We are now nearing the end of March and the weather is warming, which brings us to start thinking of the annual sheep shearing.  We have our shearer lined up to shear all of the ewes, so we now have to figure out the easiest way to accomplish this yearly duty.  Some would think it is pretty easy. You just line the sheep up in a row, sit them down and give them a real quick haircut.  If only that were true.

Sheep are ruminants, in which it has more than one compartment in its stomach.  This allows it to digest feeds that contain fiber.  After digesting these feeds, they convert the nutrients into meat and wool.  Due to this, we need to restrict their food intake for a while before they get sheared so that they are more comfortable during the process.

We will bring all of the ewes and lambs to one of our pastures at the house and get them ready for the big day. Separation is a big key to the process.  We have a few different breeds of sheep as well as a variety of colors. We need to sort the wool in to different bags according to those differences.  

We will organize the sheep per the differences and bring them through an ally to the shearer. It doesn't take them very long to remove all of the wool from the sheep, and it usually will come off in one big fleece. Once removed, the ewes seem so happy!

If you would like to visit us during shearing, please send me an email and I will confirm the dates and times.