New Faces

I have purchased two sheep this year, one from my Tori in Indiana and one from Stephen in Michigan.  Wait, that was before I went to MFF and got to see more sheep that just happen to be for sale, and can I help it that they are my favorites....grey katmogets!  I also caved and bought an emsket gulmoget that came from Becky Utecht....I am weak and should be ashamed of myself for not sticking to my plan of only getting 2 new sheep this year.  sigh......someone slap my hand and take my checkbook.  My husband's response to me telling him that I had more than 1 sheep to bring home was, "Now there's a shocker", it would seem he knows me better than I thought.

L: Anais Anais   R: Bengal ~~ Two ewes from Sheltering Pines

A very cool little gulmoget ewe lamb from River Oaks

Side shot of the River Oaks 2012 ewe lamb

S'More Cotillion~yearling

Define...Excessive

           12" plus length on this fleece sample that was pulled from a bag of "Shetland" wool.
          (I won't say where this came from, as I have no desire to attack people or their sheep) 

This sample is approx. 8" plus in staple length and the shortest sample among 12 bags of fleece that is supposed to be Shetland fleece.  

Excessive length......I found both these samples to be very coarse and not breed typical at all.  I am going to send them in for micron testing, just so I have a number to attach to this for my own fleece sampler book. I'm not even sure how you could spin these fleeces, , they have a lovely color and they would look nice in a braided rug.  These overly coarse and long fleeces are no more breed typical than a merino type fleece on a Shetland sheep....my point being that extremes on either end of the limits is changing the breed. 
Excessive weight......The other excess that I am finding hard to understand is the new weight limits for Rams and Ewes that have been changed in the NASSA judges packet.  Where did those numbers come from?  Where is the historical data that supports this trend upwards in weights?  I'm not trying to be sarcastic or mean, I honestly want to know where those number originated. 
Old ranges were: Rams 90-125# and Ewes 70-100#'s....new limits allow the rams to be 150# and Ewes 115#....  that seems to be changing the breed to satisfy the livestock judges in the show ring.  I don't know why it was changed or where the historical data is that supports such a large increase in size limits.   Over the last couple years there's been a lot of discussion and disagreement about the correct type of Shetland fleece. I actually thought that the only differing of opinions was fleece styles, but now I can see that I was incorrect in that assumption.

How long before Shetland sheep are allowed to be even larger?  This truly concerns me, far more than the fleece debate. 

Longer fleeces, larger animals, loss of crimp and bounce in the fleece, loss of fineness... how much more will we lose before we care enough to say something or take the time to educate ourselves about what a Shetland should be or what they were?
I think it's time for breeder judges to be trained and utilized, it's time to leave livestock judges in the ring with meat sheep.  They do a great job judging the sheep they know,  market sheep, let's leave them to their area of expertise and develop judges that have their own area of expertise.......the Shetland sheep that conforms to the 1927 Standard! 

How many of you feel the breed is being morphed into something other than a Shetland sheep by the large increases in weight limits?  I'm very curious............

2012 Micron data

Ewes

OK Acres Alabama-yearling        25.0 AFD/4.4 SD/21.9 CV/9.1 CEM/84.0 CF/24.6 SF
OK Acres Alexandria-yearling     23.6 AFD/4.4 SD/18.7 CV/7.2 CEM/95.5 CF/22.6 SF
Lil Ctry. Bailey-2 yr old               28.0 AFD/5.3 SD/18.7 CV/9.2 CEM/68.4 CF/26.8 SF
Lil Ctry. Bee Sting-yearling          23.7 AFD/4.8 SD/20.2 CV/9.0 CEM/91.0 CF/22.9 SF
Sheltg Pines Catherine-7 yrs        28.6 AFD/5.5 SD/19.1 CV/9.8 CEM/67.2 CF/27.4 SF
Sheltg Pines Ceylon-4 yr old        29.2 AFD/5.8 SD/19.8 CV/10.1CEM/60.2 CF/28.2 SF
Sommarang Challis-7 yr old         30.2 AFD/5.9 SD/19.7 CV/9.7 CEM/51.4 CF/29.0 SF (leased)
Lil Ctry. Disco-yearling                24.9 AFD/6.1 SD/24.5 CV/11.8 CEM/81.7 CF/25.0 SF
Kimberwood Dot-5 yr old           28.8 AFD/6.4 SD/22.3 CV/11.0 CEM/62.3 CF/28.4 SF
Sommarang Farrah-4 yr old         31.2 AFD/6.1 SD/19.4 CV/11.4 CEM/47.0 CF/29.9 SF (leased)
Wintertime Garnet-2 yr old          26.7 AFD/4.7 SD/17.9 CV/8.4 CEM/81.2 CF/25.3 SF
Sheltg Pines Hermoine-7 yrs        29.9 AFD/5.5 SD/18.5 CV/9.1 CEM/54.6 CF/28.5 SF
White Pine Killian-yearling           24.6 AFD/5.3 SD/21.7 CV/9.6 CEM/88.2 CF/24.1 SF
Sheltering Pines Maura-7 yr old   27.9 AFD/4.9 SD/17.7 CV/7.9 CEM/70.9 CF/26.4 SF
Lil Ctry. Meadow-5 yrs old         28.7 AFD/5.7 SD/19.7 CV/9.2 CEM/62.3 CF/27.6 SF
Sheltg Pines Salicional-6 yr old    26.3 AFD/4.8 SD/18.2 CV/8.3 CEM/81.4 CF/25.0 SF
OK Acres Salina-yearling            24.3 AFD/5.1 SD/20.9 CV/9.4 CEM/88.2 CF/23.6 SF
OK Acres Seneca-yearling          21.9 AFD/4.5 SD/20.7 CV/8.3 CEM/96.1 CF/21.3 SF
OK Acres Sierra-yearling            22.6 AFD/4.0 SD/17.9 CV/7.2 CEM/97.2 CF/21.5 SF
Sheltg Pines Temperance-2 yrs    24.4 AFD/4.7 SD/19.2 CV/9.1 CEM/90.9 CF/23.4 SF
Lil Ctry.Velma-3 yr old               29.4 AFD/5.6 SD/19.1 CV/9.7 CEM/60.4 CF/28.2 SF
OK Acres Vienna- yearling         22.2 AFD/5.2 SD/23.5 CV/9.0 CEM/94.6 CF/22.1 SF


Rams


Sheltg Pines Bug                       26.2 AFD/4.8 SD/18.2 CV/7.9 CEM/83.7 CF/24.9 SF  3 yr old
Sheltg Pines TelSay Camden     25.3 AFD/4.5 SD/17.8 CV/7.9 CEM/87.9 CF/24.0 SF  yearling
OK Acres Monroe                   22.9 AFD/4.2 SD/18.5 CV/7.9 CEM/95.6 CF/21.8 SF yearling
Crosswinds Thor                      23.2 AFD/4.5 SD/19.8 CV/8.1 CEM/94.4 CF/22.4 SF yearling
Wether
OK Acres Chandler-yearling       22.1 AFD/4.6 SD/20.7 CV/8.4 CEM/96.1 CF/21.4 SF  (fall sample)

Well, there it is, the good, the not so good and a couple surprises.  Looks like Thor is officially off the sales list for now, I will use him one more year and deal with the horns.  Monroe was going to be culled, but I have no idea how I will be able to send him to the processor in two weeks with numbers like that, and his structure is so fantastic to boot.  Anybody need a good ram?  lol  Just got his fleece back from being hand processed, got it on my wheel this weekend and it is spinning up fingering weight so easily that it's like I'm spinning nothing.  I've never spun fingering weight, and was scared to try it, but this fleece begs to be spun that way and attempts to spin it thicker is a struggle.
 
My hay this winter was superior quality, and I'm wondering if that has any effect on my fleece, as the previous year my hay was the worst I'd ever had and my micron numbers were a a point or two lower on the older ewes.  Just another thing that I'd like to explore more thoroughly in the coming years.  Since we started making our own hay last year, we have a bit more control of the quality, so I may be able to study the feed/fleece quality correlation more readily.  I also wonder if the fact that I got my fleece samples so late in the year has any effect on my test results......hmmmmm, I'm thinking I'll try a few experiments earlier in the year this next winter.  Maybe a sample taken every month on one or two sheep would be an interesting study.
Just an FYI to all you folks that micron test.........Texas A & M did NOT raise their fees!! I sent in $2.50 each for 27 samples and they returned the results in one week and I now have a credit.  The fee is still $2.00 per sample and the turn round time was very fast.


As usual, numbers aren't the be all and end all of a Shetland sheep, but it's a nice tool to help educate ourselves and our customers about fleece.   Now if someone wants a pound of Grade 1 fleece, I know exactly which sheep will give me that product and my customer knows that they will be getting what they ordered.

Roo, roo, roo your sheep....

Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream. (yep, I've finally gone completely wacko)

Thank you Tylor for your graphic expertise....

The kids loved it when we handed them some fleece to touch and take with them.

We had to blade shear this guy a bit to finish.

Another large crowd for the demo

Most of this one was roo'd easily, but the neck wool wasn't quite ready and she was finished off with hand  shears

Garrett showing the fleece to the crowd, this fleece was sold right off the sheep and Kim donated the proceeds to FFSSA....Thank you Kim!!! 

Display Booth.....next to the demo booth

Shepherd's Harvest was a great experience and loads of fun for myself, Kim and Garrett this past weekend.  We had planned on doing 4 demos, 2 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday, but the response to the the rooing demo's were so positive and well attended, we just kept going and managed to do 10 sheep!!!!  The weather was perfect and I understand from the event organizer that there were over 8,000 people in attendance at this year's festival.  Sunday morning Sandy (part of the festival organization crew) commented to Garrett that our display and demos were getting a lot of buzz and some very positive comments about how interesting there were to watch.  The response exceeded our expectations, and despite it being a lot of work, we had a blast.  We were given permission to sell the raw fleeces we roo'd as long as the proceeds were going to our organization and we sold 2 fleeces right off the sheep.  We have been invited back for next year's event, and maybe we can use a few of the things we saw and heard at this year's festival to make changes for next year.

Some of the comments that were made were.... "I had no idea that Shetland sheep did that". The best part was that so many people said "This is Shetland? I didn't know Shetland was this nice". And that's why we are working so hard to educate and give the fiber community the chance to see how wonderful Shetland fleece can be.  We also had a range of finished garments that illustrated how to utilize the fleece from various areas of the sheep, as well as a handout that indicated how each fleece type could be used in a finished item.   And once again, Eek, the felted mouse sculpture created by Sabrina was a big hit.

A huge Thank you to Kim Nikolai for letting me stay with her this weekend, plus a giant Thank you to Bob for grilling those perfect steaks on the grill Friday night.  I can't forget to thank Garrett and Tylor for all their help too.  None of of could have done this alone, so I'm grateful for the time and money spent to make this whole thing a reality.

Shepherd's Harvest....here I come

That's right folks, I'm on the road again.  My over worked hubby is stuck, once again, doing the chores at home while I trot around the country side immersing myself in sheepy activities.  (yes, I'm aware that sheepy is not a word)  
We will be in the animal barn area and there will be a Shetland sheep there as victims models for our demonstrations on how to roo and hand shear a Shetland sheep.  So get your hinders over to the festival and look us up.  You can never talk to much about Shetland sheep, knitting, spinning, weaving......well, you get the idea.   
Click to visit Shepherd's Harvest

Toodles for now (hand waving furiously)