quality.

If wool (and not meat) is to be your primary aim, you'll want to concentrate your efforts on producing the quality fleeces handspinners favor. Finding buyers is largely a matter of getting the word out. Once you earn a reputation for providing quality wool, handspinners will return for your fleeces year after year. Many growers sell their wool on the Internet or at festivals. At one time Chill participated in wool and fiber shows to market her fleeces, but in recent years customers like Barbara Gentry have come to her.

Gentry keeps 30 American Cormo sheep. She spins, weaves, knits and dyes wool, while teaching others how to do the same at her on-farm shop, Stony Mountain Fibers, in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Why does Gentry occasionally buy a fleece from Child if she has her own? Cormo wool, with a four- to five-inch staple, a 58-to 60-fiber count and a tight crimp, is white. Child's fleeces range from cream to pale pewter to silver to black to chocolate to variegated. Plus, notes Gentry, "Mary's fleeces are very healthy, with no breaks."

Unless you sell your fleeces straight off the sheep's back, you'll likely have to store them for a bit. You can keep wool in any porous material, including woven plastic or paper, but be sure it is sealed against or kept away from moths and bees. Bees love to nest in wool and moths lay eggs in it so larvae have plenty to eat.

Selecting a Breed

Different sheep breeds not only produce different wool, but exhibit different levels of feed efficiency, disease resistance, hardiness, longevity, milk production and flocking instinct. Breeds also display distinct personalities.

Which should you choose? First, read about sheep husbandry, breeds and their traits, then visit some sheep, talk to shepherds and go to a fiber festival or wool show. Before sheep shopping, think carefully about what's important to you. If a good temperament is what you want, try Southdown sheep, whose tempers match their gentle soft gray faces. They're excellent mothers but are also the smallest breed, produce the least amount of wool and don't tolerate heat. Romneys and Lincolns display even tempers, but Romneys are decidedly average in other ways and Lincolns tend toward the less hardy. Merinos produce huge quantities of very fine wool and are great mothers, but you'd better know how to handle sheep before you try to maneuver them!

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print