Why sheep shearers should be allowed to enter the UK

This week I heard the news that sheep shearers will have difficulty coming into the UK as the number of unskilled workers entering the country is being capped.  My blood boiled at the idea.  First, I object to sheep shearers being classed as unskilled, I challenge anyone who thinks shearing sheep is unskilled work to give it a go, they would soon change their mind.  Secondly, the sheep industry needs the shearers from overseas, we do not have enough home-grown sheep shearers to shear the British flock.  There are approximately  36 million sheep in the UK.  About 500 overseas shearers enter the UK each year.  They shear 20-25% of the UK flock.  Sheep shearers are different from other migrant workers, they are not coming to stay, they are only here for the season, then they move on.  The sheep shearing season in this country is from May to the end of July.  These are not permanent immigrants, they are passing visitors.

In addition the argument that we should train the unemployed to take on these jobs done by workers from overseas does not stand up when it comes to shearing.  Shearing is seasonal, anyone training as a shearer will have three months work per year and be unemployed for the other nine months of the year unless they become a migrant worker themselves and follow the shearing seasons around the world.  Not an attractive option for anyone with a family. Then there is the question of being up for the job, to shear one sheep then collapse in a heap completely exhausted you need to be physically able and fairly strong.  Shearers are paid by the sheep at the rate of around £1 per animal.  To make a living you must be able to shear between 100-400 sheep per day.  It takes a person as fit and flexible as an athlete and with the right mindset to shear 400 sheep a day, day after day.  

Furthermore there is the question of what happens to the sheep in the worse case scenario where the overseas shearers are not allowed into the country and we do not have enough shearers to go round.  In this case, sheep will be waiting well into August or even later to be shorn.  As the summer progresses and the fly population increases sheep will get flystrike, a terrible occurrence where flies lay their eggs in the fleece, the eggs hatch into maggots and the maggots eat the sheep alive.  I have seen plenty of sheep with a hole in them you could fit your fist in, they suffer terribly and without urgent treatment they die a slow and painful death.  Another thing which can happen if a sheep is not shorn is heat stroke, extra woolly breeds, such as the Poll Dorset, are particularly prone to this.  Sheep can and do die from heat stroke.  Then there is the problem of getting cast.  If a sheep is not shorn the new fleece will still grow under the old fleece, this forms a heavy mat of wool.  If the sheep gets onto its back it can be unable to right itself because of the weight of the fleece, a sheep stuck on its back, if not rescued will die very slowly.  I’ve heard of cast sheep which had their eyes picked out by crows and in one case a badger ripped open the udder of a trapped sheep to drink the milk, while she was still alive.  Not shearing sheep is not an option.  Shearing them in August will put them at risk and cause suffering.  

This issue of letting the overseas shearers into the country crops up year after year.  It is time this nonsense ended.  We should welcome and respect our highly skilled, hard working friends from overseas.

Getting my rams in a row

This week I went to a networking event hosted by the Invicta Chamber of Commerce.  I didn’t know what to expect.  I was rather afraid I might come away talking about blue face thinking, getting my rams in a row and the need to think outside the Prattley.  Feeling like a Romney ewe who has wandered in with the beef cattle I made a start at this thing called ‘networking’. 

It seemed to be de rigueur to exchange business cards with everyone else, I found myself fumbling around in my handbag for business cards still in the printer’s box.  After all, if I run the cards free range in my handbag they’ll be dog eared in no time.  I watched what everyone else did and noticed most people had their cards tucked into a suit jacket pocket and were highly competent at whisking one out.  Note to self:  next time wear a suit with pockets.  I’ve always assumed the pockets on my suit jacket are utterly useless since they aren’t big enough for a Swiss Army knife and a length of bailer twine.  Now I know.

People were approachable and really helpful.  The room was packed with collective experience; I came away feeling energised and less alone.  If you run or are thinking of running a business which, like mine, is literally warm and fluffy, you may feel reluctant to attend business networking events, however I’d definitely recommend you do.  Try contacting your local Chamber of Commerce, there are events you can attend without being a member and you never know, you may meet someone who has a pet sheep or an alpaca in their back garden!

Unravel 2011 - shopping heaven for the fibre enthusiast

I went to Unravel at Farnham Maltings over the weekend.  Were you there?  If so, what did you think of the show?  And more importantly – what did you buy?  If you didn’t go, Unravel is a fibre festival, something like Woolfest but on a smaller scale.  There were two Gotland sheep penned outside, to my amusement under their own personal gazebo, but these were the only animals.  There were talks, workshops and plenty of trade stands.  It was very busy.  Fortunately there was a good supply of comfy sofas and plenty of milling space so it was possible to find a corner to rest and contemplate the next purchase.  

I went to a talk by Susan Crawford.  I first met her at Fibrefest 2009 when I bought her book A Stitch in Time.  I can’t wait for the next volume!  She talked about adapting vintage patterns and choosing the right yarn, it was a fascinating insight into the process.  There was a beautiful twinset on display from the new book, it was inspired by some victory buttons which were produced to celebrate the end of the Second World War.  The buttons were designed with such detail that they even included the Morse code for V - dot dot dash. 

I was especially interested to hear about Excelana, a vintage inspired yarn Susan is working on.  The wool comes from sheep bred in Devon, the yarn is processed by John Arbon, also in Devon, and only goes as far as Bradford to be dyed.  The sheep the wool comes from are what is known in the sheep industry as mules.  A mule is produced by putting a longwool ram onto a hill breed of ewe.  The most common mule is the North of England, which is the result of putting a Blue Face Leicester ram on either a Swaledale or a Scotch Black Face.  In this case, however, the sheep have been produced by putting a Blue Face Leicester ram onto an Exmoor Horn ewe.  They are known as the Exmoor Blueface.

There was a cardigan on display made from pure Exmoor Blueface wool.  I had a feel, the yarn did have that slight ‘bite’ people often expect of wool.  Personally I’d have worn it but many people probably would be put off.  As a result of this handle, the Exmoor Blueface was then blended with pure Blue Face Leicester.  The blend gave the desired results.  Excelana is 70% Exmoor Blueface and 30% pure Blue Face Leicester.  The addition of that 30% has resulted in a yarn with a lovely soft handle.  Definitely wearable next to the skin. 

Of course I had to buy some samples:

I also bought some raw Gotland fleece.  I have never spun Gotland so I am really looking forward to the experience.  I will let you know how I get on.   

The dog is done!

Great news, I have completed the commission to spin the dog fur!  To recap, the fur came from Alaska, a rescue dog who is believed to be half Malamute.  The task was to spin the fur pure.  It has been a long haul, the fur was very short and slippery, but I can report I have finished the job.  I have spun nearly half a mile of pure dog fur.

Here is the result:

 This is what nearly half a mile of spun dog fur looks like!

Maybe clouds are hard to move too

The mist is sitting low over the fields.  Just outside the barn, a sort of digger-tractor thing is looming like a mechanical monster, yellow against the muted greens and browns.  I’m in the barn, sinking slowly into a dark mush of sheep poo and dirty straw, the smell of ammonia in my nose.   I’ve got a sheep sat between my legs.  The sheep is damp and the wetness is seeping through my overalls, through my jeans and working its way into my wellies.  The sheep is a Poll Dorset, a full grown Poll Dorset ewe can weigh in at thirteen stone.  I’ve no idea how much this one weighs but she is full grown, in lamb and most of her weight is resting against the inside of my left leg. 

That was a few weeks ago.  What was I doing straddling a damp sheep?  I was helping with dagging out, catching and turning the sheep then passing them to the shearer.  Dagging out means removing the wool from the tail and rear end of the sheep.  Sheep use their tails as toilet paper, they can get really mucky, also these ladies are due to have their lambs in a couple of months.  It will make things more hygienic and accessible at lambing time if the sheep are dagged.  Once they have lambed, the lamb can find the teats more easily if there isn’t a load of wool in the way.  Dagging sheep is terrifying,  Female sheep keep a collection of pink fleshy protrusions under their tails which you need to shear very close to, the blades seem far too big for such delicate work.  I don’t do any dagging this time, I just catch the sheep and leave the real work to the expert.

To turn a sheep, you put your thumb through its mouth to get control of the head - sheep have a gap in their teeth, like a horse – then you get hold of the back end with the other hand, turn the sheep’s head against its flank (this is a natural position) and pull down the rear.  Getting a bit of a swing going can help.  Unfortunately, last summer I swung a sheep with rather too much enthusiasm, injured my shoulder and displaced the radius bone in my elbow.  Ouch.  The sheep usually goes down and you can lift the shoulders up and lean the sheep on your legs.  Sheep have a great philosophy on life – if you find yourself in a situation you can do nothing about, do nothing, there’s no point wasting energy in futile struggling.  Therefore once all four feet are off the ground most sheep will not struggle.  However, the second they get so much as a toe on the ground, the pen or someone’s ankle, they’re off.  I’ve been caught out so many times, thinking isn’t it lovely, my sheep is so relaxed and happy with me, then I move slightly, a foot comes in contact with the ground and I find myself flat on my back on the shearing board, the sheep gone.

The Poll Dorsets are large and heavy but slow, they see my coming, look a bit worried then surrender without a fight.  The Kerry Hill tegs are a different story.  A teg is a teenage sheep, last year’s lamb.  These Kerry Hills are small and agile, with attitude.  They are also martial arts experts.  When I try to turn the first one, she does a double back flip and punches me in the face with both front feet.  A minor exaggeration.  In reality, instead of collapsing on the floor as a sheep is meant to, she rises up on her hind legs so I am standing straight up hugging a vertical sheep with her back to me and her face level with mine.  How that happened I have no idea.  The only redeeming factor is her lightness, I am able to lift the Kerry Hill right off her feet and rearrange her into a more congenial position.

I didn’t attempt to turn the rams.  Rams have extremely muscular necks and I can’t handle them, they just don’t bend.  The Kerry Hill ram starts to bite the shearer’s ribs as he is having his bits defuzzed.   He struggles so much he nearly escapes and as I rush in to help restrain him, I forget about the shears and end up with a row of puncture marks across the back of my hand.  It’s a hazardous job. 

Whoever came up with the description of sheep as clouds on legs has never struggled with the physicality of a ten, twelve or thirteen stone sheep.  I was muttering about the inappropriateness of the description as we chased the woolly customers around the barn when the shearer said, ‘Perhaps clouds are hard to move too.’  If anyone has ever rounded up a group of clouds (what’s the collective noun for clouds?  Surely not flock?)  driven them through a narrow gateway and got the gate shut before they all turned around and floated back out, then please let me know.  I’d be very interested to hear from you.


To buy handspun yarns please do visit my online shop at:

www.shearergirlyarns.co.uk 

Spinning dog fur - progress report

I've now washed all of the dog fur in Unicorn Power Scour, it is dry and no longer smells of dog!  I took some photos of the fibre at different stages to show you how it balls up during washing:

Strange isn't it?   No other fibre I've worked with behaved like this.

Here's the fibre after I pulled the balls apart:

The fibre didn't felt at all and the balls came apart easily.

Once the fibre was dry, I ran it through my Ashford drum carder.  The drum carder has two spiked rollers, or drums, the small drum feeds the fibre onto the larger drum, the fibre is not supposed to get tangled on the small feeder  drum.  No matter what I did, the dog fur embedded itself into the teeth of the small drum and didn't transfer very well, as you can see in the picture below.  The drum carder is supposed to take 65g of fibre but the most dog fur I managed to get onto the main drum in one go was about 2g.  As you can imagine, carding this fur is a slow process!  

After struggling for a bit, I had a brain wave.  I originally bought my drum carder when I was working on a commission to spin a pet rabbit's fur.  Rabbit fur is one of the finest fibres you can spin.  The salesperson assured me a packer brush would help.  A packer brush is a bit like those draught excluders you put in the letterbox, it's a lot of soft bristles close together.  The packer brush is detachable, when fitted to the drum carder, its job is to push the fibre into the teeth of the large drum.  Here is a close up picture of the fitted packer brush:

The packer brush worked really well, I got 8g onto the drum instead of 2g! 


After carding the fibre I made rolags, since the dog fur doesn't hold together very well I rolled the fibre into rolags as I pulled it off the drum.  Here are two rolags of husky fur, they weigh between 1g and 2g each.

Here is a close up of the rolag, you can see the shorter darker guard hairs mixed in with the fluffy undercoat:

I spun two singles using the long draw technique.  This fibre is so unforgiving.  Wool pretty much spins itself, you can watch TV and spin no problem, but the dog fur needs full concentration, it untwists at any opportunity and the first single I spun broke frequently.  Here's the first bobbin: 

This yarn is a celebration of a much loved pet so I am spinning the fur as it comes rather than picking out all the odd hairs.  The fibre does vary, there are some coarser fibres even among the undercoat and there are patches which are full of very short black hair.  If I wanted the softest yarn possible I would need to pick these bits out, however, the aim of the project is to make a yarn which is true to Alaska the dog, so I am leaving in all but the coarsest fibres.

Plying is a fiddly job.  You need a lot of twist in the singles to keep the fibre together, also the yarn is slubbed with thicker and thinner places so when I ply the singles it is a difficult job to produce a balanced yarn.  The thinner parts of the singles have more twist than the slubs and thicker parts so I have to work at the plying to even out the twist.  However, I am proud to say the two skeins I have finished are well balanced yarns.  You can tell if a skein is balanced or not when you take it off the bobbin and let the skein hang, if the skein twists on itself it is not balanced, if it hangs in an open loop then you have a balanced yarn!  

Here is the first completed skein:

 
I have now completed two skeins and I feel like I'm getting the mastery of this unusual fibre.  Now all I've got to do is spin that pillow case full of remaining dog fur! 

To see more of my work and to buy handspun yarns please visit my online shop:

www.shearersgirlyarns.co.uk