Shearing Done For Another Year!

Getting Set Up For Shearing @ 7AM

If you have sheep, you know what a relief it is to have the shearing done for another year. This year, our long time shearer of 20 years retired from the business. With his own flock of ~175 sheep, give or take, it was time to back off.  We were fortunate to find Luke, a tri-state area native who has sheared in several areas out west, including South Dakota & Wyoming. The good news with that is he has experience with fine wool sheep and has done quite a few Rambouillets.

Luke Shearing - Note the back support.

We had 45 ewes to shear and we got started at 7:25AM on Saturday morning.  It was damp & cloudy, but the temperature seemed to be just right. Seven of the ewes are yearlings, so I took the 2" square side samples of wool from them for their individual micron test. The samples will be shipped to Yocum-McColl Testing Labs in Denver for testing as soon as we get the ewe registrations back ... and I get the time to fill out the forms, lol!

In Action With X-bred Ewe #136

  Things went pretty well - we're always trying to "perfect" the system of penning/catching the ewes, getting them set up for shearing, and bagging each fleece complete with a label & notes in the Wild Rose Farm flock barn book. 

Now For The Clean-up!

Shearing was done by 11:55 ... a great job with steady, quick work, & minimal second cuts. Next up is the skirting process in the barn once we get some warmer weather.

Snow White Surrounded By Yearling Ewe Lambs

After spending all winter in the barn with Snow White, the 7 ewe lambs stick pretty close to her once we turn everyone out together. They'll all spend the next week or so in the barn to keep them out of the rain ...