[Jacob-list] Re: Sheep shearing question......

[gordon johnston]

Shearing and fleeces and rooing...

I'll start with rooing. The art of gently removing the fleece without using shears or clippers. You can only do this with a primitive sheep which sheds its fleece naturally. The Soays do and so I roo them when the fleece shows signs of lifting. The fleece always has a marked lanolin layer just above where the break in the fleece occurs. Wonderful on the hands of course.
You can roo some other breeds too. This year I rooed a Hebridean completely and from time to time a Shetland will roo completely. I have never been able to roo a Jacob but that might be because in the UK they have lost their primitive characteristics or perhaps it's just because they aren't Northern short-tails. In Shetland it was customary to roo sheep but to use a knife to cut the wool where it wouldn't lift easily. When I am shearing, with most sheep of all breeds there are areas which will roo but most are simply hand shorn.  

Of course sheep of any breed will shed fleece where there is a weakness in the wool caused by stress or illness. Quite a different matter. And then you have the sheep who rub their fleeces off against posts and fences. We have one old Jacob whose fleece is prone to felting and she will come and demand to be shorn. She does this by coming up to me when I am shearing another sheep and shouting in my ear. A mite distracting... 

Most sheep will have a rise in the wool - the weak area between the old and new wool. It is vital to shear through the rise if you are selling the fleece to hand spinners. If you cut below the rise (as with machine clipping) you leave a weakness in the wool which has to be broken by the spinner - they get fed up pretty quickly doing that.

One final observation. I was hand shearing sheep at the Royal Highland Show this year alongside a champion shearer. He was quicker than me but, to be as tactful as I can, I would not under any circumstances let him anywhere near one of my sheep. And he was being paid for what he was doing. There is more to shearing than speed...

Best of luck to you all whichever way you choose to part your sheep from their wool.

Gordon in rainy Scotland. 
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