# When to shear sheeples?



## Niele da Kine (Dec 27, 2020)

After decades of wanting to get sheep, we finally got two of them this past August.  All I had to do was send the spouse off on a skiing trip last March and then fence in the back yard during that time.  Ha!  Well, at least get the project started during the ski trip, it was finished afterwards.  After decades, (decades, mind you!) of emphatic "NO SHEEP!", the spouse is out there every morning giving them their sheep snack and talking to the sheep and has become very fond of the sheeples.  Go figure.

They're Clun Forest sheep, so they're a heritage woolly sheep breed with a very nice 'springy' wool.  Good for scarves, jumpers, hats, mittens, etc.  I'll probably mix it with angora bunny fluff and see how it does.  BUT!  When to shear the sheep?

This is Hawaii, we don't really have that much cold around here.  Nor that much hot, either.  It seems to be coldest around February & March, with temperatures down to around 55 °F (13 °C ).  (And before you laugh, we have no heater in the house so that is cold!)   During mid-summer's heat - usually hottest around September - it gets up to mid-80's and sometimes as high as the low 90s°F.

Well, here's an annual weather chart for our area:

Period of record: 1919 to 2016 
(I had to add in the underline areas to get it to line up evenly, there's no 'tab' in the forum text editor)
Month_____ Rain_______Avg Temps________ Record High___________Record Low Temp
Jan ________ 6.12"______ 78°F - 62°F_______ 89°F  / 31.6°C________ 50°F  / 10.0°C 
Feb________ 9"__________ 77°F - 62°F_______ 92°F  / 33.3°C________ 52°F   / 11.1°C 
March_____ 9.51"_______ 77°F - 62°F_______ 95°F   / 35.0°C________ 52°F   / 11.1°C        
April_______ 8.93" ______ 78°F - 64°F_______ 90°F  / 32.2°C________ 55°F   / 12.7°C
May_______ 5.14" _______ 80°F - 65°F_______ 90°F  / 32.2°C________ 55°F   / 12.7°C
June_______ 2.98"_______ 82°F - 66°F_______ 91°F  / 32.8°C________ 54°F   / 12.2°C
July_______ 5.37"________ 82°F - 67°F_______ 89°F  / 31.6°C________ 60°F   / 15.5°C
Aug_______ 5.84"________ 84°F - 67°F_______ 89°F  / 31.6°C________ 59°F   / 15.0°C
Sept_______ 3.19" _______ 84°F - 67°F_______ 91°F  / 32.8°C________ 59°F   / 15.0°C
Oct________ 4.88" _______ 82°F - 67°F_______ 91°F  / 32.8°C________ 59°F   / 15.0°C
Nov________ 7.72"_______ 80°F - 65°F_______ 91°F  / 32.8°C________ 58°F   / 14.4°C
Dec________ 9.85" _______ 77°F - 63°F_______ 90°F  / 32.2°C________ 54°F   / 12.2°C
annual rainfall    78.53" / 199.47cm

Is it more important to shear sheep because of temperature or because of rain?  Our rain usually falls in buckets and then stops, it's not the mizzly stick around forever type of rain.  It can be several inches per hour and then rainbows.  I do hope to build them a little sheep shed sometime in January. At the moment, they have to hide under tall grass when it rains.  They're supposed to eat the grass flat, but they've not gotten that far yet.  Soon, there will hopefully be enough grass gone to find a spot to build them their little sheep shed.

The person we got the sheep from shears her's in March, but I was thinking maybe May would be a better time?  Since it would be drier?  Or would the rain soak into their coat and be too heavy, so should they be sheared before big rainy months?  If they have a shed to hide in, then they'd hopefully stay drier.


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## purplequeenvt (Dec 27, 2020)

With those temperatures, you can shear pretty much any time of the year you want to. The sheep do need to be completely dry prior to shearing though so keep that in mind.


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## Sheepshape (Dec 27, 2020)

Clun Forest (in Shropshire) is not very far from where I live and 'enjoys' a chilly and very damp climate. The Clun Forest is a hardy upland sheep with a dense fleece. Over here we sheer sheep around June to August as those are the only times that they miss their dense fleeces and suffer with hypothermia. 
However, as purplequeenvt says, with the temperatures you have they can be shorn at any time of year, and would probably be advantaged  by being shorn twice a year to allow them to keep cool. 
Wool is, however, a pretty unique sort of fibre. In the cold the coils which make up the structure become dense and tight. entrapping air which is a bad conductor and keeps the sheep warm, In the heat the coils become loose and allow air to circulate enabling the sheep to keep cool.
We should all wear more wool....a lovely natural fibre with unique properties. Also good in house insulation and for duvet filling!
Good luck with your sheep.


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## Kusanar (Dec 28, 2020)

I don't have sheep... yet.... but, I would say with that weather (can I live in your backyard with your sheep btw?) you could shear year round with no issues but if you want to use the fiber I would wait until there are around 3" at least of wool to remove so you have enough staple length to work with.

My super fluffy horse (mini) stays dry for quite a while in wet weather, but he also stays wet for a long time if he gets wet to the skin. The big horses who have decent (but not arctic quality) winter coats get wet to the skin fast but they also dry fast once the rain stops and the sun comes out.


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## Niele da Kine (Dec 29, 2020)

purplequeenvt said:


> With those temperatures, you can shear pretty much any time of the year you want to. The sheep do need to be completely dry prior to shearing though so keep that in mind.



Why do they need to be dry?  Is it for the ease of shearing?  Health of the sheep?  Quality of the fleece?

Would it be more important to keep them dry before shearing,or after?   Or should it be before, during and after?




Sheepshape said:


> Clun Forest (in Shropshire) is not very far from where I live and 'enjoys' a chilly and very damp climate. The Clun Forest is a hardy upland sheep with a dense fleece. Over here we sheer sheep around June to August as those are the only times that they miss their dense fleeces and suffer with hypothermia.
> However, as purplequeenvt says, with the temperatures you have they can be shorn at any time of year, and would probably be advantaged  by being shorn twice a year to allow them to keep cool.
> Wool is, however, a pretty unique sort of fibre. In the cold the coils which make up the structure become dense and tight. entrapping air which is a bad conductor and keeps the sheep warm, In the heat the coils become loose and allow air to circulate enabling the sheep to keep cool.
> We should all wear more wool....a lovely natural fibre with unique properties. Also good in house insulation and for duvet filling!
> Good luck with your sheep.


There's a real Clun Forest out there?  Are there black faced sheep in it?  The folks I got the sheep from said they'd picked the Clun Forest breed because they're supposed to do well in wet weather.

Flower, the ewe, seems to have a longer fleece than Cypress, the ram.  Her's is probably long enough to spin now his could be hand spun, but probably not mill spun.  But, there's only the two of them so I'll possibly spin it myself.  Since they've not been kept covered and they're in pretty rough pasture at the moment, I may spin the fleeces really fat and chunky and make a small rug with the fleeces.  But I won't really know until the fleece is off the sheeples and I can do some test spinning to see what it wants to spin into.

Would there be any advantage in shearing them at different times?  If one was still woolly, the shorn one could snuggle up to the woolly one?  Although, they hang out together a lot, but they don't seem to snuggle much.



Kusanar said:


> I don't have sheep... yet.... but, I would say with that weather (can I live in your backyard with your sheep btw?) you could shear year round with no issues but if you want to use the fiber I would wait until there are around 3" at least of wool to remove so you have enough staple length to work with.
> 
> My super fluffy horse (mini) stays dry for quite a while in wet weather, but he also stays wet for a long time if he gets wet to the skin. The big horses who have decent (but not arctic quality) winter coats get wet to the skin fast but they also dry fast once the rain stops and the sun comes out.


You can hang out in the backyard with the sheep if you like.  They'll follow you all around and supervise whatever you do in their area and mug you if you have an avocado.  There's a great ocean view up there, too.  At some point, we will probably build a house there, but we're waiting for the sheeples to clear off the grass first.

It's been wet lately and the sheep have been turning slightly green from mildew, I think.  They don't dry out as fast as I'd like, so hopefully soon we will be able to build them their little sheep shed.


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## Kusanar (Dec 29, 2020)

Niele da Kine said:


> Why do they need to be dry? Is it for the ease of shearing? Health of the sheep? Quality of the fleece?


I'm pretty sure it is because water and clippers don't go well together. The shears typically use the lanolin in the fleece to lubricate the blades and if you rub water and oil together you get a sticky substance that won't lubricate anything.


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## purplequeenvt (Dec 29, 2020)

Your shears will be wrecked quickly if the sheep are wet. Not to mention, shearing a soggy sheep is unpleasant.

It doesn’t matter quite as much if you are using handshears/scissors to just get the wool off and you’re tossing the wool, but if you want to use the wool, it has to be completely dry before you bag it otherwise it will rot.

The sheep don’t need to be kept dry after shearing.


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## Niele da Kine (Dec 29, 2020)

How long does it take a sheep to dry out?  We usually have lots of dew in the mornings and humidity averages between 40% to 50%.

I can build their shed so they can be kept inside, I suppose?  Then in order to shear them, they could stay inside overnight and until the next afternoon on a dry day?  Hmm, might be easier to just dry out the wool instead of the sheep.  I'm probably going to either use the hand shears or scissors and hope the sheep don't get too bored.  They do have a spot where they like to sit and chew cud in the afternoons, maybe they'd not mind getting a haircut while chewing cud?

I have a pair of horse clippers, but they've got a very fine blade on them for shearing rabbits I don't know if they would work for sheep.  I could get another 'sheep' blade, but there's only two sheep and they only get sheared once or maybe twice a year if they grow wool quickly.  I was thinking scissors may work, even though they'd be terribly slow.  The top half of the sheep would be easy to shear, not sure about the trimming the belly and trimming their toes.

I had wanted to get Miniature Cheviots since they're much smaller sheep.  These are much bigger sheep so the shearing and toe trimming will probably be much more interesting than with smaller sheep.  They are friendly sheep, nose in your pocket kinda sheep, but they're still about 150 pounds/68 kg each.   The ram is a 'runt' and about the same size as the ewe, but he's still 150#/68 Kg or maybe more.  I've not weighed them, but they seem pretty big.  Hopefully, most of that 'size' is just fluffy wool, but there's some sturdy sheep under that fluff.

The shepherdess we got them from has been selecting for larger size, multiple births, good mothering and good wool.  Personally, I'd prefer a sheep about half the size or even less, we don't really have any predators around here other than the neighbor's dog (who has been amazing so far about getting along with sheep).  Since the ram is smaller than the ewe, she didn't want to keep him for breeding.  His testicles have never descended, so he may not be able to function as a ram anyway.  Which is perfectly okay, although it would have been fun to have lambs.  The ewe had a singleton lamb, so she was taken out of the breeding program.

Do sheep have multiple coats on them or a new coat of wool coming in occasionally?  Or is it the same coat that gets cut and then continues to grow?  With rabbits, they have about three coats on them at any particular time and they do shed their coat.  To shear them, the best time is when the third coat is starting to grow in and the first and second coat are at full length.  Ideally, the third coat is short enough that the tips don't get sheared off and cause neps in the harvested fiber.  Not sure if sheep do this or if it's just a rabbit thing?


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## Ridgetop (Dec 30, 2020)

1.  Wool sheep have wool coats that continue to grow like your own hair.  Shedding sheep that shed out their wool grow new wool each year after shedding out the previous year's growth.  You have woolies so if you don't shear them the wool will just continue to grow but the wool will be easier to work with if you shear annually.

2.  The wool does not have to be dry to shear.  When slick shearing for fairs we used to wash the sheep in dishwashing detergent to cut the lanolin for the fine blades.  A full wet fleece would be difficult to work though, our Fair lambs usually only carried 5-6 months of baby wool at most.

3.  Wool fleeces MUST be dry to pack in the wool sacks to store, like Purplequeenvt says, or it will mildew and rot in the sack.  And don't use plastic bags to store the wool.  You can make fabric bags out of old sheets or use old pillow cases as wool sacks.

4.  Your breeder chose Clun sheep because they do better in very wet climates.  Some sheep have wool fleeces that part along the spine when they get long.  This can allow icy rain or snow to reach the sheep's skin causing problems.  Because of your climate in Hawaii the breeder was probably more worried about wet weather for health reasons and hoof problems, etc.

5.  Smaller sheep look like they would be easier to manage, but you will get tired of the constant bending over to deal with any problems, or trim feet.  Since your sheeo seem to be tame, a large sheep can learn to lead in a halter which will make their care easier on you. 

6.  If you want the wool for spinning, you should shear once a year only.  Shearing twice a year results in shorter wool lengths which makes spinning more difficult.  Fleeces sold commercially are discounted for "second cuts" and too many short fibers. 

7.  Cheviots have a reputation as being flighty, nervous, and less docile than the average sheep, so you probably made a better choice with these Clun Forest.

8.  If these are going to live together, they will be breeding and the ewe will be producing lambs.   You may want to shear before the lambs are born, otherwise you will have to crotch (shave off the wool around her vaginal area and possible the teats anyway.  The wool in those regions will be ruined anyway when she gives birth.  The ram can probably be sheared anytime.

Purplequeenvt, Sheepshape, Secuono and other fiber growers - please give feedback and advice on crotching before lambing  or do you recommend just shearing?  

Some fiber growers out coats in their sheep if they are pastured in brushy areas.  Would those work?  They would have to be waterproof coats like you can buy for winter field blanketing of horses?

Or just bring the sheep in for a day or so with fans to dry the wool prior to shearing?



.


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## farmerjan (Dec 30, 2020)

Just a thought as we do not have wooled sheep anymore, just hair sheep. Are you very far from the person you got the sheep from?  If not, why not get the shearer to just do yours the same time they do the other sheep.  You could take them over there in a little trailer or the shearer could come to you.  When I first got sheep, I had about 5 and I loaded them up into the horse trailer and took them to the place where the guy was getting his sheep shorn.  Easier on everyone.  It would also give you some experience with "up close and personal" to see it done and ask questions too.  I had horned Dorsets, and I loved their dispositions, and they were very prolific, mostly twins and a few triplets.  Not big huge sheep and the horns did make for ease of handling the rams.  They were very sturdy sheep.  I think that is partly why DS went with the Texas Dall sheep, he liked the horns.  But no wool.  The wool market here is terrible and it costs more to shear than what the wool is worth.


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## Sheepshape (Dec 31, 2020)

Niele da Kine said:


> There's a real Clun Forest out there? Are there black faced sheep in it? The folks I got the sheep from said they'd picked the Clun Forest breed because they're supposed to do well in wet weather.


Yes, it's a real place.....Shropshire in the area near to the Welsh border....rolling hills etc. There's a village of Clun, too....population of 680 apparently...about 40 miles from where I live. The climate...cool. wet, typical valleys weather. Clun Forest sheep are tough sheep. I'm not aware of black faced sheep,,,,but here's a random pic of some of mine.....Beulah Speckled Face


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## Niele da Kine (Dec 31, 2020)

Ridgetop said:


> 1.  Wool sheep have wool coats that continue to grow like your own hair.  Shedding sheep that shed out their wool grow new wool each year after shedding out the previous year's growth.  You have woolies so if you don't shear them the wool will just continue to grow but the wool will be easier to work with if you shear annually.


Perfect!  They can be sheared when the wool is long enough to use and it doesn't matter what their coat is doing like with rabbits.  Hmm, the rabbits (English angora) molt like hair sheep, maybe it's something to do with the multiple layers of coats that creates the molting?

They don't seem to be on the same schedule, the ewe could be sheared while the ram is still kinda short.  He's friendlier than she is, so it would be nice to practice with him first, but they both need to be sheared eventually.



Ridgetop said:


> 2.  The wool does not have to be dry to shear.  When slick shearing for fairs we used to wash the sheep in dishwashing detergent to cut the lanolin for the fine blades.  A full wet fleece would be difficult to work though, our Fair lambs usually only carried 5-6 months of baby wool at most.


"Slick shearing"?  Shearing to bare naked?  Prewashing the wool and maybe even dying them with some sort of cold dye would possibly be fun (is Kool-Aid a colorfast dye?), but I don't think the sheep would approve.


Ridgetop said:


> 3.  Wool fleeces MUST be dry to pack in the wool sacks to store, like Purplequeenvt says, or it will mildew and rot in the sack.  And don't use plastic bags to store the wool.  You can make fabric bags out of old sheets or use old pillow cases as wool sacks.


The first few fleeces will probably be spun up right away.  If they're sheared on a different schedule, then there would only be one fleece at a time, too!  Ha!  Maybe they'll get sheared when I need more wool to spin?  If it's spun really fat for a rug, the sheep will be naked all the time.



Ridgetop said:


> 4.  Your breeder chose Clun sheep because they do better in very wet climates.  Some sheep have wool fleeces that part along the spine when they get long.  This can allow icy rain or snow to reach the sheep's skin causing problems.  Because of your climate in Hawaii the breeder was probably more worried about wet weather for health reasons and hoof problems, etc.


They do seem to have almost a 'part' at the spine when they're wet.  The wool still stays upright, but not really dense along the spine.  I may shear them so the fleece is in two pieces.  Since it's just for my own use, if it's not all in one big fleece it's okay.



Ridgetop said:


> 5.  Smaller sheep look like they would be easier to manage, but you will get tired of the constant bending over to deal with any problems, or trim feet.  Since your sheeo seem to be tame, a large sheep can learn to lead in a halter which will make their care easier on you.



They came with collars, but the shepherdess told me they'd grow out of them pretty soon.  Which they did.  A halter would be around their head which doesn't have as much wool as their necks so it shouldn't be needing adjustments very often.  Would they wear the halters all the time?  At the moment, they can be lead with a tin can.  Soon as they see it, they're running over to see if there's alfalfa pellets.  



Ridgetop said:


> 6.  If you want the wool for spinning, you should shear once a year only.  Shearing twice a year results in shorter wool lengths which makes spinning more difficult.  Fleeces sold commercially are discounted for "second cuts" and too many short fibers.


Anything over 1-1/2" (4cm) is long enough but 3"-4" (8-10cm) would be nicer.  The usual spinning fibers around  here are English angora (rabbit) and Bleak Hall Sea Island White cotton.  Those are both in the 1-1/2" - 3" (4cm - 8cm) range.  Wool is a lot easier to spin.


Ridgetop said:


> 7.  Cheviots have a reputation as being flighty, nervous, and less docile than the average sheep, so you probably made a better choice with these Clun Forest.


They're cuter, though?  I think the Cheviots were described as 'active', so you're probably quite correct.  The sheep options here were either the Clun Forest or Merino and the guy with the Merino doesn't really want to sell any sheep.  



Ridgetop said:


> 8.  If these are going to live together, they will be breeding and the ewe will be producing lambs.   You may want to shear before the lambs are born, otherwise you will have to crotch (shave off the wool around her vaginal area and possible the teats anyway.  The wool in those regions will be ruined anyway when she gives birth.  The ram can probably be sheared anytime.
> 
> Purplequeenvt, Sheepshape, Secuono and other fiber growers - please give feedback and advice on crotching before lambing  or do you recommend just shearing?


Our ram, Cypress, isn't likely to be fertile since he has undescended testicles.  At least, the shepherdess I got him from thought so and the websites I've looked at agreed with that assessment.  I wouldn't mind lambs, but they aren't likely from Cypress according to everything I hear.

The other woolly sheep option around here was Merino, although the guy with the Merino wasn't really into selling them.   Maybe I can borrow a ram from him, though?  A Clun x Merino would have good wool?  The Clun Shepherdess keeps an extremely closed flock.  No taking the sheep back once they leave the property so taking her there to be bred isn't likely.

Is it difficult to temporarily add a ram to a 'flock' of two?  Or perhaps the ewe could be shifted to visit the ram, although that would leave Cypress by himself and they really don't like being by themselves.  Hmm, the neighbors have two hair sheep, maybe we could temporarily let him visit the neighbors, Flower (the ewe) could go visit the Merinos?   Well, that's getting all complicated, we will get the sheep more organized here first.



Ridgetop said:


> Some fiber growers out coats in their sheep if they are pastured in brushy areas.  Would those work?  They would have to be waterproof coats like you can buy for winter field blanketing of horses?
> 
> Or just bring the sheep in for a day or so with fans to dry the wool prior to shearing?
> 
> ...


I was thinking of making some sheep coats, but haven't gotten around to it yet.  Feed bags would work for making sheep coats, no doubt, but building them their sheep hut is higher on the project list.  Until they get their hut, there's no inside to bring them into.  No power in the sheep pasture yet, either, so no fans, but depending on their sheep hut, it may have lights and an outlet.  Gotta figure out where to put it, they've about cleared enough grass out of the way that we can build it.  They're in the back yard to get rid of the Guinea grass which is 9'-12' feet tall (3-4meters) or taller.  They've been in there since August and they've thinned it out a bit, but it's still not a "pasture" yet.  Maybe buying a Merino ram and adding him in there?  But that would be two rams unless Cypress is considered a wether?



The grass used to be up to and over their fence, they've cleared it back and thinned it out but the Guinea/Cane/Elephant/Reznor grass is still not short.  They've learned to look up for food and walk on the stems to bring the leafy parts down to where they can get them but there's still a lot of grass there.  

The 'fence' of refrigerator racks around the garden isn't part of the sheep pasture.  That's supposed to keep out chickens, but they've been flying over it and eating the lettuce so that's another project on the 'to do' list.  The grass on the left side of the picture is another project.  It needs to be flattened and another raised bed garden put in there to terrace the hillside as well as keep the grass from growing back there.


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## Niele da Kine (Dec 31, 2020)

farmerjan said:


> Just a thought as we do not have wooled sheep anymore, just hair sheep. Are you very far from the person you got the sheep from?  If not, why not get the shearer to just do yours the same time they do the other sheep.  You could take them over there in a little trailer or the shearer could come to you.  When I first got sheep, I had about 5 and I loaded them up into the horse trailer and took them to the place where the guy was getting his sheep shorn.  Easier on everyone.  It would also give you some experience with "up close and personal" to see it done and ask questions too.  I had horned Dorsets, and I loved their dispositions, and they were very prolific, mostly twins and a few triplets.  Not big huge sheep and the horns did make for ease of handling the rams.  They were very sturdy sheep.  I think that is partly why DS went with the Texas Dall sheep, he liked the horns.  But no wool.  The wool market here is terrible and it costs more to shear than what the wool is worth.



They shear their own with hand shears and they have an extremely closed flock.  Once any sheep leaves their pasture, it can't come back for any reason.  We also lack a horse trailer, we shifted them in a borrowed pig trap and a borrowed big dog kennel on our flat trailer to get them here.





I've watched the guy with the Merino shear his sheep.  He had powered clippers and rolled them onto their butt and sheared them into one big fleece.  They'd get rolled over from one side to the other.  Seemed like a LOT of bending over, though.  Since these sheep are so docile, I'm thinking maybe of halter training them like Ridgetop mentioned and then tying them to a post or near their feeder and clipping them while standing?  They don't have a lot of wool on their legs so it's mostly the topside.  Getting the underbelly might be interesting, but fortunately, there's only two of them.


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## Niele da Kine (Dec 31, 2020)

Sheepshape said:


> Yes, it's a real place.....Shropshire in the area near to the Welsh border....rolling hills etc. There's a village of Clun, too....population of 680 apparently...about 40 miles from where I live. The climate...cool. wet, typical valleys weather. Clun Forest sheep are tough sheep. I'm not aware of black faced sheep,,,,but here's a random pic of some of mine.....Beulah Speckled Face


Ooops, I meant brown faced sheep?  The faces and legs on Clun Forest are darker colored, but it's a dark brown and not really a black.  Some of them have white spots in the darker areas but mostly they look like black faced sheeples.  With a stylish little white 'poof' on the top of their heads, kinda like one of those 'fascinaters'  that are worn at fancy English events.  Hmm, they'd need a rooster tail feather or two stuck in it to be proper for that, perhaps?

With only 680 folks living there, are they outnumbered by Clun Forest sheep?

I'll look up Clun on Google Earth and see if there's any sheep in the picture.  Google walking is a fun thing.

Hey!  There were pastures of areas around Clun with sheep in them!  Not close to the road sheep so not sure if they are similar to the ones here, but they could be.  Lots of green pastures there, lovely place for sheep.


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## Ridgetop (Dec 31, 2020)

Niele da Kine said:


> The other woolly sheep option around here was Merino, although the guy with the Merino wasn't really into selling them.


Merino is a good wool breed, but very loose skinned.  The looser (more skin surface) skin on Merinos allows for the growth of more wool on the sheep.  This allows the shepherd to harvest more lbs. of wool per sheep.  This gives him more saleable wool and  more $$.  If you plan to grow your flock you can probably cross breed the ewe to the Merino ram.  I would probably talk to the breeder and see if you can buy a purebred Clun ewe who is already bred and hope for a ram lamb.  Or buy another pair, this time get a breedable ram.   You will then have purebred Cluns and maybe can arrange a trade later with the breeder.  She does not take any animals back into her herd due to chances of diseases.  If you are just keeping these 2 for wool, you don't have to breed.  If you breed eventually you will have to face the problem of eating your own sheep or selling for BBQ.    

The problem with the ram with undescended testicles is that although he *is* probably sterile, he still has all the ram instincts.  This means that he will not be docile like a wether when fully grown.  Never trust a ram since even the sweet ones may surprise you.  Ours are pretty good, but *have* tried to butt DH and DS1.  MoyBoy did butt DS1 once.  They were rather half hearted about it luckily.  

In livestock everything has a reason why the animal is made the way it is.  Thicker heavier meat animals are made like that to convert food to more meat on the carcass  Dairy animals have a bonier look because they are constructed differently to put more milk in the pail and less meat on their bones.  Fiber animals are bred and produced to produce as much fiber (wool) as possible.  For the past 3-4 thousand years herders and farmers have been breeding their animals to produce the breeds we see today.  They were bred for different attributes because several thousand years ago a distance of 100 miles could bring about a complete difference in terrain, climate, and salability of goods needed on the part of the owners.  Farming and ranching has always been about subsistence and making a living,

I would work with your Clun wool for a while before deciding to breed the ewe.  If you love spinning her wool, get more Cluns.  If you want a softer wool, cross breed with the Merino.  Then use the cross wool to decide if you prefer one or the other.  Lambing can cause her wool to lessen in quality during pregnancy.  Also, wait to see how well your pasture and forage come back after grazing.  2 sheep might be as much as you can comfortable graze and house without more expenditure than you want.  What is the price of hay in your area?


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## Kusanar (Jan 4, 2021)

I have seen youtube videos of people "shearing" their sheep with scissors. They just tied the sheep to a fence and 2 people started grabbing handfulls of wool and cutting them off with scissors. Not super effective, takes a while, and leaves the sheep looking like a wreck for a while (not smooth) but it may work for a first shearing if you need to get one trimmed before you are actually ready.


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## Ridgetop (Jan 4, 2021)

Ask Baymule about tht!  She tried to do it by hand and was crippled for a week or two!  Best bet is to arrange wth the Merino breeder to bring yiur sheep over and pay for shearing.  Or have his shearer come over nd do your two.  Yu will pay a premium since there are only 2 of them and he has to come to you, but a lot easier than tying a sheep to a fence and trying the cut off wool with scissors!  Shearing with electric shears can be learned, takes a couple of sheep to learn, and if you don't know how to flip and hold the sheep with one hand while holding a heavy shears with the other, not to easy.  The blades for wool in the grease to take off the whole fleece use blades with 3" cutter guides and it is easy to shear off a teat or penis.  It has been done before.  A good shearer can remove the whole fleece in one piece which is really what you want - no small second cuts.  When we had Suffolks and Hamps, I used to shear twice a year by putting the sheep in a stanchion with a head hold, giving them a small bucket with a handful of oats in it, and searing them standing in the stanchion.  My sons can a shear n the ground and flipping the sheep onto its butt, but they are big and strong and have been raising and flipping sheep since they were children.  Our sheep were tame and halter broke as well.

My suggestion is to contact the Merino breeder and the Clun breeder and ask if they now anyone who will shear for you.   They may know someone that will do it.  Before we switched to White Dorpers, an old 4-H friend f my daughter's was doing commercial shearing on the weekends.  Quick and easy for us to hire him.  When my flock, and my fleece buyer moved away, it got too expensive, so I sold off my Dorsets and bought Dorpers.   He had gone from $20/hd to $45/hd.  I had about 6 ewes and a ram.  Now my sheep shed out.  Unless I want to clean their toupes up with the clippers, no shearing.


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## secuono (Jan 4, 2021)

Sheeples are people who own sheep, btw...And most of us are already pretty bald. 😅


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## Kusanar (Jan 4, 2021)

secuono said:


> Sheeples are people who own sheep, btw...And most of us are already pretty bald. 😅


Humm... I guess I will stand out then when I get my sheep... then again.. my husband is bald, so does that count??


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## Niele da Kine (Feb 24, 2021)

Hmpf!  Well, 'sheeples' here is sheep that acts like people, so maybe it doesn't matter which way the crossbreeding goes?  I've heard the term to mean "folks who blindly follow the herd" so maybe it's a multipurpose word?

There aren't any traveling sheep shearers on the island, AFAIK.  The folks I got the two sheep from shear their own but only in small batches of several at a time.  They also don't allow the sheep back once they've left, so I'd have to import the people to here than the sheep to there.  The Merino guy shears his own, but only his own.  There's some folks who fly in from Kauai, I think it was, who shear the alpaca up mountain, but dunno if they do sheep.  All that is way more work getting either the people to the sheep or the sheep to the people than to just clip off their wool with whatever I can find that will work.  It doesn't have to work all that efficiently since there's just the two sheepies.

I have a pair of hand held sheep shears, I could use those although they're heavier than scissors.  And there's the electric horse clippers, I can put as coarse a blade on those as I have and see if that will work on sheep.  The clippers are set up for shearing angora rabbits so they usually have a really fine blade on them.

I'll see what the weather is doing, it's been cold lately getting down to the mid-fifties Fahrenheit here at night.  I'm sure the sheepies want to keep their wool until April or May.   I've gathered the materials to make their sheep shed, but haven't gotten it put together yet.  They're still clearing the tall grasses out of the pasture so there's a place to put their sheep shed.  They may want to wait to get sheared until their house is ready so they won't get rained on while they're naked.





So far this is as far as their sheep shed has gotten.  The upper roof truss is inside their sheep fencing, although just barely.  There's still not a lot of cleared area for their house to be built.  They have been eating the grasses, but there's still not a lot of cleared area yet.   We got these roof trusses several years ago at a yard sale and it will be nice to actually use them for something.  The rest of their sheep house will be the materials from a carport we just took down so there's some tin roofing and some long boards, not sure what else will be necessary for their sheep house, but after the new garden is put together, then the little sheepie house will probably be the next project.

Maybe the sheepies can be sheared as soon as their house is finished?  Kinda an arbitrary way to figure out when to shear them, but they would have somewhere dry to hide after their house is done.


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## purplequeenvt (Feb 24, 2021)

I use a pair of Lister Star clippers with coarse blades from Premier1 to shear all my sheep. I don’t normal do more than 4 sheep at a go so they keep up pretty well for my use. I have a cranky shoulder that can’t handle the weight and vibration from regular shears.


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## Niele da Kine (Feb 27, 2021)

Coarse blades are the ones for sheep?  I have an Oster Golden A5 clipper, perhaps that could be used if I got a 'sheep' blade for it.  I've only seen one official sheep clipper and that had a big blade on it and it had some sort of magnetically coupled flexible cord between the motor and the clipper head.  It was way too expensive of a clipper for just two sheep.


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## purplequeenvt (Feb 27, 2021)

Niele da Kine said:


> Coarse blades are the ones for sheep?  I have an Oster Golden A5 clipper, perhaps that could be used if I got a 'sheep' blade for it.  I've only seen one official sheep clipper and that had a big blade on it and it had some sort of magnetically coupled flexible cord between the motor and the clipper head.  It was way too expensive of a clipper for just two sheep.



Clippers are different from shears. They aren’t technically meant for shearing sheep, but would be used on a horse or cow or a clean, washed sheep that was trimmed for show.

They work on my sheep because they aren’t thick lanolin drenched fleeces. don’t think it would work well on a merino.

I use clippers over a shearing machine because my shoulder can’t handle the weight and vibration from the more powerful shears.

These are the blades I use. https://www.premier1supplies.com/p/premier-coarse-clipping-blade-set?criteria=Clipper+blades


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## Niele da Kine (May 31, 2021)

Part of one sheep has been shorn using sewing scissors while he's tied to a post with his nose in his alfalfa pellets.  He's not been too happy, but he hasn't been too grumpy either.  However, it's taking awhile and we haven't gotten to the bottom of the sheep yet.  He keeps wagging his tail when I try to clip near there, too.






I tried the horse clippers, but the clipper blades aren't sharp and are too small for sheep since they're sized for angora rabbits so that didn't work well.  Would as coarse a blade as I can find for an Oster Golden 5A clipper work as a sheep shear, do you think?  There's a 'skip teeth' #4 blade which may work.  Apparently, there's many manufacturers who make 'A5' blades.  I saw several of them labeled 'T.D.Q' for 'Take Down Quick' blades which look like they may be workable for sheeps as long as there's not too many sheep.  

Maybe I should get a pair of shears, after all, they will need to be sheared more than once.  What should someone look for in sheep shears when there's only a couple of sheep?  I don't need full on professional gear, but something that will work for a half dozen or less sheep.

Or, I could just take a little more off each day until he's a naked sheep, but it's gonna take awhile.


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## Mini Horses (May 31, 2021)

There are hand shears for sheep, not motorized.  If you are going to shear with scissors, you might want to look into those, instead.


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## Baymule (May 31, 2021)

I just got a pair of hand shears to trim the Mohawk dreadlocks off my hair sheep. Haven’t used them yet, but they have to be better than scissors. @Ridgetop and her husband came to visit and she brought sheep shears and taught me how to use them. I had blisters from scissor cutting a ewe thick thatch of matted wool off. Incidentally I culled her and she went to auction.

It hasn’t been mentioned, but you may need to have a Veternarian operate to remove your rams testicals. As said, he may be sterile, but the hormones will still fog up his brains and he could become aggressive.


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## Niele da Kine (Jun 1, 2021)

Aha!  I have the sheep shears thing figured out!  There's a local sheep and goat group which rents out shears to members.  It's only $25 a year to belong to their group and $10 to rent the shears.  They only rent the machine part of the shears, folks have to have their own blades, but they sell blades to members for $10.  Ha!  I signed up this morning, but it being a holiday it will probably take awhile before I'm an official member.  Maybe I can rent the shears for shearing Flower.  Cypress is almost sheared.  It's pretty much a bucket of wool taken off of him while he's having his evening snack.  He doesn't mind the cutting, but doesn't like having the cut off bits pulled off.

He's over two years old, wouldn't he have become aggressive by now if he was gonna?  If anything he's gotten calmer and friendlier.  He comes over, wags his tail and gets grasses poked at his nose.  He's become my gardening buddy and he eats all the weeds as they're pulled out of the garden.  Maybe he's just spoiled rotten and doesn't have any excuse to be aggressive?


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## Ridgetop (Jun 1, 2021)

Baymule said:


> It hasn’t been mentioned, but you may need to have a Veternarian operate to remove your rams testicals. As said, he may be sterile, but the hormones will still fog up his brains and he could become aggressive.


Definitely have him surgically castrated.  He should not have been sold as a pet with undescended testicles since he is still a ram although sterile.   Some years ago the Australians tried sterilization without castration for a while.  They pushed the testicles up into the rams body then banded the empty sac.  The idea was that since ram lambs grow faster than wether lambs, they would decrease the time before the lambs could go to the processor.  The internal body heat would cause the rams to be sterile while retaining quick ram growth.  After several years they found that although the ram lambs became sterile, it did not take away the ram testosterone drive.  

Although your ram is still docile *when he reaches 3 years old he can become more aggressive*.  Particularly when the ewe is in estrus.  He will also drive her crazy trying to breed her every time she cycles.  She will continue to cycle every 18 to 21 days since he won't be able to settle her - being sterile.  This doesn't mean that he will be so aggressive that he will attack you at al times.  It just means that he might butt you when you don't expect it.  A full grown ram butting you can break a leg.  This usually happens with rams that are so friendly that you trust them, don't pay attention to what they are doing, and turn your back on them.  
*POW!!!            OUCH!!!            👩‍🦽*

You will burn up your A5 clipper motor trying to shear the sheep.  The reason people get sheep shears is that they have a different head to take the blades  The blades are not just bigger, the head of the clipper is more powerful.  The lanolin in the sheep wool holds dirt and you need the power to cut through the heavy oil of the wool fleece.



Niele da Kine said:


> Aha! I have the sheep shears thing figured out! There's a local sheep and goat group which rents out shears to members. It's only $25 a year to belong to their group and $10 to rent the shears. They only rent the machine part of the shears, folks have to have their own blades, but they sell blades to members for $10. Ha! I signed up this morning, but it being a holiday it will probably take awhile before I'm an official member. Maybe I can rent the shears for shearing Flower. Cypress is almost sheared. It's pretty much a bucket of wool taken off of him while he's having his evening snack. He doesn't mind the cutting, but doesn't like having the cut off bits pulled off.



I suggest you make friends with these sheep group members - shouldn't be hard - you are nice!  and see if any of them is willing to either teach you how to use the clippers, or even better,  would shear for you for a small price!  As a member of this group you will make a lot of new sheep and goat friends too!


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