Shearing Our Shetland Sheep
Those of you who follow the Blog on these pages will know how relieved we are to get the fleeces off our sheep. The warm, wet weather can pose a threat to sheep health when they are in full fleece, prompting possible incidents of fly-strike.
Shearing is usually done in two parts: I clip half of them with the intention of doing them all. Then I always remember how hard it is, with the result that about half of the flock is machine sheared by our local shearer, who specialises in smaller flocks and gets to know our sheep. The film below shows Birgitta (a four-crop ewe and one of our favourites) getting her annual haircut.
Shearing is usually done in two parts: I clip half of them with the intention of doing them all. Then I always remember how hard it is, with the result that about half of the flock is machine sheared by our local shearer, who specialises in smaller flocks and gets to know our sheep. The film below shows Birgitta (a four-crop ewe and one of our favourites) getting her annual haircut.
The idea is that you end up with something like the fleece below:
Raw grey Shetland fleece
As mentioned, the other half are hand-clipped. Especially the shearlings who produce the most amazing soft pure Shetland fleeces. As I am not as proficient at shearing, these come off in several large pieces.
The upshot is that we end up with nice clean sheep and a LOT of raw fleece. We tidy the fleeces (without washing them) and send most of them off to the Mill for processing into finished yarn for knitting, crochet or weaving. The remainder we keep for home use, and for sale to people who like to work with raw fleece. We sell these fleeces (for local collection or sending by UK post only at the moment). If you would like to know more about how you can wash/prepare raw fleece for your own use, then there is a useful article from the web here
We will next have raw fleece available just after shearing, next June/July! If you would like to talk to us about reserving a fleece for your own use, then please email and we'll see what we can do!
The upshot is that we end up with nice clean sheep and a LOT of raw fleece. We tidy the fleeces (without washing them) and send most of them off to the Mill for processing into finished yarn for knitting, crochet or weaving. The remainder we keep for home use, and for sale to people who like to work with raw fleece. We sell these fleeces (for local collection or sending by UK post only at the moment). If you would like to know more about how you can wash/prepare raw fleece for your own use, then there is a useful article from the web here
We will next have raw fleece available just after shearing, next June/July! If you would like to talk to us about reserving a fleece for your own use, then please email and we'll see what we can do!