Why I coat my sheep!

I have been so very happy with all my coated fleeces this year : both the fleeces that were coated last year at shearing time and those that were coated in December. It is so exciting to have high quality usable fleeces!

My conviction that coating insures the best quality fleece was reinforced this weekend. I was asked to help shear some ouessant sheep in exchange for the fleeces. To be quite honest, I wasn’t expecting to find great fleeces : I’ve seen too many felted ouessant fleeces chucked full of vegetable matter!

We sheared 5 ouessants.
Three of the fleeces are already on the compost heap!
One fleece has yet to be sorted out, but seems to be more or less usable.

The fifth fleece is a perfect example of why I coat my sheep.
It shows the potential beauty and quality of ouessant fleece.
At the same time it demonstrates its vulnerability to environmental ravages.
This is what the fleece looks like on the “outside”.

Ariel's Fleece : sun-bleached tips & vegetable matter

As horrible as this looks, when one opens up the fleece we find a beautiful long 6" staple. The wool is jet black and in perfect, pristine condition for the first 4" with severely damaged 2" tips. Additionally, the undamaged part of the staple is quite lovely and soft to the touch.

Look at that staple length!
But the tips are "burnt", matted and brittle!

What a shame, this could have been the most awesome fleece if it had been coated in November or December. That being said, I was able to salvage approx. 250 grams (8 oz.).
With a pair of scissors, I cut off the 2" tips of the best parts of the fleece. The clean 4" staples were put in net laundry bags then put in cold rain water to soak for one week.

Net laundry bags full of black wool.

Unfortunately, the rest of Ariel's fleece is on the compost heap with the others!

All Done!

I'm so pleased! All finished with shearing this year. The last to be done was Margaret : I didn't want to shear her before she lambed ... so it was a bit of a wait.

But what a difference a year can make! Last year her fleece was totally matted/felted. It is currently at the bottom of the compost heap! But this year, not a mat in sight. just a big beautiful fleece (almost looks like bear skin rug!!)

Here it is, all laid out on netting, ready to be put in a cold water soak :

Rather hard to see in this picture, but her fleece is black with lots of redish brown tipping. Additionally, as a 4 year old ewe, she has a lot of greying in the fleece too. So it is a wonderfully colorful fleece.
She was coated in December, so only had a coat on for the past 5 months, thus quite a bit of tipping. Weight of the skirted fleece : 850 grams (30 oz.).

I also wanted to show you Margot's fleece. This is a picture of her fleece after being washed in cold water for 1 week and then dried :

You can see how this method of washing and drying allows you to retain the lock structure of the fleece. And, as you will see, this is important and will help in later processing of the wool. This is a very pretty lamb's fleece. And will be lovely to spin.

Margot's skirted fleece weighed 720 grams going into the cold water soak. After soaking and drying the same fleece weighed 566 grams. A loss of 154 grams (over 5 oz.!) of "sheep grime". So 21.38% of the original weight was lost in a cold water wash.
I'm keeping records on the other fleeces to see what the yield ends of being after washing.

Sheep to Sweater Sunday n°1 "The Fleece"

I thought that it might be fun to reserve Sundays for a special column that I’d like to call « Sheep to Sweater Sunday ». I’d like to set aside this time/space to show you how I process ouessant fleece. This is also where I’ll keep you up-to-date on the fiber projects that I’m currently working on.

So let’s start at the beginning.

The fleece!

Actually I could go on for hours about fleeces. But for right now, let’s stick to the basics!

Ultimately the success of your final creation is dependent on the quality of the fleece that you start with!

So what is a good fleece?

Admittedly, different spinners look for different things in a fleece.
But here are a few things that I consider essential :

• Good staple length & strength : Personally I prefer a staple length between 4-5 inches (10-13 cm), with the minimum being 3 inches (7.5 cm). Additionally it’s important to make sure that there’s no problem with wool break.
• A well skirted fleece, with all low-quality, short wool (belly wool, etc), tags, manure, etc... removed.
• Few if any second-cuts. They are a pain when processing a fleece. That said, speaking as someone who shears their own sheep, second cuts are, to a certain extent unavoidable. But the shearer should be careful to remove any second-cuts from the fleece before rolling and storing. It doesn’t take much time to do this and it makes processing the fleece a lot easier.
• Very, very little vegetable matter, if any at all. A bit of straw here or there isn’t a problem as long as it’s a big piece that is easily removed. The worst by far is vegetable matter that looks like finely chopped hay or straw. It’s virtually impossible to remove during processing. It is true that combing a well scoured fleece does help with this. But honestly, it’s easier to start with a good fleece to begin with.
• No cotting or matting. Unfortunately a matted or cotted fleece is destined for the compost heap! You just can’t spin a felted fleece! Cotting is very common in ouessant sheep. I believe that one aggravating factor is the fact that many breeders shear too late. Think about it : if you have a lamb born in March 2007, but don’t shear until June or even July 2008, the fleece has been on the sheep for 15-16 months. Add a nice dose of rain, lots of rubbing up against trees and having lambs jump up on your back ... well, in short it’s a recipe for a felted sheep and a wasted fleece.

That’s what I look for in a fleece ... and this is one of the reasons why I coated my sheep this past year. Coating has given me some lovely fleeces : no cotting, no vegetable matter, beautiful staple length, and exceptional "condition" and wool quality. But more on coats later ...

Here are a few examples of what I consider high quality ouessant fleeces ... and yes, they are from my little flock!

Noisette (brown) -- light to medium fawn ouessant fleece
Praline's fleece : skirted, tip-side up
coated last 5 months of the year (since December)

White ouessant fleece
RhumRaisin's fleece : skirted, tip-side up
coated since shearing last spring

Noisette (brown) -- dark chocolate brown ouessant fleece
Nougatine's fleece : skirted, tip-side up
coated last 5 months of the year (since December)

baa, baa brown sheep have you any wool?

. . . well, not anymore!
Just sheared both Praline and Nougatine.
And look at these fleeces!

Nougatine's dark chocolate brown fleece
Praline's medium fawn fleece
Note : this shows the cut/butt end, sun-bleached tips are hidden
(there is just a small staple sample on top)

What can I say? Aren't they just beautiful!
These skirted fleeces weigh in at 622 and 624 grams respectively.
So pretty average for an ouessant ewe.

Both of these ewes were left uncoated for 7 months after shearing.
Then in December they were coated until shearing (5 months).
This explains the sun-bleached tips.

I'm considering coating Nougatine this week :
I would love to have a solid dark chocolate brown fleece next year with no bleached tips!

Shearing Update

This week I sheared both ‘TitBijou and RhumRaisin.
I tried both the mohair comb and the "chattle".
I really didn’t like the mohair comb : didn’t seem to work well at all.
Maybe I’ll have to try again later?

On the other hand I LOVE the “chattle” comb. It is definitely slower, but no nicks or cuts. And the sheep come out looking like velvet! Very, very pleased. It does take me roughly 20-30 minutes to shear a sheep, so I’m not winning any contest there! But that’s okay!

There is another problem that I hadn’t really considered : the comb and blades really do get dirty and clogged with “sheep grime.”

YUCK!

I didn’t have any problems shearing one sheep .... but I had to stop and clean the comb and blades before shearing the next sheep.

Fortunately, they do clean up very quickly and easily.

Nothing like a sparkling clean comb and cutting blade!

I unscrew the comb and blades, then soak them for a few minutes in “White Spirit” ; I use a small brush to wipe off any lingering grime ; a little soap and water to get everything squeaky clean ; then dry with towel before remounting the comb and blades!

Actually much faster and easier than it sounds!

So all in all, I'm very pleased with the "shattle" comb. It does a lovely job and it has made shearing less stressful for both me and the sheep. And even though they are a bit slower than the standard comb, I think that for me it takes less time using the chattle. I know that doesn't sound logical but last year I was so terrified of cutting the sheep that it took me a long time to shear each one. So this is progress!

... ready, set, go . . .

TitBijou and RhumRaisin are first in line for shearing.
But first, I thought you might like to see my shearing set-up.


I shear on the patio in front of the house.
I put down a clean drop-cloth, in this case an old sheet.
I have my little stool, the shears, oil for the shears, Oxytétrin spray (that electric blue antibiotic spray you can buy at the vets, just in case you have any “accidents”), foot trimming tools, and of course the ever so important ‘toise’ to be used after the fleece has been removed!

How to shear an eel!

I have a real love/hate relationship with shearing!

On the one hand shearing is the long awaited wool harvest : it’s so gratifying and exciting to shear one of your own sheep, knowing that the wool will be transformed into a garment.

On the other hand, shearing fills me with dread! Spinners who have never sheared a sheep don’t understand how difficult it can be. First the electric shears weigh over 2 ½ pounds ... and they vibrate quite a bit when in use. But that’s not the worst of it. The standard sheep combs/blades are sharp and “deadly” : it’s so very easy to cut your sheep. Then there’s the fact that ouessant sheep are more difficult to immobilize than a larger sheep ... well it’s a recipe for disaster!

You see, one of the tricks to shearing is holding the sheep in such a way that it “relaxes” and doesn’t move : if you hold the sheep in certain positions, they will calmly sit there and let you get on with it ...otherwise they will struggle and thrash around, making it even easier to cut them with the shears. Unfortunately, due to their small size, it’s much more difficult to immobilize ouessant sheep : imagine trying to shear an eel!! In fact a number of shearers in France charge almost 3 times more to shear a small ouessant than a standard sized sheep!

So what’s a shepherd to do???

First, I’ve had to modify how I hold my sheep. In order to get them into a better position, I sit on a small stool : this puts me closer to the ground, protects my back, and makes holding the sheep much easier (both for me and the sheep!). This has been a great help ... but it doesn’t solve the problems with the electric sheep shears!

This took a bit of research, but it’s all about the combs!

Let me explain. The head of electric sheep shears are make up of a comb and cutting blade. The comb does not move : it has teeth which direct the wool towards the cutting blade. The blade fits on top of the comb and moves back and forth, cutting the wool. The standard wool comb has 13 teeth. Most people (even sales people at farm stores!) will tell you that there’s just one comb used for shearing sheep. This is just not the case : if you check out the Heiniger catalogue, for example, you will find that they offer over 30 different combs for shearing sheep. Granted, the vast majority of these are 13-tooth combs. But there are some with only 9 teeth and a few with more than 13 teeth.

The thing is, for a professional shearer, speed is important. Generally speaking the shearer can work faster with a 13-tooth comb : remember that shearers like working fast as they are paid by the animal. The only problem is that the added speed of the 13-tooth comb has one pretty nasty downside : not only can the wool be quickly sheared, but the sheep’s skin can be quickly cut too. Of course most experienced shearers don’t make too many nicks. But of course, most professional shearers have never had to shear an eel ... urr I mean ouessant sheep!
But here’s the good news for all of us not so professional shearers who don’t want to nick and shred are dear little sheep : if you switch to a comb with more teeth you will greatly reduce the possibility of nicking and cutting your sheep when you shear them!


The two combs that have been recommended to me are the “mohair” comb, a 17-tooth comb designed especially for mohair goats ; and the Heiniger “shattle”, a 25-tooth comb that can be used on a number of different animals and is often used as a “show comb” for sheep. The closer together the teeth are the less chance you have of cutting your sheep. But there is a down-side : as you go from 13 to 17 to 25 teeth ... it takes longer to shear your sheep. Of course this isn’t an option for a professional shearer : they want to get the sheep done in 5 minutes ... NOT in 25 or 30. Note that all of these combs use the same standard cutting blade. It’s just the comb (or cutting plate, if you will) that changes.
I went ahead and purchased the Heiniger “Shattle” and “Mohair” combs at Schlumberger’s in France. They have great prices and great service.
In the weeks that come I’ll report back and let you know how it goes and which combs work best for shearing an eel!