Many farms are raising sheep. The popularity of these animals is due to the fact that they are very productive and provide farmers with not only meat, milk and fat, but also with wool. Typically, farmers choose the breed depending on the weather conditions in the region, but often their choice falls on meat-wool sheep. The decisive factor is the ability to get a quality fleece, which promises farms great benefits. Sheep wool is readily bought by enterprises engaged in the manufacture of carpets and woolen clothes.
What is fleece and its types
Fleece is a woolen coat obtained in the form of a whole layer when shearing a sheep. Its quality depends on the breed and the conditions in which the sheep are kept. It consists of individual tufts or braids of wool that tightly cling to each other.
According to technical characteristics, the fleece is divided into three types:
- Staple fleece. Its structure consists of bundles with fibers of the same length, thickness and fluff. Such bundles are called staples. You can see them if you carefully push the wool on the sheep. The formation of staple fleece is promoted by small deserters, as well as fat from the skin of sheep and contaminated wool. From such a fleece get the highest quality fine wool.
- Inert fleece. It is formed by pigtails with fibers of different lengths. It has a heterogeneous structure. Pigtail, awn, dry or dead hair may be present in pigtails. A pigtail fleece is a coarser wool coat, at the base of which lies a dense layer resembling felt, so individual pigtails are not visible in it.
- Staple-braid fleece. The composition has bundles of different lengths and thicknesses of fibers, but at the same time maintains a homogeneous structure. Used for making semi-fine wool.
Depending on the type of rune, sheep breeds are divided into fine-fleece, semi-coarse and coarse-haired.
Fine wool sheep
The finest fleece gives the highest quality staple fleece. It is easy to distinguish in appearance. Sheep wool has a light, almost white color, a uniform composition and almost always consists of one down. The coat has nice curls, the fiber diameter is not more than 0.25 micrometers, and its length reaches 9 cm.
Representatives of fine-fleece sheep are Soviet and Australian merino, prekos, Kazakh fine-fleece, Askanian, Caucasian and Siberian rambuli, as well as some other types of sheep. Their wool contains a lot of grease, therefore, after hot washing, 20-50% of the pure product from the shear from one sheep remains.
Sheep Shearing Time
A timely haircut is one of the main conditions in order to get a good fleece, this should be considered by the farmer. If the terms of the haircut are not respected, the losses can be up to 50% of the cut. In fine-fleeced sheep, wool grows only 1 cm per month, they are sheared once in the spring. In semi-coarse-haired and coarse-haired animals, the monthly growth of wool is up to 3 cm, they are trimmed in spring and early autumn. The Romanovskiy breed of sheep, in which the wool grows quickly and falls so that its further processing is very complicated, is sheared in the summer as well.
The farmer determines the timing of the haircut on his own, depending on when the weather is warm, so that the naked sheep do not catch a cold. But you should not stay with a haircut, because the animals lose their appetite in the heat, they lose weight, and their coat is very dirty. In addition, in the summer, the molt begins in the sheep, during which you can lose valuable sheep fluff, so it is better to cut in May or June. It is at this time that they get the best fleece. The weight of the fleece and its quality depend on the thickness of the coat, the size of the animal, the degree of growth, as well as the presence of skin folds on the body.
The second haircut for coarse and semi-coarse-haired breeds is done in August or September. You can not be late with it, because before the onset of cold weather animals must grow with wool.
Methods for Shearing Sheep
Sheep sheared manually or by machine. With the manual method, special shears are used to shear the sheep. Though this option takes a lot of time, scissors remain the most reliable tool for cutting. They are less susceptible to breakdowns than electric cars, easy to operate and serve for many years. Due to the low productivity, scissors are used in small farms.
The machine method significantly speeds up the shearing of sheep and facilitates the work of workers. In addition, with a machine haircut, a better fleece is obtained. This is achieved due to the fact that workers use special combs that fit snugly on the skin, so the fleece is much longer. In large farms, the machine method is used more often than sheep shears.
Haircut order
Shearing is prepared in advance. So that the wool is not smeared with animal excrement, they are not fed one day before the procedure and do not give water for 12 hours. In addition, well-fed animals tolerate a haircut worse.
Fleece, shot with one layer, is valued more expensive, so they try to shave the sheep whole. First, the head and neck are freed from the hair, then the chest, groin and stomach. Lastly, they remove the fleece from the sides and back. Haircuts are done very carefully so as not to damage the nipples of the animal. After the hair is removed, the skin of the animals is treated with a disinfectant solution.
To keep the wool better stored, it is washed in a soapy solution, rinsed well and dried. The prepared fleece is correctly folded. To do this, 1/3 of the rune is bent from both sides to its middle, and then folded in half again. Store wool in a dry place.