With the birth of 3 out of 4 lambs being male, I'm wondering about the saleability of their wool in the future. Seems to me most fine-wool fleeces for spinning come from ewes. I know that intact males will leave a musky smell on their wool, but what about non-intact males? Since we're not interested in a breeding program, we snipped the males. Will our rams' wool come out just as marketable as their sister's? All are Rambouillet.

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

Answers

I have 5 intact Shetland rams and I find their fleece is as good as the girls. The smell should wash out. Age has a greater impact on fleece quality, just can't get enough of those baby fleeces! If you take great care in feeding and provide clean pasture and timely shearing I think you will like their fleeces. Fleece fineness is more a genetics thing. The nice thing about the boys is they are usually bigger and you get more fleece per animal.

-- Kathy (homefarmbc@pacificcoast.net), April 25, 2002.

Keep the ram lambs for their wool, but get them CASTRATED. You don't need aggressive rams around. Wethering them will keep them as manageable as the ewes. In fact we have 3 wethers here and in off breeding season, they are put with the intact ram to keep him company. And a bit of advice from experience, don't let that ewe lamb get bred until she is at least a year old and fully mature. Its not worth the risk to her, just to get earlier lambs. In regards to the wool, I have never noticed any odor to the rams wool. We wash it all anyway so I suppose it gets washed away.We shear in the spring and the rams are more sexually active late summer and fall. You should have no trouble marketing the rams fleeces as long as it is skirted well, which is the case with any fleece.

-- Kate in New York (Kate@sheepyvalley.com), April 25, 2002.

I'm a spinner who buys raw fleece straight from the sheep. Doesn't make a bit of difference whether the sheared sheep is female, intact male or snipped male. What does make a difference is the quality of the wool fiber and that doesn't seem to be determined by gender - in my experience.

If you have fine wool fiber, and Rambouillet is known to be a fine fiber indeed, you are in a good place. I've heard so many sheep owners say that handspinners will buy only fleece from sheep that have been coated to keep the fleece clean and free of vegetation, dirt, etc. This isn't true at all and please don't let anyone tell you this as fact. There are a good many of us who buy uncoated fleeces and are glad to get them.

Cleaning fleece by hand is work - no doubt about that at all. But it's sure worth the time and effort involved! Hand processing a good quality fleece, without using harsh chemicals, and hand combing or carding the wool makes for spinning a wonderfully soft and elastic yarn. When knitted, woven or chrocheted into clothing, it feels great next to your skin. I'll choose my hand processed ifber over commercially processed any time - even with the work involved in cleaning it.

If you want to talk about where and how to sell raw fleece, email me.

Commercial processing uses really harsh chemicals to *disolve* sticks, twigs, straw, etc, as well as get rid of dirt and lanolin. Then the fibers are literally *ripped* apart, breaking a good many of the individual fibers, by the machines that produce the combed top or rovings. This harsh treatment makes for abrasive, scratchy yarn and it's stuff you sure don't want to wear next to your skin.

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

My favorite fleece came from a friend's ram. I reserved it every year until she sold him to someone else. No oder other than sheep/wool.

-- Susan in MN (nanaboo@paulbunyan.net), April 25, 2002.

Thanks, folks. Your answers really helped me!

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

Most of the quality wool in the world comes from wethers. In fact, gender does (indirectly but definitely) affect wool quality. Any setback during a growing season will thin the wool fibre as it grows out during that time, and that gives you a weak spot all across the staple of the entire fleece. This is called "tender" wool, and it's a VERY BAD THING - the wool tends to break in half during processing, giving you a very short staple if it is already broken, and weak yarn if it hasn't yet broken. The thing that's most likely to cause this is pregnancy, particularly in a poor season with restricted feed.

-- Don Armstrong (from Australia) (darmst@yahoo.com.au), April 26, 2002.