Before and after the festival

Danny and his wife stayed an extra day, so we could get the rest of the goats sheared. I added some Shetland sheep to the shearing, since their wool looked so long. Good thing I did. The ram in the far out pasture had wool over 5 inches long. It will be interesting to see how quickly their wool grows back.

I am surprised at how few people bought any of the shearer and his wife's fleeces. I have a hard time selling raw fleeces, but theirs were priced a lot lower than mine would be, because they have a pasture. Spinners missed a good deal. I bought all of the Romney, Merino, Shetland, and the crosses thereof, since I know that they are gorgeous once washed. I passed on the Lincoln and the Icelandic, since they are coarse.

Some interesting statistics from the fiber part of the festival:

Mohair:

35 kids were sheared for a total of 152 pounds

lowest weight of a kid fleece: 2.87 pounds

highest weight of a kid fleece: 5.88 pounds

yearling fleeces added up to 60.88 pounds

adult fleeces added up to 64.59 pounds

Wool:

from adults and lambs: 38.24 pounds

lamb fleeces: 1.29-3.44 pounds

Total weight of all fleeces: 315 pounds

Agave's mother, a yearling had a fleece of 10.72 pounds - and it is like a kid fleece. Too cool!

The heaviest was a white fleece at 11.92 pounds.

Yesterday morning I put Cadbury out for visitors to see. The does that were loose were interested in him, but even more so in his food.
Agave and Cadbury got nose to nose a few times.

Agave before shearing was hanging out with Joshua yesterday morning. I got his head out of the fence after I fed everyone else. He does this routinely, so this morning I decided to leave him there while I fed and watered everyone else. He was hungry enough to get his own head out this morning. No more rescues for him. Hard to believe that he keeps doing it.