Now is the Time to Think About Next Year ’s Fleeces 

By Nadine Chounet

I was pleasantly surprised to find that many people were fol- lowing this series on creating handspinning fleeces and also on participating at the 29th annual New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival. Our entries to the fleece judging and sale barn were up considerably over last year.And are you ready for this?The champion fleece of the weekend was from a crossbred ewe, produced by a woman who had never shown a fleece before. In fact,it took some talking on my part to get her to show it!It was an absolutely gor- geous fleece and very deserving of its award. Of the total number of fleeces entered for judging and sale,we sold about 75 percent of them,even though we got rained out pretty much on Sunday.I would say that is a great re flection on the quality and cleanliness of the fleeces presented this year.Already we are thinking ahead to next year ʼs festival – and,,of course,so should you be thinking ahead about your fleeces for 2006. Here is a quick review:

• Know your breed..What type of fleece should it produce? Are your fleeces within those breed standards? Does your Romney look like a Romney? Or a poodle? The handspinning market is a discerning bunch of buyers – when they want a certain breed of fleece,you can be sure they come armed with the knowledge of what type of fleece should be coming off of that breed of animal.

• Feed appropriately for your breed to produce the best fleece possible.Also be sure to take care of any medical issues, even routine ones that can affect your fleeces,such as worming and shots.

• Keep those fleeces as clean as possible. We all know that sheep are animals and,as such,those fleeces will not be perfectly clean – but feeding practices and gen- eral cleanliness of pens makes a huge difference in your fleeces.Some well planned and regular picking off of your sheep also goes a long way toward a clean fleece.

•Am I going to blanket my animals?You will have to de- cide if you can keep up with the work of blanketing and whether or not your type of fleeces can tolerate a blanket. Remember,if you blanket you will have “squared off ” tips on your fleeces – but you will also have dead clean ones.The blankets also prevent sunburn – so that gray Romney will be gray to the tips,rather than sun browned. It is all a matter of taste,and buyers look for both types.

•When you shear, skirt your fleece as soon as possible. If you have a large flock,rough skirt it (remove all the manure tags and worst areas of the fleece)and then store it appropriately to get its final skirting later.Make certain that your buyers are getting a nice usable fleece and not things that should have been placed in the compost pile.A pound of skirtings taken off could come back to you twofold in sales volume.Another idea is to keep the best of the skirt- ings separate but with the original fleece.When a buyer takes the fleece,offer them the britches for free.

• Store your fleeces appropriately.Keep them where they will not be contaminated by moths,rodents or other creepy-crawly things.Do not store them airtight as they will suffer with that treatment – a clear plastic garbage bag is fine to show off your fleeces,but is not the best for long-term storage. Try rolling them in an old bed sheet. Enjoy your fleeces and the work that it takes to create a truly great one.I plan on seeing you at the festival!  Photo by Colin Kennard the Sheep &Wool Festival.