Getting better at shearing sheep

After paying for a hack job from some local youths in the Spring, my wife decided she needed to learn how to do it herself - as she does with just about anything important to her. So, she took a course at Penn State and we started into fall shearing. BTW, Icelandic sheep need to be sheared 2x/yr.

Here's some of work. Not perfect, but not too bad at all for her first time. Thankfully we only have 8 to shear for now. LodgedTree The big brown shorn one with the bigger horns is our ram Reeces. The two in the other pictures are ewes, MooMou (L) and Ava (R). MooMou is freshly shorn and Ava was shorn late Sept. The woolly brown one is MooMou before shearing.

 

Cool! What do you do with the wool?

 

You going to get them some coats for the winter now that you cut all their wool off ?

 

LOL! They will be fine. They are originally from Iceland so they are well able to deal with our climate. In fact, we are probably getting near the southern limit of their preferred climate. They will put on plenty of wool before our temps get anywhere near cold.

 

Wife is working on cleaning it up. She will probably use most of it for felting. She's amazingly creative. If we have leftovers, we will send it off to be processed into yarn to sell.

 

Wow that thing had a bunch of wool!

 

She did a better job then my professional sheep shearer does and I am not joking. It is one thing to Buffalo the fans,but another to Buffalo the players. Tell your wife she did a nice job and your sheep look nice and healthy too!

 

Thanks. I'll let her know. Means a lot coming from you.

 

Bear with me here Mike but what is 'felting' and what is it used for (by an individual I mean)? The yarn part I can follow OK

Sorry, I grew up in suburbia and felt is something that is used to make clothes, hats and so forth, and those good are then purchased in a store. If left alone on a gigantic Amish farm, full of everything needed to live, I would be dead in a week. But I am always interested in most things that are actually done to get those finished products to us poor, lowly consumers.

Brian

 

Yes, you can just make felt cloth. However, the wife has been learning to do "needle felting" too. It's a way to do 3-D sculpture with wool. https://www.pinterest.com/explore/needle-felting-tutorials/

Oh yes. Clippers are some dangerous tools. There was at least a little, and sometimes more blood with each one. Pictures strategically hid the nicks ;-)

 

Two more sheared today. Just one more to go until Spring. This is Ruby, a ewe lamb.

 

unsheared they look like clouds

sheared they look like they are ready for the Baaaahamas.

 

I took a couple classes and did some sheep shearing when I was in college. I remember thinking it was one of the most frustrating skills I ever attempted to learn. Of course, it did not help that I was shearing alongside guys who said you have to be able to shear 100 sheep a day. The best I ever did was 12 in one day.
Coincidentally, the only ram I ever sheared was an Icelandic. He was the neighbor’s pet, and didn’t fight at all.

 

Cool! You were lucky with the ram or good good with your technique. Icelandics are known to be very "independent." Of course rams and wethers are usually more friendly than ewes.

 

Wethers mayhap, but rams are usually tough shearing. I was taught to have someone stand behind me when I’m shearing a ram’s neck and belly. If a ram decides to straighten it’s spine just then, the shearer can go flying.

Anyways this ram was super docile, so yeah, I was lucky. I think I had declined the job because it was a ram and it was an icelandic, but the neighbor talked me back into it.

 

Thanks for the tip. Our ram is particularly good, but he is pushing 200#, and once the girls go into estrus he gets downright frisky. In retrospect, this is is one more good reason that we sheared him before he came into season.

 

That is really impressive, Mike! Very interesting too. It is amazing what people can do with different materials / art / imagination. I think I am especially impressed because 'art' does not come to me naturally at all, whatsoever. I have absolutely no talent for any freestyle type of work and basically, whenever I do get involved in that, the best I can usually do is not make a horrible mess rather than achieve anything worthwhile.

I am currently in the middle of a major house renovation and every single aspect of the design is basically me trying my very best not to 'step in it'. Rather than trying to be creative, I am trying not to have a crowd gather and then point and laugh. So that 'needle felting' is most impressive to me because given a quantity of felt, I could not see anything in it other than boot liners.

Brian