South Dakota producer asserts necessity of cleaning fleeces to add profitability to wool production

Spending 30 seconds cleaning up a fleece after shearing can add 10 cents a pound. If a fleece averages 12 to 13 pounds, a producer can add $1.30 to his pocket in just 30 seconds. However, 95 percent of producers in the U.S. will still just take what they can get.

Cody Chambliss, a sheep producer who runs 600 head Merino ewes near Gerdes, S.D., tells producers that cleaning each fleece is well worth it. 

“If I didn’t take that extra time on my Merino fleeces, I would lose 50 to 55 cents a pound, which would be at least $15 a fleece,” he says. 

Merinos are one of the finest wool breeds of sheep in the world, and their wool is considered quite valuable. 

Handling wool

Depending on the market, Chambliss sees producers gaining 15 to 20 cents a pound just by handling the wool properly. 

“Wool is paid by yield, cleanliness, length and micron,” he explains. “My goal is to change people’s perception that their wool is worth nothing. Many people don’t do a good job preparing their wool because there isn’t a buyer or market in some areas.” 

Chambliss says the Merinos will consistently return $30 a head for their wool, which he figures is equivalent to roughly one-third of his costs each year.  

“Coarser wools aren’t worth as much, but they can still return $8 to $10 a head after shearing costs are taken out,” he adds.  

Steps

The first step in making more from wool is putting down some type of floor for the shearers to use. 

“When a sheep hits the shearing floor, the first thing a producer should do is throw a tarp or some plywood down,” Chambliss explains. “Don’t use a blue poly tarp or a brown tarp, because poly will contaminate the wool.” 

“I use an old tarp off a grain semi. A concrete floor works well, too, but make sure to sweep it off before they start shearing,” he notes. “Also, don’t use a broom while they are shearing. It will contaminate the wool with poly.”

Poly and twine cannot be sorted from wool, Chambliss explains. As it goes through the mill, it will go right into the garments. Poly and twine from hay bales or straw can easily become entwined in the wool. 

“I once saw a Pendleton blanket on a shelf for $800, and it had a line of poly right through the middle of it. That makes a $800 blanket worth $10,” he says. 

Separate

Hair from the legs or butt is the biggest contaminant in wool, and it can be hard to separate. It comes from the shearer cleaning up the feet and legs and around the butt, Chambliss says. 

“The dirtiest part of the fleece is the belly. That needs to be separated from the rest of the fleece. The easiest way is to ask the shearer to take the belly wool off and throw it into a side sack,” he explains. “It is always short and dirty, so it’s worth less, but it does still have value.”

Another area that should be separated is wool around the butt, because of the balls of feces and urine stains on the wool. The neck area, called the crow’s nest, right above the shoulder blade up to the top of the neck also gets contaminated from hay and dirt.

“By removing the neck wool, we can increase the yield on the rest of the wool because we removed the vegetable matter,” he tells producers. “We are probably only removing a one-quarter of a pound of wool, but we can basically add 10 cents a pound to each fleece by removing vegetable matter, belly wool, tags, urine pieces, hair, wool on the lower legs, face and cheek wool and the armpit wool, which is full of lanolin.”

“Also remove any straw, cockle burrs or sand burrs from the fleece. Basically, remove any pieces that don’t fit,” he adds. 

Sheep should not be bedded in straw prior to shearing. 

“Save that bale of straw until after they are sheared,” he recommends.

Chambliss recommends setting up something the size of a card table to put the fleece on after the shearer finishes each sheep. 

“We basically have about four minutes to clean up that fleece before the shearer will have the next one ready,” he says. 

Managing sheep

How the sheep are fed and managed can also impact the quality of the fleece. 

Density, which is how thick or tight the wool is, can be impacted by the amount of dirt in the fleece. 

“I would recommend keeping dust and blowing dirt down in the pens,” he explains. “If producers grind hay, don’t do it near the sheep, and try to find a way to feed besides using a bale feeder.”

Producers should also set up a consistent schedule to shear their sheep. While most producers like to shear before lambing, not everyone does, Chambliss says. 

“What I would recommend is shearing them every 11 months and keeping it on schedule,” he explains. 

For his own herd, Chambliss takes away water the night before shearing. He doesn’t recommend feeding sheep the morning of shearing. 

“Some people won’t agree with me, but I’ve found that holding back water prevents urine on the shearing floor. If producers don’t feed them that morning, it reduces the amount of feces on the floor,” he explains. 

Chambliss uses a leaf rake, rather than a broom, to clean up after the sheep. 

Gayle Smith is a correspondent for the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. Send comments on this article to roundup@wylr.net.