Any use for fleece with burrs?

My friend has Dorsets and gives me his spring clip each spring in exchange for doing a spinning demonstration at his annual shearing. I use the skirtings and any unspinnable wool as mulch on the hedges and vines. As noted, it does take a while to break down, but means I don't need to mulch that often!

I've picked apart fleeces if the wool was super-nice and worth salvaging. I guess it depends on how much you like a particular fleece and how much work you're willing to put into it to get it clean. Burrs are devilishly hard to get out -- a few I don't mind, but don't think I'd spend time trying to pick apart a fleece that was full of them!

By the way, if you do have a fleece you need to pick, either wait for the nice weather and do it out of doors or, if you do it inside, put a real long movie into the VCR or DVD, put the bag of wool on one side, an empty bag on the other, and put a cookie sheet in your lap to catch the bits. You'd be surprised how much "stuff" is in even a washed fleece!

Yup! I sit em on their butt. It also helps prevent cuts from wrinked skin since they are heavily pregnant. I'll use your tip about angling the blades. I did cut one ewe on her side...not bad, just a small cut. I also guessing I nicked another ewe near her pinbone, because a few days after shearing, I noticed an abcess. It drained on its own and healed promptly with some Pen-G.
I haven't been out to shear since I did the last 5...I've been helping a friend get some fencing up. I really hope tomorrow I can go out and shear some! I hope to be all done with shearing by next week when I have 17 ewes due. I won't be too big of a deal though if the 3 rams and 8 ewes bred for later don't get done this week.
Also I think part of the problem was a handling problem. The first time I went out without my crook, and when I caught a sheep, since they aren't too tame, it was almost impossible to bring the sheep to the shears to dump her. With my crook, I pick one out that looks like she's close to lambing, catch her, and then with the crook its EASY to get her to the other end of the pen where I have the tarp set up and the blades plugged in. It really cuts the time down and reduces stress when I don't have to chase any!
I'm doing the dorsets first, then the lincolns (hopefully by then I can get a useable fleece!) and then the merino cross and the merino. I'm saving the merinos for last since I know they probably have more skin wrinkles than the other sheep and I should be less likely to cut her after I do 32 other sheep. Then maybe I'll tackle the 2 alpacas! Haha.
I could call the guy who sheared for us last year...it would take him much less time, but I feel shearing is a good skill for me to have, and I'll only get good at it with practice.
Any suggestions for shearing a skinny sheep so I don't cut her backbone? Should I leave the wool a little one along her back? She's a late gestation 8-9 year old lincoln ewe that looks like she's carrying twins (she had twins last year). Its hard to keep her weight up, and I just started taking her out everyday for some extra grain (she's very friendly so she's easy to separate from the rest). She's just an old gal...no worm problems and her teeth are ok. She eats the grain just fine, but I think she may not be getting enough when she has to compete with the other sheep for her feed. The other sheep maintain their weight better on more hay and less grain than the old ewe. (I feed generally .5-1lb of corn per ewe to suppliment hay when there is no pasture and they are late pregnancy or lactating...othertimes I don't feed any grain)
Leah

I think the skinny sheep is the hardest to do neatly, she will unavoidably be looking a bit lumpy when you finish her but I guarantee she will not complain.

The tips of your comb should not be sharp, you should be able to run the comb up the inside of your forearm without any qualms. If the points are sharpish you can rub the comb back and forth on some soft wood, pine for instance. If you can run it over your own skin without snagging or cutting yourself you will be able to run it all over the sheep without any concern.

It would be fairly difficult to do a neat job at anything other than a close clip, it must be almost impossible to intentionally leave just some wool on. We used to have special combs for this ('snow combs') but they are real hard work. Which is another point, the wool is easiest to cut right close to the skin, and you keep a close cut by keeping the back of the clippers tilted well up.

Do you have your tarp on a firm surface, like a wooden floor? Have you got someone to clear the wool away as you work?

I wish I was there to help out, maybe we could polish them off in short order. Once upon a time I could do 200 in an eight hour day but that was quite a while ago and of course in best possible conditions and with top level equipment.

I guess I should qualify it by saying having a good supply of sharp blades "teaches" you what not to do by dulling your blades fast. If you're really cranking down the tension to get them to shear you're not doing it right. That your happy with your work certainly suggests you've got a good approach and that you're doing it mostly right. If you weren't you'd find the dulling effect of poor shearing positively maddening. (and expensive!!!) Being able to sharpen your own blades does teach you alot about what you're doing wrong and your blades will last longer because you're not trying to squeeze one more sheep out of a sharpening. "The" equipment for sharpening sheep cuters and combs would likely be made by Sunbeam or Heinenger and use large grinding discs glued to vertical wheels and a magnetic pendulum holder. I've always had a good raport with the local sheep supply store and while I think they do a first class job (they even let me watch up close) I know my little grinder does a better job with less burr. It's a locally made unit by a fellow who probably has the best reputation for blade sharpening around. (partly because he is totally honest and partly because he takes pride in his work) He sells his unit on E bay ( I bought mine from his wife at an OSMA sheep day) and is very affordable at $250 USD plus shipping. NASCO sells a similar unit but the Huntersharp is a more straight forward machine, and has a bigger motor. It does dog clipper blades as well. Here's a past auction link Past E bay link E mail him about it if you are intersted I'm sure they'll relist.

Ross, I think I will continue to recommend keeping the equipment tilted well up, only the underside of the comb tips should be on the skin. I have never used electric all-in-one equipment, it has always been overhead driven with a torque tube which tends to rotate the handpiece and with that sort of equipment I learned early on that keeping the lower tip (i.e. the right hand tip) of the comb on the skin make the easiest work and less second cuts.

Yes, sharp gear is essential.

Regarding the disk and glued paper type sharpeners it is important to not confuse the disk for cutters with the disk for combs. One disk is convex, not sure if the other is concave (although I should know!). Does the aluminium disk equipment use paper or an abrasive compound? I have never used one of those. How do you grind the concave on the Huntersharp as it appears to have just the one disk.




I notice the equipment Leah is using is listed on their website as lower speed which I assume will help against premature blade dulling. Cutting air, which is what someone learning is doing most of the time, dulls and overheats the gear.