When to shear sheeples?

[Sheepshape]

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

 

[Niele da Kine]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

 

[Niele da Kine]

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.

 

[Niele da Kine]

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.

 

[Ridgetop]

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?

 

[Kusanar]

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.

 

[Ridgetop]

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.

 

[secuono]

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

 

[Kusanar]

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??

 

[Niele da Kine]

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.