Getting ready for shearing.

[NachoFarm]

Our little flock is getting sheared on Friday. Can't wait to see under all that fleece!

So, a few questions;

How do we determine if the fleece is too dirty to save? They're covered in hay, dirt...stuff.
If we're keeping it, the processing facility has a six month! waiting list to have it washed and processed. What do I do with it in the meantime?
How do I know, being a first timer, if the shearer has done a good job?

 

[Roving Jacobs]

I toss any fleece that is covered in poo, grease tags, chunks of mud, or urine. Generally this is the wool around the crotch, legs and britches. Hay and vegetable matter can be skirted out, and you should definitely do that before you send it off to be processed so you aren't paying to ship hay instead of wool. Also take out any short cuts where the shearer has gone back over an area and kemp which feels like coarse hair instead of wool.

If you are having someone else process it you generally send it as soon as your part is done and they store it until they are ready to use it. 6 months is a pretty average wait time. If you are storing it at your place you want to make sure it is in a bag that can breathe and doesn't get humid which will cause it to mold and mildew. Paper bags, pillowcases, breathable plastic bags, something like that. Skirt it well before you store it so its not soaking up all the poo and urine. Also check it regularly for moths which will ruin all of your fleeces. Keeping them someplace cool cuts down on pests too.

If your shearer has done a good job you will not have to rush your animals to the vet to be sewn back together

After he/she is done the sheep should not have a bunch of long patches of fleece still on them but they also shouldn't be cut to ribbons. Nicks and cuts happen but you shouldn't have to skirt chunks of skin out of the fleece later. They should also be really careful around the udder and genitals of your sheep. Cuts there can ruin breeding stock and no good shearer will cut around there recklessly. You should also not have a ton of second, short cuts in your fleece. Gently shake the fleece out and see how many short cuts fall out. These can be used for felting sometimes but are mostly useless and a waste of wool.

 

[NachoFarm]

I toss any fleece that is covered in poo, grease tags, chunks of mud, or urine. Generally this is the wool around the crotch, legs and britches. Hay and vegetable matter can be skirted out, and you should definitely do that before you send it off to be processed so you aren't paying to ship hay instead of wool. Also take out any short cuts where the shearer has gone back over an area and kemp which feels like coarse hair instead of wool.

Skirted out? Explain please?

 

[Roving Jacobs]

I toss any fleece that is covered in poo, grease tags, chunks of mud, or urine. Generally this is the wool around the crotch, legs and britches. Hay and vegetable matter can be skirted out, and you should definitely do that before you send it off to be processed so you aren't paying to ship hay instead of wool. Also take out any short cuts where the shearer has gone back over an area and kemp which feels like coarse hair instead of wool.

Skirted out? Explain please?

Skirting is just laying the fleece out, usually on some sort of screen so the dirt and stuff falls through, and picking out anything that isn't what you want to go in to your finished product. Hay, seed pods, timothy heads, poo, grease tags, kemp, dirt, short cuts, anything like that. If you go on youtube and put in "skirting fleece" you'll get tons of videos of how people do it.

 

[NachoFarm]

Oh no, I just realized that I fed my sheep tonight. The shearer is coming at noon. Will they be ok?

 

[SheepGirl]

They might be. If you put out hay, take it out now. We've had sheep die while being sheared. We got a new shearer the next year and we were talking to her about it (ironically the next sheep she sheared looked like he was gonna die). She said it's from them having a full tummy and their rumen squishes their lungs while they're in all those yoga positions and they essentially can't breathe. The ones that died always started to pant. And the one that started to pant had just come off of pasture 30 minutes prior to being sheared. However we usually lock up the ewes the night before the morning the shearer is to come out. If one of your sheep starts to pant, get them on their feet immediately. Go onto the next sheep. After that sheep is done being sheared, usually the panter will have caught their breath and will be okay.

 

[NachoFarm]

Oh man. Well, whatever hay I put out at 4pm is long gone now. How long does it take for them to be empty? They'll be 21 hours without food by the time he shows up.

 

[purplequeenvt]

You should be fine. We don't give ours hay the day the shearer is coming (of course we feed them after ), but we feed them full rations the day before.

 

[NachoFarm]

Well after the shearer told us he would be there by noon or wouldn't be coming until next week we decided at 1:30pm that he wasn't coming so we fed the sheep...and then he called at 4:30pm. :/
So HE SAID they'd be fine so we let him come and they were fine but he says to us right before he starts to shear the first sheep..."I am not, a professional." OMG.

I can't tell if he did a good job because I don't know what it's supposed to look like, but it looks to me like maybe it could have been done better. He did at least leave us a giant burlap bag to store it in for now.

No one looks particularly pregnant except maybe one but with what would be a due date of March 25th give or take I'm not sure she's big enough to say for sure. If she was due in two weeks and this was her second lambing she would be bagged up by now no?

 

[Bossroo]

Well after the shearer told us he would be there by noon or wouldn't be coming until next week we decided at 1:30pm that he wasn't coming so we fed the sheep...and then he called at 4:30pm. :/
So HE SAID they'd be fine so we let him come and they were fine but he says to us right before he starts to shear the first sheep..."I am not, a professional." OMG.

I can't tell if he did a good job because I don't know what it's supposed to look like, but it looks to me like maybe it could have been done better. He did at least leave us a giant burlap bag to store it in for now.

No one looks particularly pregnant except maybe one but with what would be a due date of March 25th give or take I'm not sure she's big enough to say for sure. If she was due in two weeks and this was her second lambing she would be bagged up by now no?

No lambs / or very low percentage = ram is effectively sterile. Send ram to frezer camp. Purchase new ram.