Fleece is a sheepskin coat removed from a sheep

Many farms are engaged in the cultivation of 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 wool. Usually, 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 opportunity to get a quality fleece that promises big benefits to the farms. Sheep wool is readily purchased by enterprises engaged in making carpets and woolen clothes.

What is Fleece and its types

Fleece is a wool coat, obtained as 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 foxes of hair 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. They can be seen if you carefully spread the wool on a sheep. The formation of the staple fleece is promoted by small wool-defectors, as well as the fat from the skin of the sheep and contamination of the wool. From such a fleece get the highest quality fine wool.
• Skew fleece. It is formed by braids with fibers of different lengths. It has a heterogeneous structure. In the braids may be present fluff, ost, dry or dead hair. The skeleton fleece is a coarser wool coat, at the base of which there is a dense layer resembling felt, so individual braids are not visible in it.
• Staple-and-fleece fleece. The composition has beams of different length and fiber thickness, but it retains a uniform structure. Used for making semi-fine wool.

Depending on the type of fleece, the breeds of sheep are divided into fine-wool, half-coarse and coarse-wool.

Finely bred sheep

The highest-quality staple fleece is provided by a fine-fleeced sheep. It is easy to distinguish in appearance. Sheep's wool has a light, almost white color, a uniform composition and almost always consists of one fluff. The wool cover has pretty curls, the diameter of the fiber is not more than 0.25 micrometers, and its length reaches 9 cm.

Representatives of fine-wooled sheep are Soviet and Australian merino, prekos, Kazakh fine wool, Ascania, Caucasian and Siberian ramblue, as well as some other types of sheep. Their wool contains a lot of grease, so after a hot washing, 20-50% of the net product from the shearing from one sheep remains.

Terms of sheep shearing

Timely haircut is one of the main conditions for getting a good fleece, This must be taken into account by the farmer. If the timing of cutting is not respected, losses can be up to 50% of the cutting. Fine-fleece sheep wool grows only 1 cm per month, they are sheared once in the spring. In semi-coarse-wooled and coarse-wooled animals, the monthly increase in wool is up to 3 cm, they are trimmed in spring and early autumn. Romanovskuyu breed of sheep, in which the wool grows quickly and falls down so that its further processing is greatly complicated, they cut even in the summer.

The farmer determines the cutting time independently, depending on when the warm weather sets, so that the bare sheep do not catch cold. But also to delay with a haircut does not follow, because in the heat of the animals the appetite disappears, they lose weight, and their hair is heavily polluted. In addition, in the summer, moult begins to moult, during which you can lose valuable sheep's down, so it's better to do a haircut in May or June. It is at this time that they receive the best fleece. The weight of the fleece and its quality depend on the density of the wool, the size of the animal, the degree of overgrowth, and the presence of skin folds on the body.

The second haircut for coarse-wooled and semi-coarse-grained rocks is made in August or September. With it you can not be late, because before the onset of cold weather, animals should grow their hair.

Ways of shearing sheep

Sheep are sheared by hand or by machine. In the manual mode, special shears are used for shearing sheep. Though This option takes a long time, the scissors remain the most reliable tool for cutting. They are less susceptible to breakdown than electric cars, are easy to operate and serve for many years. Because of low productivity, scissors are used in small farms.

The machine method greatly accelerates the shearing of the sheep and facilitates the labor of the workers. In addition, with a machine haircut get a better fleece. This is achieved due to the fact that workers use special combs that fit tightly to the skin, so the fleece turns out to be much longer. In large farms, the machine method is used more often than shears for shearing sheep.

The order of haircuts

Sheep is prepared for shearing in advance. To ensure that the wool is not smeared with excrement of animals, they are not fed and do not give water for 12 hours a day before the procedure. In addition, fed animals are less tolerant of the haircut.

Fleece, shot in one layer, is valued more expensive, so the sheep are trying to cut the whole. First, release the head and neck from the coat, then the chest, groin and stomach. Lastly, the fleece is removed from the sides and back. Cutting the queens is done very carefully, so as not to damage the nipples of the animal. After the wool is removed, the skin of the animals is treated with a disinfectant solution.

To wool is better stored, it is washed in soapy water, rinsed well and dried. The prepared fleece is properly folded. For this, on both sides, 1/3 of the rune is folded to its middle, and then folded again in half. Store the wool in a dry place.