1640 South 600 East * Salt Lake City~ UT * 84105 * 801.668.0563
Improving the Quality of your Fiber Flocks
We have a few suggestions for those raising fiber animals. We hope you will find these helpful. If you have other ideas, please send them along and we will include them here. Improving the quality of fibers from the beginning will make everyone happy.So where should I start?
Let's start with feeding. Many beautiful fleeces are ruined for hand spinners due to feeding procedures.
- Avoid contaminating fleeces with vegetable matter- or VM, as it is often known.
- Use feeders designed to keep hay and chaff off of the animals backs.
- DO NOT carry or throw hay or feed over the top of the animals backs.
- Avoid pouring grain in trough over heads of sheep .
- DO NOT USE SAWDUST OR WOOD SHAVINGS as beds for your animals. They are very difficult to remove for us fiber processors.
- Use straw or waste hay for bedding.
- Remove as many of those pesky burr producing plants in your pastures as possible. Burrs stick in the fiber and are often hard to remove.
- You might coat your animals. Many of our favorite fiber producing people coat their sheep.
- If putting coats on your sheep is too hard, you might try feeding pellets made especially for your type of animal. The pellets are easy to remove for the fleeces if one or two of them are in the fleece.
- We have found that wormers containing phenothiazine stain the wool and cause it to be a reddish brown color.
- If you mark your fleeces, please use a water soluble paint or marker.
Produce stronger fiber.
- Prevent internal parasites to allow your animal to utilize its feed for maximum production. - Kind like eating a good diet yourself.
- Control external parasites so animals don't rub the fibers due to itching.
- Feeding high quality feed does improve the quality and sometimes quantity of the wool/fiber.
- Maintain a happy and healthy flock- sickness and stress will weaken the fibers.
- Shear your long wooled animals twice a year.
Handle and sort the wool correctly
- Shear in the early spring if possible. For sheep this is best before lambing.
- Keep the animals to be shorn dry - wet fibers can become moldy.
- Shear on a clean dry surface. Cleaning the surface after eat animal has been shorn. This prevents the fibers from picking up chaff and dirt from the floor.
- Ask your shearer to take their time and avoid as many 2nd cuts as possible.
- Ask your shearer to separate belly wool and tags from the rest of the fleece. Same with a shearer of alpaca- keep the blanket separate.
- Put each animals fiber in a separate bag. This will help you with fiber evaluation later. Mark the bag with the animals name or number.
- If you chose to tie the fiber, please use paper twine- all the other types get tangled and oft times cannot be separated from the twine in those areas.
- Learn to skirt your fibers properly- you can find someone to help you with this or go to our • How to Skirt a Fleece Page.
- Store your fiber in a dry place away from pests and cats- they love to use fleeces as a litter box.
Selling to Spinners and Fiber People
- Know the quality of your fleeces and sell them accordingly.
Selling a fleece for more than it is worth will make people unhappy and in the fiber world....
the WORD WILL get around. Hand spinners and fiber processors DO NOT want to see this kind of fleece!!!
or this:
- Try entering a fleece competition and listen to the judges opinion of all the entered fleeces.
- Look for fiber festivals and ask fiber raisers some of their tricks to the trade in animal husbandry and management. You will find many willing to help the newbie along.
- Join Ravelry and look for the animal or yarn raising groups. They are wonderful and help tremendously.