[Jacob-list] Help on Pricing

[Juliet & Gordon]

<< All of my wool has been bagged, sheep-by-sheep, in large garbage bags >>

I can't help with prices, being in Britain, but please don't undervalue your wool or the recipient will also not value it. We all know what wonderful stuff sheeps fleece is so we should be selling at a price which reflects that and takes into account that it will be going into a craft item which takes many hours of work to produce.  I no longer ever give away fleece even to friends.

I would suggest that you find a better way to store your fleeces than in garbage bags - assuming that these are made of polythene, as over here. Garbage bags are ok for short term storage of a couple of days, especially if the fleece has been cooled in the air for an hour before bagging to allow moisture to evaporate. To avoid rotting and mould (?mold) forming on the wool and thus spoiling the whole fleece, store in a bag which will allow air to circulate.  I use white woven polypropylene, tie the top tightly and hang them from a rafter in the barn. The modern wool sheets (ie giant bags) which the British Wool Marketing Board (which buys all the commercial fleece in Britain) uses are made from this.  Woven polypropylene is clean, smart, keeps out the moths but not mice etc, and can be written on with a permanent marker with details of each animal.  It's only two drawbacks are that it decomposes in sunlight (which is a good thing on a global scale but not too good if you have to pick shreds of polypropylene out of fleece) and eventually stains with dirty lanolin from the fleece.  I buy the bags one or two hundred at a time (they work out at less than a dollar each over here but I am sure you would get them cheaper in your country!), but often feed comes in them and they can then be recycled and used inside out if you have only a few fleeces to store. Another possibility is hessian which I think you call burlap.

Juliet in Scotland UK
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