Naked sheep!

  Saturday afternoon was absolutely beautiful. The sun was shinning, there was a warm breeze blowing and the birds were singing- it was a perfect day for shearing sheep!

I went to Farmers' market as usual, but I left a little bit early so that I could get home and prepare for shearing. I got home just as my sister Marie pulled into the driveway - she came to help with shearing, as she does every year. Wayne, my shearer, even arrived ahead of schedule.

 I always worry what condition the sheep will be in under all that fleece after the long, cold winter; a full coat of fleece can make the sheep appear much heavier than they actually are. I have nightmares that they are emaciated under their winter wardrobe. Why are you laughing? Oh, that's right, you've met me. OK, so it isn't very likely....but I still worry.

 We have this whole shearing process down to a fine science. Marie is the official sheep wrangler; she goes into the pen where the ewes are all waiting and basically tries to grab whoever is closest as they all run, and jump, and crash into her trying to avoid being caught...notice I said, "Tries to grab?" While this is all going on I do my part by quietly standing around getting vaccinations ready...it is a very fair arrangement. Marie then drags the sheep out of the pen...and sometimes Wayne helps her..or we both just laugh at her antics, then she hands the sheep over to Wayne, he then proceeds to shear. All the while I am dutifully filling syringes and waiting until each sheep is shorn to administer shots and dewormer if needed. It is exhausting for me!
We had an extra helper this year, our friend Mary came down from Cedar Falls to help and learn about sheep. I don't know how, but she got out without me getting any pictures of her.

Ashumet was the first victim. She was very cooperative considering it was her first shearing, and yes, she looked quite healthy under her fleece. I was able to relax a little.

Little Laurel was next..again, no skinny sheepies here!

Then.

Oh. My.

Willow.

As fat as a tick!

 In my defense, she is an 'easy keeper'. I fed NO grain all winter, and only three pounds of hay, per ewe, per day. One flake per ewe-really! She may have been eating someone else's share...or everyone else's share.

OK, here she is in an upright position. She's  not THAT bad.

 Cassie was also NOT the biggest loser.

Here's Cassie standing up...

 Either I am going to have more multiple births than normal, or I will be starting a fat farm next month.
All joking aside, it is difficult to walk the fine line between making sure that the ewes are getting enough nutrition during their pregnancies, and making sure that they don't get overweight. Fat ewes can have a lot of difficulty with lambing so I honestly do try to not let them get fat...sometimes they have their own agenda.

The rams looked like they were in great condition, and much more proportionate......sort of..

 ...rams heads look ginormous once the fleece is away from their face and horns.

Especially with certain camera angles.

 The most exciting part of shearing-besides seeing the ewes' pregnant bellies- is seeing the clean underside of freshly shorn fleece!

It is also nice to see the sheeps' more vibrant colors that were hidden under the sun-bleached tips of fleece all winter. I like a colorful pasture!

I am so glad that the weather was accommodating for the work that we had to do yesterday, because there was a lot of ....

THIS today.

Now I get to fondle all these bags of fleece!

PS-You must have all missed my last post about free roosters, because, curiously, nobody has contacted me to take them....I don't understand...it's like you are afraid of being Chicken Mathed or something. Don't you trust me? Hmmmmm...very strange.

Shearing day!

I have been deliberating for the last month or so as to whether I was going to have the shearer come out to do my sheep this year, or if I would be brave enough to hand shear them myself, since I only have 15 to shear. Thursday I decided to break down and call the shearer to at least see what his schedule was looking like. As it turned out, he would be available on Saturday morning. So I checked the forecast to see if the weather would be conducive to shearing. It was going to be dry and sunny and continue with warm dry conditions all week long, which would be perfect for my nekked sheep so that wouldn't get too cold......of course that made the decision for me, so I weenied out of the idea of hand-shearing and had the shearer come out!

Shearing is always fun, but it is also nerve-wracking. I worry what the fleeces will look like, I worry that maybe the sheep won't be in top condition under all that fleece (it is difficult to tell how fat or thin some of the ewes are when they are carrying a full year's fleece), I worry about nicks from the clippers...I just pretty much worry about everything. But, as much as I worry, it is such a thrill to see that beautiful clean fleece peel away as the clippers slide through all that fluff, and to see the results of a year's hard work after keeping the sheep clean and properly fed to produce that wonderful fleece.Ande also worried and kept a watchful eye on his sheepie friends....from a safe distance outside of the barn, of course. Little did he know what was in store for him!

Fluffy goodness.
I was thrilled to see that all of the fleeces were in excellent shape, only a couple of the girls had started with the rise so there was not a great deal of grease to contend with (which makes for a happy shearer).

People have asked me, "What the heck are you talking about when you refer to the "Ag" pattern with some of your sheep?". This photo is a good example of what happens with that. The white part is actually the part that was growing close to the skin and the dark ends were the sheep's original color, this shows how the fleece changed and lightened through the year. Now that the dark has been sheared off this ewe will stay the lighter color. This is why I don't like that genetic pattern to pop up in my spotted sheep. With the Ag gene, a lamb will be born as a pretty spotted, or solid, or patterned, colorful baby and then as they get older all the pretties go away and they end up a very light grey (if they are black based), or a very light brown ( Musket if they are brown based). Not that there is anything wrong with Ag sheep, one of my fav ewes is Ag and she has some of my nicest fleece, I just don't like my patterns and spots to fade.

Same fleece, just upside down now...I just wanted to show it again to taunt Garrett with it's crimpiness.

This is some solid black fleece with sun-bleached tips.
After shearing, CDT vaccinations and hoof trimmings were done (and fleece samples gathered), I had the opportunity to check conditions of all of the sheep and evaluate the bred ewes to see how far along they looked. I was so happy to see that, despite the very harsh winter that we had here, everyone looked great. No skinny sheep here! I always forget how much smaller they look once they have been sheared....and how many more can fit around a feeder now.
Below is Sage....nope, not preggo, not anywhere near the boys...just a big pig.
I also always forget how ginormous the sheep's heads look without all that fleece! Here are a couple of my wethers to demonstrate the look.

Dillon...or..ET phone home (for sale BTW).

Diego

Diego and Dillon.

After we got all of the sheep finished and returned them each to their respective pastures, it was time to turn our attention to Ande. My shearer will NOT shear llamas. This was something that I would have to contend with on my own......or with the help of my unsuspecting, ever-helpful sister, Marie. By past experience, (see previous post about Mama Llama) this was something that would have to be accomplished far away from the watchful eye of Mama Llama. Once all of the sheep had been removed from the barn, we distracted Mama with some breakfast and lured a very gullible Ande into the barn and closed all of the doors. We decided that it would be best if I would be the one to hold onto Ande while Marie did the actual cutting of the fiber. Marie is not known for her discipline skills and if Ande decided to try to kick or wiggle away I thought it best to have someone in more of a position of authority to handle the situation, clearly Marie was not the best choice for this....she is the cookie lady to the animals, they love her, but they laugh at her meager attempts at sternness.

Now, I didn't buy any hand shears, because, after all, I decided to have the shearer do the sheep for me...but in retrospect, I should have purchased some for Ande's haircut. I should have, but sadly, I didn't and when Marie started using the scissors that I provided it was a bit like using a butter knife. Finally Gary came to the rescue with a sharp pair of scissors from his office and saved the day...or the fleece...or Marie's hands...well, whatever, all of that stuff.
I never said that it was pretty, but we got it done! Mama Llama will have to wait for another day, when I am more ready to do battle.....and I am wearing a wetsuit.

"Did you see what they did to me, Edrea?"

" Look at this, Aleena, I told that shearer only A LITTLE off the top and now look at me!"

"I know, Fiona, he said that I had some grease in my fleece and that's why I have these little clumps everywhere, I can't go out like this!"

"Daddy, it was terrible, that shearer set me on my bum, and ran those noisy clippers all over and then mom and Auntie Marie gave me shots. I expect that from mom, but et tu, Auntie Ree?".

It's a shearing miracle!

We had an appointment with our shearer for this coming Sunday, so when I got a call yesterday from my shearer at 3:30 wanting to know if he could come after work and shear, as much as I hated the thought of scrambling to catch everyone up and dragging the boys by their horns(literally) from their pasture in the back up to the ewe barn in the front.......I couldn't pass up an opportunity to shear earlier than I expected, especially when it was a beautiful day and fleeces were dry. Since Gary was out of town I enlisted the help of my sister, who was kind enough to come directly from work to help (apologies to her husband who apparently missed out on his pot roast and mashed potato supper because his lovely wife was helping me).

Rocky was the first victim...er....vounteer.

This is our shearer Wayne with Rocky. Rockmiester was very cooperative, and as I have mentioned numerous times, he has wonderful fleece. I was happy to see that his fleece was pretty clean considering the long winter we've had. BTW, are those Zubaz, Wayne?

" This is so humiliating".

This is the "inside" of Rocky's fleece....which now belongs to Elizabeth B. in Michigan.

For those of you who have not seen a sheep sheared, it pretty much comes off in one big piece.. of course the fibers are all individual...but they kind of hang out together....so it's not really one big piece, you get the idea. This one belongs to Diego...or did.

Yes sir, yes sir 15 bags full.

Almost all of these fleeces will be making the trip down to Abi's fiber studio, so that someone (Abi) who knows what the heck she is doing can process it all for me.

Her are some of the girls all nakeded up. I piled tons of straw in their barn (and in the boys barn too) since we ended up with rain and colder temps tonight.

Yeah...I am fairly confident that the girls are pregnant...call it intuition.
As expected, my Ag gulmoget yearling is several shades lighter :(. Although still an enjoyable color, I really liked his dark lamb fleece....not sure about those wonky horns though...boys! And why do their heads look ginormous after they are sheared?


In other news.........

Emma is happy to report that she has a new Jolly Ball.


My neighbor, that I buy hay from, was nice enough to hang on to this pretty 4th cutting alfalfa for me so that the ewes would have some good stuff before my pastures come in. I get very excited about nice hay....especially if I am lucky enough to get it at the end of winter....for $3.50 a bale.
"I did NOT like Wayne at all".