Growing Excitement

Hello dear readers! Welcome back for another week of sheep stuff.

Welcome to the new folks, your just in time for what’s coming!

We got our shearing date!

March 4th is S-Day! The day we get to really see what all the girls and boys have been doing for the past year. The day to see if I made all the right choices to support the growth of wool. The day that we and the sheep have worked all year for.

It is also a day where we get to see friends we have not seen in a while when they come over to help with shearing. We have fun and party thru it all.

It’s also a day of incredibly hard work, and I know that, speaking only for myself, I won’t be able to move much the day or two afterwards.

Shearing is an important part of the routine of keeping the sheep healthy. Thru many years of domestication, sheep have for the most part, lost their natural ability to shed their wool in the spring. There are a few of the more primitive breeds that have that ability. The process for removing those fleeces consists of the animal developing a fiber break near the skin, and they will rub against things to remove their wool. Or the owner uses a process called roo’ing. This is really nothing more than peeling the fiber off the sheep in one big piece.

Right now my sheep are carrying anywhere from 5-15 pounds of wool, depending on their size. If they are not shorn, you can guess how much they will be carrying in an additional year. This can lead to skin issues, wool blindness, inability to walk easily, or get up if they lay down, heat stress leading to death, compromise their ability to eat if they are fluffy faced sheep, and a whole host of other problems.

To the sheep, they are getting their yearly hair cut. Much like you or me going to the beauty shop.

Let me give you a rundown of how this all works, so that when you see pictures next week, or on the notes section, you understand what you are seeing.

Right now, we have the barn mostly set up for the big day. It got cleaned out last Saturday, and Michael set up the holding pen in there. Since we are having really nice warm weather, I am leaving the doors partly open along with the windows to help dry it out the rest of the way after housing the breeding bunch.

Next Sunday afternoon, we will run the sheep into the holding pen in the barn. That way they will be dry for shearing day. I am keeping a close watch on the weather in case we have to run them in earlier. You can’t shear wet sheep.

In order to get them all in the barn in one bunch has been a bit of a crapshoot. There is almost always one who won’t comply with the program. Since it’s just Michael and I doing this, we have devised a plan a few years ago which we still use. We gather up all the loose corral panels and create an alley between the main corral and the barn. They get run into the corral per their normal, then sent up the alley into the barn in one big bunch. It’s a load of work to get the alley built and then taken down in one afternoon, but it’s the safest and easiest way to get them all in there in one shot without a problem.

We will also move a bale of hay into the barn on Sunday. Gotta feed the critters.

Monday will be last minute house cleaning and food prep. Part of our day includes a potluck meal. This year’s spread will be a taco bar, along with lots of fresh fruit, cheese, crackers, sliced meat, and various home baked goodies. I try to feed my crew the best I can. I know how hard they, and the shearers work for me. Sometimes we break halfway thru shearing to eat, and other times when it’s all done. The shearers call the shots on this and take the break when they feel the need to.

Monday is also the arrival of one friend coming in from out of state, and one from the other side of the state for this. The remainder of the crew is local folks.

The sheep will get one more meal Monday night, and no breakfast on Tuesday morning. This makes it much easier on the sheep to be shorn with an empty stomach. We pull the water out early Monday morning for the same reason. The way they get moved around for the process would make me puke if my stomach was full.

Shearing day!

The morning is last minute barn prep. The skirting table will get set up. The trash cans we use to bag the fleeces into will be moved into place. And tarps dragged out and set up. All this while we wait for the arrival of the shearers, we have two this year again, so this should move pretty quickly.

The shearers bring their own mini alley/gate set up and their blades, and we supply the floor they use along with tarps underneath to keep the fresh fleeces out of the dirt.

Folks will get their job stations settled out based on their abilities or what they want to learn. Michael is the main sheep sorter in the pen, and it looks like we will have enough folks for him to have a helper this year. We also have folks to scoop up the fleeces, skirt fleeces, tag and bag fleeces, sweep the shearing floor, doctor sheep if they get a cut, and run the sheep back into the holding pen. That leaves me the hole filler if we are shorthanded, and the conductor.

It’s quite the orchestration! Or shit show. Sometimes both at the same time.

Honestly, no matter how many people we have, or don’t, to help, it usually flows like a well oiled machine.

As they say, it’s not our first rodeo.

After shearing they will stay in the barn for about a week so they can easily acclimate to their new bodies. Removing all that wool can create some stress on their bodies without all that warmth they have been carrying around. They will get their feet trimmed and vaccinated while they are in, and new coats put on. Plus, I’ll be up to my eyeballs in coat washing and repairing.

In the meantime, I’m cleaning house, which I hate to do, gathering up supplies, making the grocery list, and trying to cover every last-minute thing that will creep up.

Keep your fingers crossed for a successful shearing day!

PS The pictures are from last years shearing day.

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Special thanks to Mary D and Rebekah T for buying me a coffee last week. I am grateful and blessed by your support. Thank you so very much.

I am grateful if you would like to buy me a coffee. Any donation you make will go towards feeding the shearing crew. Thank you for your support!

I wish you all a wonderful week.

Blessed Be!