When to shear sheeples?

[Niele da Kine]

After decades of wanting to get sheep, we finally got two of them this past August. All I had to do was send the spouse off on a skiing trip last March and then fence in the back yard during that time. Ha! Well, at least get the project started during the ski trip, it was finished afterwards. After decades, (decades, mind you!) of emphatic "NO SHEEP!", the spouse is out there every morning giving them their sheep snack and talking to the sheep and has become very fond of the sheeples. Go figure.

They're Clun Forest sheep, so they're a heritage woolly sheep breed with a very nice 'springy' wool. Good for scarves, jumpers, hats, mittens, etc. I'll probably mix it with angora bunny fluff and see how it does. BUT! When to shear the sheep?

This is Hawaii, we don't really have that much cold around here. Nor that much hot, either. It seems to be coldest around February & March, with temperatures down to around 55 °F (13 °C ). (And before you laugh, we have no heater in the house so that is cold!) During mid-summer's heat - usually hottest around September - it gets up to mid-80's and sometimes as high as the low 90s°F.

Well, here's an annual weather chart for our area:

Period of record: 1919 to 2016
(I had to add in the underline areas to get it to line up evenly, there's no 'tab' in the forum text editor)
Month_____ Rain_______Avg Temps________ Record High___________Record Low Temp
Jan ________ 6.12"______ 78°F - 62°F_______ 89°F / 31.6°C________ 50°F / 10.0°C
Feb________ 9"__________ 77°F - 62°F_______ 92°F / 33.3°C________ 52°F / 11.1°C
March_____ 9.51"_______ 77°F - 62°F_______ 95°F / 35.0°C________ 52°F / 11.1°C
April_______ 8.93" ______ 78°F - 64°F_______ 90°F / 32.2°C________ 55°F / 12.7°C
May_______ 5.14" _______ 80°F - 65°F_______ 90°F / 32.2°C________ 55°F / 12.7°C
June_______ 2.98"_______ 82°F - 66°F_______ 91°F / 32.8°C________ 54°F / 12.2°C
July_______ 5.37"________ 82°F - 67°F_______ 89°F / 31.6°C________ 60°F / 15.5°C
Aug_______ 5.84"________ 84°F - 67°F_______ 89°F / 31.6°C________ 59°F / 15.0°C
Sept_______ 3.19" _______ 84°F - 67°F_______ 91°F / 32.8°C________ 59°F / 15.0°C
Oct________ 4.88" _______ 82°F - 67°F_______ 91°F / 32.8°C________ 59°F / 15.0°C
Nov________ 7.72"_______ 80°F - 65°F_______ 91°F / 32.8°C________ 58°F / 14.4°C
Dec________ 9.85" _______ 77°F - 63°F_______ 90°F / 32.2°C________ 54°F / 12.2°C
annual rainfall 78.53" / 199.47cm

Is it more important to shear sheep because of temperature or because of rain? Our rain usually falls in buckets and then stops, it's not the mizzly stick around forever type of rain. It can be several inches per hour and then rainbows. I do hope to build them a little sheep shed sometime in January. At the moment, they have to hide under tall grass when it rains. They're supposed to eat the grass flat, but they've not gotten that far yet. Soon, there will hopefully be enough grass gone to find a spot to build them their little sheep shed.

The person we got the sheep from shears her's in March, but I was thinking maybe May would be a better time? Since it would be drier? Or would the rain soak into their coat and be too heavy, so should they be sheared before big rainy months? If they have a shed to hide in, then they'd hopefully stay drier.

 

[purplequeenvt]

With those temperatures, you can shear pretty much any time of the year you want to. The sheep do need to be completely dry prior to shearing though so keep that in mind.

 

[Sheepshape]

Clun Forest (in Shropshire) is not very far from where I live and 'enjoys' a chilly and very damp climate. The Clun Forest is a hardy upland sheep with a dense fleece. Over here we sheer sheep around June to August as those are the only times that they miss their dense fleeces and suffer with hypothermia.
However, as purplequeenvt says, with the temperatures you have they can be shorn at any time of year, and would probably be advantaged by being shorn twice a year to allow them to keep cool.
Wool is, however, a pretty unique sort of fibre. In the cold the coils which make up the structure become dense and tight. entrapping air which is a bad conductor and keeps the sheep warm, In the heat the coils become loose and allow air to circulate enabling the sheep to keep cool.
We should all wear more wool....a lovely natural fibre with unique properties. Also good in house insulation and for duvet filling!
Good luck with your sheep.

 

[Kusanar]

I don't have sheep... yet.... but, I would say with that weather (can I live in your backyard with your sheep btw?) you could shear year round with no issues but if you want to use the fiber I would wait until there are around 3" at least of wool to remove so you have enough staple length to work with.

My super fluffy horse (mini) stays dry for quite a while in wet weather, but he also stays wet for a long time if he gets wet to the skin. The big horses who have decent (but not arctic quality) winter coats get wet to the skin fast but they also dry fast once the rain stops and the sun comes out.

 

[Niele da Kine]

With those temperatures, you can shear pretty much any time of the year you want to. The sheep do need to be completely dry prior to shearing though so keep that in mind.

Why do they need to be dry? Is it for the ease of shearing? Health of the sheep? Quality of the fleece?

Would it be more important to keep them dry before shearing,or after? Or should it be before, during and after?

Clun Forest (in Shropshire) is not very far from where I live and 'enjoys' a chilly and very damp climate. The Clun Forest is a hardy upland sheep with a dense fleece. Over here we sheer sheep around June to August as those are the only times that they miss their dense fleeces and suffer with hypothermia.
However, as purplequeenvt says, with the temperatures you have they can be shorn at any time of year, and would probably be advantaged by being shorn twice a year to allow them to keep cool.
Wool is, however, a pretty unique sort of fibre. In the cold the coils which make up the structure become dense and tight. entrapping air which is a bad conductor and keeps the sheep warm, In the heat the coils become loose and allow air to circulate enabling the sheep to keep cool.
We should all wear more wool....a lovely natural fibre with unique properties. Also good in house insulation and for duvet filling!
Good luck with your sheep.

There's a real Clun Forest out there? Are there black faced sheep in it? The folks I got the sheep from said they'd picked the Clun Forest breed because they're supposed to do well in wet weather.

Flower, the ewe, seems to have a longer fleece than Cypress, the ram. Her's is probably long enough to spin now his could be hand spun, but probably not mill spun. But, there's only the two of them so I'll possibly spin it myself. Since they've not been kept covered and they're in pretty rough pasture at the moment, I may spin the fleeces really fat and chunky and make a small rug with the fleeces. But I won't really know until the fleece is off the sheeples and I can do some test spinning to see what it wants to spin into.

Would there be any advantage in shearing them at different times? If one was still woolly, the shorn one could snuggle up to the woolly one? Although, they hang out together a lot, but they don't seem to snuggle much.

I don't have sheep... yet.... but, I would say with that weather (can I live in your backyard with your sheep btw?) you could shear year round with no issues but if you want to use the fiber I would wait until there are around 3" at least of wool to remove so you have enough staple length to work with.

My super fluffy horse (mini) stays dry for quite a while in wet weather, but he also stays wet for a long time if he gets wet to the skin. The big horses who have decent (but not arctic quality) winter coats get wet to the skin fast but they also dry fast once the rain stops and the sun comes out.

You can hang out in the backyard with the sheep if you like. They'll follow you all around and supervise whatever you do in their area and mug you if you have an avocado. There's a great ocean view up there, too. At some point, we will probably build a house there, but we're waiting for the sheeples to clear off the grass first.

It's been wet lately and the sheep have been turning slightly green from mildew, I think. They don't dry out as fast as I'd like, so hopefully soon we will be able to build them their little sheep shed.

 

[Kusanar]

Why do they need to be dry? Is it for the ease of shearing? Health of the sheep? Quality of the fleece?

I'm pretty sure it is because water and clippers don't go well together. The shears typically use the lanolin in the fleece to lubricate the blades and if you rub water and oil together you get a sticky substance that won't lubricate anything.

 

[purplequeenvt]

Your shears will be wrecked quickly if the sheep are wet. Not to mention, shearing a soggy sheep is unpleasant.

It doesn’t matter quite as much if you are using handshears/scissors to just get the wool off and you’re tossing the wool, but if you want to use the wool, it has to be completely dry before you bag it otherwise it will rot.

The sheep don’t need to be kept dry after shearing.

 

[Niele da Kine]

How long does it take a sheep to dry out? We usually have lots of dew in the mornings and humidity averages between 40% to 50%.

I can build their shed so they can be kept inside, I suppose? Then in order to shear them, they could stay inside overnight and until the next afternoon on a dry day? Hmm, might be easier to just dry out the wool instead of the sheep. I'm probably going to either use the hand shears or scissors and hope the sheep don't get too bored. They do have a spot where they like to sit and chew cud in the afternoons, maybe they'd not mind getting a haircut while chewing cud?

I have a pair of horse clippers, but they've got a very fine blade on them for shearing rabbits I don't know if they would work for sheep. I could get another 'sheep' blade, but there's only two sheep and they only get sheared once or maybe twice a year if they grow wool quickly. I was thinking scissors may work, even though they'd be terribly slow. The top half of the sheep would be easy to shear, not sure about the trimming the belly and trimming their toes.

I had wanted to get Miniature Cheviots since they're much smaller sheep. These are much bigger sheep so the shearing and toe trimming will probably be much more interesting than with smaller sheep. They are friendly sheep, nose in your pocket kinda sheep, but they're still about 150 pounds/68 kg each. The ram is a 'runt' and about the same size as the ewe, but he's still 150#/68 Kg or maybe more. I've not weighed them, but they seem pretty big. Hopefully, most of that 'size' is just fluffy wool, but there's some sturdy sheep under that fluff.

The shepherdess we got them from has been selecting for larger size, multiple births, good mothering and good wool. Personally, I'd prefer a sheep about half the size or even less, we don't really have any predators around here other than the neighbor's dog (who has been amazing so far about getting along with sheep). Since the ram is smaller than the ewe, she didn't want to keep him for breeding. His testicles have never descended, so he may not be able to function as a ram anyway. Which is perfectly okay, although it would have been fun to have lambs. The ewe had a singleton lamb, so she was taken out of the breeding program.

Do sheep have multiple coats on them or a new coat of wool coming in occasionally? Or is it the same coat that gets cut and then continues to grow? With rabbits, they have about three coats on them at any particular time and they do shed their coat. To shear them, the best time is when the third coat is starting to grow in and the first and second coat are at full length. Ideally, the third coat is short enough that the tips don't get sheared off and cause neps in the harvested fiber. Not sure if sheep do this or if it's just a rabbit thing?

 

[Ridgetop]

1. Wool sheep have wool coats that continue to grow like your own hair. Shedding sheep that shed out their wool grow new wool each year after shedding out the previous year's growth. You have woolies so if you don't shear them the wool will just continue to grow but the wool will be easier to work with if you shear annually.

2. The wool does not have to be dry to shear. When slick shearing for fairs we used to wash the sheep in dishwashing detergent to cut the lanolin for the fine blades. A full wet fleece would be difficult to work though, our Fair lambs usually only carried 5-6 months of baby wool at most.

3. Wool fleeces MUST be dry to pack in the wool sacks to store, like Purplequeenvt says, or it will mildew and rot in the sack. And don't use plastic bags to store the wool. You can make fabric bags out of old sheets or use old pillow cases as wool sacks.

4. Your breeder chose Clun sheep because they do better in very wet climates. Some sheep have wool fleeces that part along the spine when they get long. This can allow icy rain or snow to reach the sheep's skin causing problems. Because of your climate in Hawaii the breeder was probably more worried about wet weather for health reasons and hoof problems, etc.

5. Smaller sheep look like they would be easier to manage, but you will get tired of the constant bending over to deal with any problems, or trim feet. Since your sheeo seem to be tame, a large sheep can learn to lead in a halter which will make their care easier on you.

6. If you want the wool for spinning, you should shear once a year only. Shearing twice a year results in shorter wool lengths which makes spinning more difficult. Fleeces sold commercially are discounted for "second cuts" and too many short fibers.

7. Cheviots have a reputation as being flighty, nervous, and less docile than the average sheep, so you probably made a better choice with these Clun Forest.

8. If these are going to live together, they will be breeding and the ewe will be producing lambs. You may want to shear before the lambs are born, otherwise you will have to crotch (shave off the wool around her vaginal area and possible the teats anyway. The wool in those regions will be ruined anyway when she gives birth. The ram can probably be sheared anytime.

Purplequeenvt, Sheepshape, Secuono and other fiber growers - please give feedback and advice on crotching before lambing or do you recommend just shearing?

Some fiber growers out coats in their sheep if they are pastured in brushy areas. Would those work? They would have to be waterproof coats like you can buy for winter field blanketing of horses?

Or just bring the sheep in for a day or so with fans to dry the wool prior to shearing?



.

 

[farmerjan]

Just a thought as we do not have wooled sheep anymore, just hair sheep. Are you very far from the person you got the sheep from? If not, why not get the shearer to just do yours the same time they do the other sheep. You could take them over there in a little trailer or the shearer could come to you. When I first got sheep, I had about 5 and I loaded them up into the horse trailer and took them to the place where the guy was getting his sheep shorn. Easier on everyone. It would also give you some experience with "up close and personal" to see it done and ask questions too. I had horned Dorsets, and I loved their dispositions, and they were very prolific, mostly twins and a few triplets. Not big huge sheep and the horns did make for ease of handling the rams. They were very sturdy sheep. I think that is partly why DS went with the Texas Dall sheep, he liked the horns. But no wool. The wool market here is terrible and it costs more to shear than what the wool is worth.