The Thrifty Knitter

Before I get started, if you’re interested in maybe getting a few sheep and want a great primer that won’t scare you off, read Living with Sheep: Everything You Need to Know to Raise Your Own Flock. It’s awesome (so’s Living with Chickens), and it gives a great overview from the perspective of someone who remembers what it was like to be a novice and isn’t embarrassed to admit when he still doesn’t know the answer. It’s funny and highly readable. If you decide to go for it, also get Storey’s Guide to Raising Sheep: Breeds, Care, Facilities. It’s by Paula Simmons, author of Spinning for Softness and Speed, Spinning and Weaving with Wool, and other coveted out-of-print spinning classics.

I’ve gotten several questions about keeping sheep, and while I’m pretty inexperienced, I’m big on evangelizing all of my interests, so I’m going to try to write up little primers here and there on what I learn about keeping sheep, in case anyone is interested.

In response to this post, I’ve gotten some questions about docking, so I thought I’d share what I know & why I chose to dock. I’m not inviting discussion or debate; I’m just telling you why I think it’s a good idea and why I chose to do it to my lambs. There are people who are universally against it; and while docking for cosmetic reasons (e.g., breed standards in dogs) isn’t my cup of tea, docking in sheep is for much more practical reasons (and banding in particular is minimally invasive and disruptive).

Know that my knowledge is by no means comprehensive. I’ll just tell you what I know.

Most sheep are born with long tails. Long, adorable, wiggly tails that they whip around like mad when they nurse. (There are exceptions: Shetland and Finn sheep are two breeds with naturally short tails.) But sheep don’t hold their tails up like goats or dogs, so when they get older and their tails get fat and woolly, they become giant hairy poop magnets, which invites flies to lay eggs in the poopy dreadlocks. The eggs become maggots which can burrow into the skin and become very painful and can lead to secondary infection.

Now the back end of a sheep in full fleece is never an overly tidy place, but having the tail out of the way and not creating a nice, warm, protected fly spa environment certainly helps. And the sheep’s dense coat can make little wounds, etc. difficult to spot even in optimal situations.  If you’re planning to breed, having the tail out of the way also makes things more tidy for breeding and more hygienic for lambing.

Keep in mind also that sheep are prey animals, and as such, they’ve evolved not to show any signs of illness or weakness to avoid predation. That’s why sheep and other prey animals often seem perfectly healthy until they drop dead. Now, I’m sure an experienced shepherd can see the nuance in sheep behavior, but I don’t know squat. For a novice shepherd, I figure it’s best for both my mental health and for the critters to minimize any risks we can. Also, I’d just as soon not have to wash or get swatted by a poopy tail. So: docking it is!

Docking is the process of shortening or removing the tail. In the case of livestock, it can be done a number of different ways: chop, chop, stitch, stitch; chop and cauterize (burn to close the wound), separately or all in one step with a special piece of equipment; or banding, which puts an extra-tight rubber band around the tail that cuts of the circulation so that the tail eventually withers and falls off. The band, which looks like a plastic Cheerio, is stretched with a special pair of pliers called an Elastrator (see previous post) and applied to the tail. Banding is becoming increasingly popular because it’s cheap, doesn’t require special skills, is easy on the animal, and carries little risk of infection, because there’s no open wound. For those of us who weren’t raised around livestock and view pets as family and tend to think much of animal husbandry seems scary and occasionally brutal, it’s also the least painful for us.

What’s the downside to docking? Well, I guess that depends on the method, but honestly, with banding, I don’t see a downside (again, I’m not an expert, so there may well be potential complications I don’t know about). They say if you do it in the first 24 hours, the lamb’s nervous system is still in birthing mode, which means the lamb is less sensitive to pain in general. If you’re at all concerned, you can give them a shot of a numbing agent like Lidocaine. That’s what Tina from Ewephoria did before she banded the merino lambs, and they had absolutely no visible reaction at all to being banded. I don’t know whether it’s because it was within the first 24 hours, or because of the injection, but they honestly had no reaction whatsoever. We did give the lambs Bar-vac CD/T, which includes a tetanus vaccination, and penicillin, as a precaution, and I think that’s a fairly common procedure.

Now, with the Romney lamb, I got busy with the Sunflower Knitaway we were hosting and forgot to take care of his tail within the first 24 hours. We got to it within 48, which is still considered acceptable. Now, he did react to it, but that was largely do to my handling the whole thing really badly. For one, it was his first extended time out of the barn at all (for comparison, I waited over a week before letting the tiny twins out), AND we had a bunch of strangers here getting everyone generally excited, then Cara just happened to drop by during the hubbub. (Cara’s my neighbor who raises goats, and she’s been very generous with advice & assistance). We banded him a little too low, but I couldn’t tell until he was in with the other lambs. At that point, he seems a bit confused, like he thought someone was pulling his tail, but he wasn’t bad off. He ran around a little, but acted more or less normal.

But by the time we took him out of the pen again, got the old band off and put the new band on–with him fed up bleating and wiggling the whole time, and me fussing and fretting, and Cara’s kids running around on top of the barn and yelling, and all the strangers looking on and chatting, and the Shetlands giving him the odd thump, and his mama too busy stuffing her face to check on him, he was more than a little freaked out and overheated and kept collapsing and panting (remember, he was less than two days old and not particularly steady on his feet under ideal circumstances). It was clearly stressful on him, but I have to attribute that to my poor management rather than the banding itself. I’m sort of a 3-ring circus kind of gal, which doesn’t make things easy on anyone.

If I could do it over, I’d do it in the barn, no distractions, just the lamb and his mama there, and I’d obviously make sure I had it in the right spot from the get-go. Then I’d leave them alone immediately. I think that’s the hardest thing to do: get in, do what you need to do as quietly and with as little fuss as possible, then get the hell out. That’s probably good advice for most of life, but it’s particularly useful with sheep.

In any event, within an hour, he was perfectly fine again. It does’t take long for the tail to go numb; and as soon as it does, they forget all about it.

(Check out the last post for before and after tail pictures.)

Ronnie’s tail was the first to fall off. I found it in the yard this afternoon. Of course I’m going to keep it! It reminds me of a rabbit’s foot without being so creepy. (Okay, it’s a little creepy.)

The disembodied tail:

Ronnie at one week old, with her long tail:

Hokey Pokey’s tail is pretty withered and almost ready to drop, but you can see the new baby’s tail is still pretty fat and lively. And some more gratuitous sheep pictures… :)

Now that Fudgy has delivered, I can present the whole gang, my new spinner’s flock. This is the end of it, though. Both of the boys are getting wethered when they’re a little bigger (to make sure all their peeing-related plumbing is well established), so no more lambs after these cuties.

Here’s everyone (standing outside the brand new barn door I made last week, just in time for the new baby).

The 4-day-old baby is bigger than the 3-week-old Hokey Pokey. He’s a single and a Romney (bigger than Merinos), so it makes sense, but it still seems freaky. He’s still totally goofy and clumsy, though, and has just started jumping, usually landing unsuccessfully.

Hokey Pokey, however, has mastered the adorable leap. I didn’t catch it on film (or, I guess I should say, on memory card?), but I also witnessed him jumping almost 3 feet straight up!

Both of the ram lambs eat many of their meals thusly. Ronnie’s more apt to stand, but she’s pretty tiny. Fudgy’s udder’s pretty full and low all the time, so I imagine it’s just easier like this, but it looks pretty funny.

More babies:

And because he was being cute even though he’s not a baby, Uncle Honeybunch:

Cara, my neighbor who raises meat goats (and gives me my goat milk for cheesemaking), brought over her doctor’s box on Saturday and banded the new baby’s tail and showed me how to give the babies shots. Poor thing. We had to take off the first band and reband him because I had her put it too low but I couldn’t tell until he was back in with the other babies. He got totally stressed out and exhausted (and it was a warm day) and kept collapsing. I felt terrible. At first I thought it was because I forgot to call Cara for help during the first 24 hours, and they say if you band them then, they don’t even notice. Then I remembered that Tina (who admitted she’s a big softy) gave the first babies a couple shots of numbing stuff before banding them. After a few hours he calmed down and quit panting and looking pathetic and was up walking around and nursing again. But at first, I was worried I’d broken him.

Banding (which is also used for castration) takes a special pliers that stretches out a really strong, small rubber band. Then you slide the tail (or testicles) through the stretched band, release the pliers, and slide them off. After 3 or 4 weeks, the body part that has been banded withers and falls off.

Here’s an Elastrator (from kakkirk2000 on flickr) and Ronnie’s tail, about to fall off.

Everyone’s getting along fairly well. The wethers occasionally butt the new baby, sending him rolling, but mostly he has the sense to beat it when they look at him crosswise. Fudgy also lightly butts Agnes’ babies, though I haven’t seen Agnes do the same to the new baby, but that might just be because he pretty much hangs around mom or sits off by himself.

I need to get all the big sheep jacketed because they’re already getting dirty. Their fleece is still short enough that I can just brush it off, but it won’t be forever. I think I’m going to buy the first size for each sheep and see if I think I can make the other sizes (they need bigger jackets as their fleece grows). Agnes will be able to take Fudgy’s hand-me downs, and Mr. Shivers can wear Uncle Honeybunch’s. Or maybe I’ll get industrious this week and try making them myself.

Probably  not.

Kelly Sue just sent me a link that filled me with glee:

Knitted hares save themselves from the towel river went flood. (Scroll down past the ad after the first picture.)

(And while I’m being confounded with people, nothing burns me more than people who see something like this and say “Looks like someone has too much time on their hands.” People who make super awesomeness NEVER have too much time on their hands. They’re always the busiest people around. The world would be a far more delightful place if there were more people in that category, and fewer who were dismissive of them.)

Who are you people? Are you crazy?

This is one of those things that totally confounds me, that I just can’t wrap my head around, like holocaust deniers or people who genuinely like Golden Corral or 3 Musketeers candy bars, or the Wesboro Baptist Church nutjobs. It seems to me a form of madness.

(Yes, I know how fucked up it is to throw Fred Phelps and Ahmadinejad in the same sack with people who  enjoy dubious “food”–they’re obviously not on par in terms of pure evil, but I’m equally incapable of understanding their world views and predilections. This isn’t about them; it’s about me.)

But unlike the Westboro churchies and 3 Musketeers eaters, I think there must be some logical reason behind this madness, something I’m overlooking, something, even, that I might come to appreciate.

So tell me: why? Why on earth would you do such a thing?

P.S. From the comments, I just have to clarify: I’m not talking about knitting from the outside by necessity, like when you’re working from both ends, when you’ve got a low-yardage silky ball that would collapse almost immediately, or when the inside end is impossibly lost. I’m talking about people who routinely knit from the outside as a lifestyle choice, without regard to fiber or purpose. I’m talking about people who work from the outside of a sturdy ball of wool, leaving a perfectly good center-pull end just sitting there. Why?

Look what Fudgy made! Isn’t it crazy? My black sheep has white lambs and my white sheep has black lambs! Here’s the new baby, about 1 hour old:

This little guy’s a 13-pound piglet. He’s not the smartest lamb ever (so far, he’s tried nursing off my knee, Fudgy’s knee, the hay feeder, a wool blanket, and a metal wall panel), but he came out easy peasy lemon squeezy, and mom was on him like white on rice from the first moment. She cleaned him right off, I put him on the tit & the were off to the races. I gave his umbilical cord the old snip, dip, and flip (this time I had all my supplies, and I had the presence of mind to grab a shot glass–last time, the best I could find was half a plastic easter egg!). Fudgy followed him into the jug and last time I checked, she was alternating between licking him some more and chomping some hay. Yay!

The Sunflower retreat is tomorrow  & I’m way behind and I did NOT want a hard delivery or a bottle baby. I’ll be everyone will be really excited to see a day old lamb! It’s pretty hilarious that he’s about the same size as Hokey Pokey, now two and a half weeks old. I’ll get a picture of all the babies together in a few days.

Once you point him in the right direction, he guzzles away.

And here he is at 30 minutes old:

I’ve dyed all this fiber and it’s won’t fracking dry. Plus the sheep are all cooped up and no one’s getting nice sunshine (including me). And it’s cold and damp and unpleasant.

Okay, I’ll get back to work now and quit whining. The Sunflower Knitters’ Guild is holding their Knitaway here this weekend & I’m busy busy busy!

If you’re a flickr friend, you’ve already seen this. Otherwise, luxuriate in the overwhelming cute:

The new lambs officially have names.

Presenting: Ronnette Wigglesworth (aka Ronnie Wiggles) and Hokey Pokey. These were taken at just under 2 weeks.

Ronnie as an almost completely black merino ewe lamb. She’s still way smaller than her brother, but is just as frisky.

Hokey Pokey is Ronnie’s big brother, a spotted merino ram lamb who looks like a tiny cow. So far, his quarter inch of fleece has a much denser crimp than his sister’s quarter inch of fleece.

Here’s the whole family. You may notice that Agnes looks a lot different. Last Monday was shearing day!

It was drizzly on Sunday, and the weather was supposed to be rainy and snowy and awful Sunday night & Monday morning, so we were worried the sheep would be too wet to shear, but although it was cold and windy, it was dry and sunny, and all the wind Sunday afternoon  meant the fleece had no lingering moisture.

Marilyn (that’s her looking adorable with Agnes) came out to help and see the lambs, and Kevin, Laura & Dave came to see the baby lambs, too. The sheepies gave me lots of beautiful (but so dirty–I’m ordering jackets for everyone this week!) fleece. I got so busy talking with the shearer’s wife, the other Marilyn (she breeds mixemups for fiber and color), I forgot to take pictures of the shearing itself! But John from Sunflower Journeys was filming for a show they’re doing on fiber and knitting, so hopefully, I’ll get some footage from that.

They vaccinated everyone for me and wormed and trimmed hooves, which was great–it’s good seeing it all done again. And Danny (the shearer) also makes beautiful spindles & crochet hooks. I ordered a dozen spindles for the shop & bought a crochet hook for myself.

I’ve been meaning to make some rugs with random yarn or maybe old sheets. This is a large hook, I don’t know what size, but the knitting needle equivalent would probably be 35. Jumbo. Not the super biggest, hefty.

Danny shears off the belly wool & tags, lower legs, etc, then shears it all off in one piece, the traditional way. I think next year, with the covered fleeces (assuming that plan pans out…), I might ask him to him shear off everything that wasn’t covered, grab it up, then shear the blanket all in one piece. Then I can avoid skirting for the prime stuff, then fish through all the seconds later, skirting out the junk, then combining everything else from all the sheep into one big melting pot Cupcake Ranch Roving!

This time, we rolled up the fleeces as we went in old bedsheets, then later on we brought them inside and skirted and watched True Blood. All the skirted stuff is pretty rife with VM (my sheep are pigs and apparently like to burrow into the hay as much as eat it), so it’s just going to be mulch this year. Next year, I’m planning for blankets plus a cleaner feeding system (maybe just a big rack near the ground). With their hanging racks, they mash their heads deep into the hay, grinding all the seeds and tiny bits well into their neck fleece, which is still really nice fleece otherwise.

Danny did a great job, and he & Marilyn were really helpful. They go all over the place and service a lot of the small spinners’ flocks in the span of a couple states. We talked about goat milk and cheesemaking and Marilyn even brought me some lovely fresh goat’s milk, which I made into whole milk ricotta, and I gave her a copy of Goats Produce, Too! and some yogurt culture.

Here’s everyone before & after, plus their fleeces. I hope to weigh them this week & I’ll add the weights. In the meantime, I’ll include my guesses.

Agnes:

Agnes’ fleece (first shearing–lambswool):

Agnes’ fleece got all jumbled up, so you can’t see the pristine bright white cut side. I’m guessing it’s about 5.5# skirted.

The average staple’s about 3.5″, not superlong, but not bad. It’s very soft, greasy and springy.

It washed up to a very bright white, super spongy and fluffy and bouncy!

Fudgy the Whale:

Fudgy’s fleece (2nd shearing–yearling):

Fudgy’s fleece is the cleanest, probably because it’s so dense most of the crap just fell off the surface.  I’m guessing 7# skirted.

It’s also the longest, averaging over 5″. Fudgy’s locks stick together in big chunks and fall apart in a really unsticky way. Whereas when you separate out a chunk of locks from the other fleeces, they’ll stick an lose some of their distinction, the Romeny ones are tight chunks of fiber with a really distinct lock formation, but all the chunks readily fall apart from all the other chunks. It’s hard to describe, almost like when you cube an avocado in the skin and it’s still all once piece, then you scoop it out from the skin as long, finished cubes? That sounds stupid. Anyway, it’s cool. And the color is just gorgeous, warm brown sun tips, and black to the skin, ranging from pure black to S&P.

It washes up beautifully. I’m thinking I’ll combine this with her lamb fleece and get either roving or yarn. But which! I think it’s strong and long enough that it doesn’t need the extra step of combing. It’s also much cleaner than the other fleece.

Mr. Shivers:

Sheared, you’d never expect the dark brown!

Mr. Shivers’ fleece:

Mr. Shivers’ fleece was definitely the most interesting. From the outside, it’s dark gray-brown, with a creamy mantle around his neck. From the inside, it ranges from a smoky gray to creamy white. The darker portion above shows the exterior of the fleece, and the interior, cut side is folded over so you can see the difference. I’m guessing maybe 3 or 4 pounds. The staple length is all over the place, ranging from 3″ for the downier stuff to 5 or 6 inches for longer outer coat.

While you can tell after he’s sheared that the inside colors will be much lighter and include gray (which is darker and more prominent along his spine, as you can see), there’s no hint that he’d have a light colored band around his neck (Bielset). Shetland markings have a specific traditional names, and Mr. Shivers gets a couple different ones. He gets Bielset for the ring around his neck, Sokket for his black stockings. And since some of the marking names can also mean the inverse (e.g., Bioget is white back with darker sides and belly, or conversely, black back with lighter sides and belly), he may also be Blaeget (lighter color on outer coat than undercoat; he’s the opposite).

This shows the cut side of the fleece varies from white to gray.

Besides being variagated around his body, his fleece is also varigated within the fiber itself:

This lock starts white and goes to a steely blue-grey (the yellowy stuff is dirt; the gray’s much bluer than you see here).

Here’s a lock from near the spine with even darker gray, and some of the brown outer coat.

This lock shows a lot of the brown outer coat.

Here’s a lock washed up, the gray much bluer than I expected, and the brown darker! Even now, I still don’t get the double coated thing. At the base, the fibers look the same, but some terminate in long, dark tips. I think I expected it to be more  like a dog’s undercoat, which is like soft bunny fur, and the outer coat, closer to human hair. This is all fleecy, but it’s more like two different breeds of fleece growing on the same animal.

Uncle Honeybunch:

I think Uncle Honeybunch is a little fat. He looks heavier than everyone else. After shearing, the sheep don’t recognize each other and they all struggle for status again. The boys spent the first two days butting heads all day long, with Honeybunch occasionally trying to mount Fudgy, who is already knocked up, thank you very much. She’s also so much taller that he’d either need a step stool, or she’d need to kneel to make the math work. Also: Honeybunch is nutless. But I’m sure it was more a status game than a misguided attempt at breeding.

Uncle Honeybunch’s fleece:

I’m guessig about 3#, with staples ranging from 3 – 5″.

In both cases, you can see that the Shetland fleece is way looser an more open, almost like it’s already been washed (except that it’s still dirty!). It’s both fine and fluffy, but not so bouncy as the merino.

Washed, it’s bouncier and on Uncle Honeybunch’s fleece, the two lengths all blend together more. I don’t know whether that’s because he’s not as double-coated (if there ever are degrees of that?!) or because you just can’t see the distinction because it’s all the same color.

And here’s the whole gang!

The babies are still getting penned at  night and in foul weather, but they’re out and about all day when it’s sunny, and everyone’s getting along just fine.