My friend in New Jersey has successfully overseen the birth of four new lambs from two ewes, all Rambouillet.

Shearing of the ewes, plus a merino ewe, is scheduled for next week.

When should we fit these sheep with coats? My friend's sheep are on grass pasture most of the time, but their sheep-shelter is in the chicken pen and it is muddy there, so I feel it would be better to coat them if we plan to market the wool (which we do).

-- brooklynsheep (robbins@informinc.org), April 24, 2002

Answers

I have never heard of putting coats on sheep. if you do something like that be careful that they don't overheat, hot sheep can die. I have never worried about clean wool. If you want to sell the wool to wool buyers, they just cut a sample from the sack, to check for dryness, weakness, if it's brittle, etc. If you want to sell it privatly, just clean it yourself when it's off the sheep. Just my opinion.

-- Mark (mcford@theofficenet.com), April 24, 2002.

I put them on after shearing so that the tips do not weather.Where you are at it does not get too humid,right? I find problems with felting when it gets to humid here in the midwest.Yes, coated wool is much better and brings higher prices.You can just spin it in the grease.

-- Terry Lipe (elipe@fidnet.com), April 24, 2002.

especially if it is colored wool. The sun will bleach black wool to brown at th outer layers. people laugh when I say my sheep is black because I dont coat and he looks a coco brown.

-- Novina in ND (homespun@stellarnet.com), April 25, 2002.

The farm is in south Jersey, near Trenton, so it does get hot and humid. Maybe we need a mesh sheep coat??

Sounds like we might want to coat the two black ram lambs after they're shorn, and possibly their mothers (silver wool), but leave the white lambs (one ram, one ewe) uncoated.

-- brooklynsheep (robbins@informinc.org), April 25, 2002.

As already mentioned, coated sheep can (and will!) die if they get too hot. And since there is a good market for the wool, even if it is sun tipped, why take the chance?

When black wool is sun tipped, it may be weakened. If so, it pulls right off with very little effort on my part. If it isn't weakened, it is okay to go on processing. I have a black fleece that is sun tipped that I just finished washing and drying. When the locks are combed or carded, the lighter color blends in and seems to vanish - even when it is a bright gold color compared to the black wool. If the sun tipped ends are strong enough to take the combing or carding I've found that the spun and plied yarn is perfectly all right. Think about it - the sun hits the ends of white sheep, just like it does on black ones. The tips of white fleece can be just as damaged as black fleece can be. Any damaged ends, of any color, need to be removed before spinning.

Last year, I was lucky enough to get hold of a black fleece with about an inch of sun tipped ends. The color had changed but the fiber was still strong. I really loved the way the warm golden color of the ends played against the black and I ended up spinning it so that the golden ends stayed together. It make a knock you down gorgeous variegated yarn that people oh and ah over when they see it.

Sure do wish I had about 100 pounds more of the same raw fleece!

-- Carol - in Virginia (carollm@rockbridge.net), April 25, 2002.

Thanks for all this information.

Regarding black fleeces, what scares me into thinking we need to coat them is having seen a Shetland fleece that was sun-tipped just as you describe. While the colors were attractive, testing the lock revealed that the tips were extremely dry and just broke right off when you gave the lock a test pull.

Can you tell me what breed of sheep produced the sun-tipped fleece that was structurally sound?

-- brooklynsheep (robbins@informinc.org), April 25, 2002.

I bought that fleece at a raw wool sale and if I knew where it came from, I'd *walk* to get some more of it. The person who checked me out didn't have any idea of what the breed was and like an idiot, I didn't think to ask who the owner was. (duh) I think it was a Shetland fleece, but can't say for sure.

Perhaps you are more concerned about tip damage than you need be. It's not at all unusual for fine fleece, of any color, to have tip damage. Most of the time, it's less than half an inch that's damaged but sometimes, in breeds with very fine and very long wool, I may end up removing 2 inches of a 10 inch lock. It's all part of working with wool - the spinners I know just pull off the damaged part and go right on. It's the way the natural world works.

I have a good friend who has a flock of Corriedales and I love that wool! In the early days of the flock, many years ago, they coated some of their sheep and ran into tragedy. Couple of the sheep got overheated and fell over dead. Another got entangled in the coat when it slipped and ended up breaking a leg fighting the coat. It had to be put down because the break compounded and got infected. Their coating experiment lasted only a little over a month and they lost three young (and valuable) ewes.

A fair rule on any farm is that if there is _anything_ around a farm that an animal can get to, they can find a way to hurt themselves with it.

Coats are expensive and don't always work anyway. They get ripped and torn and sometimes colored coats end up bleeding dye onto the wool - which ruins the fleece.

Is coating to save ALL the wool worth the risk of losing a valuable animal? Especially when there are plenty of spinners just like me willing to buy the fleece, with or without sun damaged tips????

-- Carol - in Virginia (carollm@rockbridge.net), April 25, 2002.

If you coat, you need to change to larger sizes as the sheep get bigger. I don't do it. My shearer says that wool that has been coated is hell to shear, also. Just a couple of thoughts.

-- sheepish (WA) (the_original_sheepish@hotmail.com), April 25, 2002.

Wow, thanks for these responses. I would never have known there was such a strong sentiment against coating sheep. I'm beginning to think that at this flat, Mid-Atlantic farm coating is not worth the risk, but if the farm were on a dry cold mountain full of scrub-brush, it would be.

What effect of the coats would make the fleece more difficult to shear?

-- brooklynsheep (robbins@informinc.org), April 26, 2002.

I'm not sure, but I think coating the sheep makes the fleece denser (compacted) toward the skin side. The guy who shears for us also raises sheep (many more than the couple dozen I have), so I would tend to believe him. I can ask him again, as he's due around here pretty soon.

-- sheepish (WA) (the_original_sheepish@Hotmail.com), April 26, 2002.

I live in Minnesota and coated my sheep for the first time last fall. My reasoning was that I have wool sheep, I am a spinner, and I've bought coated wool which is so clean and effortless to use-I can spin it in the grease and then wash it! My fleeces this spring are awesome!!! As for shearing, they were much easier to shear, I shear with a scissors, and I didn't have to fight with burrs, weeds, poop tags, etc! I will continue to use coats, I am able to get them for $15, and they are still in good shape. I have a small flock, so keeping an eye on my sheep healthwise, etc. is easier than for someone with a larger flock, also probably more economical for chosing to use coats!

-- Pam Becker (howling@prairie.lakes.com), April 27, 2002.

Ah, the discussion swings in the opposite direction, now. The farm I'm talking about is a tiny operation, sheep-wise: two mature Rambouillet ewes, one mature Merino ewe, and four Rambouillet lambs (born this Spring).

So maybe with such a small operation it WOULD be easier to coat the sheep, since we have enough attention to spare a lot on each sheep? OR, since the sheep will be left alone for long stretches (we have day jobs off-farm), should we risk letting them bake in 90-degree, 90% humidity days in south Jersey?

They do have a lean-to shelter they could get under if they need to avoid the sun.

-- brooklynsheep (robbins@informinc.org), April 29, 2002.