Wheely Wooly Farm proudly does NOT jacket sheep. Why?
1. Sheep safety!! You won't hear about the sheep that become entangled, trapped, injured or die from coats, because they are not nice things to hear. Some shepherds have never have this happen, some do. It does happen. It won't happen here.
2. Jacketed sheep drive up the price of wool for knitters/crocheters. To properly fit a coat on a good wool producing sheep requires two to three changes of coat per clip (year). Each change of coat is added labor. Each time a new coat is put on, it has been washed in a washing machine. That means there are two to three, or more, coats PER sheep, at a cost of usually around $20. PER coat. With the public being asked to conserve water usage in many areas as well as invest in water conserving appliances and fixtures, Wheely Wooly Farm cannot justify using valuable water for washing large pieces of greasy fabric from dozens or hundreds of sheep, two or three times a year.
3. Coats take wear and tear. They are torn on fences, feeders, hooves, etc. and need repair (either hand sewing, patches, or heavy duty sewing machines and thread). This takes labor. Labor costs money. The price of yarn/fiber goes up, and not for quality, but for work involved.
4. The coats themselves cost money. The labor to put them on, take them off, and keep them washed drives up prices. And yet, you can still get inferior quality in wool. Coats mat fibers. Sheep can get chaffing around necklines or inner rear leg straps. Coats create dark, moist environments perfect for unwanted creatures to take up residence (some shepherds deal with this by using more chemicals...more labor and $). Bits of hay still manage to wiggle under the fabric and/or thru holes. Jackets do not guarantee perfect, beautiful fiber, but they do guarantee increased costs that get passed on to the yarn buyers or spinners.
Our farm yarns have bits of grass/hay in them. Grass is not dangerous to either sheep, or people. There are far worse things we are all exposed to in our environments that are far more dangerous. You may or may not notice little bits falling out of the yarn from time to time.
We are proud of this! We feel it is a measure of our efforts to bring you beautiful wool from sheep that have been raised as close to nature as you can get in our modern world! Our prices are held down (which has upset some people), because we choose certain management options to raise high quality wool without coats. In our current falling economy, keeping costs down while producing high quality has been highly appreciated! This has allowed people who are taking pay cuts, job losses, cut hours and more, to continue enjoying 100% Wheelspun Yarns from our farm, while the wealthy continue to support our management style that produces high quality, comfortable, responsive yarns. What do we do?
1. We do not feed hay in feeders. Elevated hay is a huge source of mess in fleeces! Sheep also rub their necks on the feeders, causing further loss of the best part of the fleece. Instead, we keep our sheep moving, and feed off the cleanest ground we can find, using the spoke method. Our parasite load has been highly manageable over nearly a decade of time, so we know this works!
2. We do not shear all on one day in early spring. Instead, we shear individual sheep when the fleece is at it's best for the spinning, at a time when it is best for the sheep. This is way out of wack of how most flocks have been run here in the U.S., but is exceedingly common in areas overseas, where ALL of our sheep breeds have come from.
3. We shear after rain. Rainwater is heaven for fleeces!! It is soft, and does an outstanding job of cleaning fleece!! Sheep shake, causing bits of seeds or grass to fly out. It's a self-cleaning mechanism, born out of nature. Sheep prefer to be clean, and have fluffy fleeces. They will keep their fleeces that way if given the right environment. When you hear that farmers are so keen on weather, it's because how the weather goes dictates how farming goes! Rain-cleaned fleeces are pure joy to shear, require very little water for washing afterwards, and are a dream to spin! This translates into gorgeous yarns!
4. Wheely Wooly Farm does not expect to get a top of the cake, gorgeous fleece off EVERY sheep, EVERY year. This is unrealistic in sheep management. Instead, we allow the sheep to live a natural life. For example, if a ewe has lambs, we may or may not shear her before lambing, depending on several circumstances. If it's best to leave her fleece with her, we will, knowing lambs will LOVE nesting on her back in the warm wool.
Lamb contentment comes first here! When the time is right later, we will shear the fleece off and compost it (yes, sheep's wool is 100% biodegradable). The health and well-being of the ewe and her lambs comes first for us. Despite this management style, we still produce many gorgeous, clean, silky fleeces for yarn!
We feel jacketing sheep increases danger to sheep, increases costs for consumers, and eliminates customers who'd also like to enjoy 100% Wheelspun Yarns straight from the farm. The shepherds, sheep, and sheep dogs all work very hard to bring high quality yarns to knitters and crocheters. Buyers of our yarns can rest assured that our farm practices sound management that has been proven over centuries of time, throughout the world. And if a bit of grass lands on your knee while knitting...so what? You can see that and know that someone cares.
