It's that time of year again when we must shear our sheep. It is a long job for us as homesteaders because we are not professionals nor do we have those thousand dollar shears! This is our fifth year shearing our sheep. We started off with three sheep; now we have over thiry.
Our sheep have been bred for their fiber. We have Gulf Coast Sheep which is also known as Gulf Coast Native, LA Native and FL Native. It is a surviver...like the Cracker cow, Cracker horse, or Mustang. It is naturally foot rot resistant and parasite resistant. In fact, even though we live in the south, we don't have these problems with our sheep! We honest only worm them once a year.
Our sheep come from the Perkin's line which has been bred for many years specifically for fleece quality. In fact, our first two sheep came straight from Dempsey's farm. Spinners love to get their hands on our fleece because it is so nice...and rare.
We have only sheared three sheep so far, but tomorrow we will be getting three more done as they are sold and will be leaving the farm this week. I will take pictures and show you more in depth how we shear and talk about the different shears that homesteaders can purchase...the pros and the cons.
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