At 10:48 -0400 Earth time on 050427 [EMAIL PROTECTED] sent:
Thanks for your reasons. Someday I want to have a few sheep and (currently) my list of requirements are: Easy to handle for a small female.
Handling a sheep is mostly trickery rather than strength or size excepting the grossly giant breeds. A 350 pound Lincoln ram will stand up and let itself be sheared as if it was in a barber shop or salon
Thrive in cold, possibly wet and muddy winters and springs, humid summers.
Sheep are survivors. Heck, my son lives in Boston.
Do well on grazing and minimal supplemental food.
You might want to invest in some grain in critical periods in the cycle, but pasture is the best as a rule - if it is good pasture.
Nice variety of fleece, mostly for my own purposes, some to use in workshops.
You just answered your own question.
I would like to support the rarer breeds.
OK, but only if they need supporting.
I don't care to breed, so I guess docile wethers, runts and dry ewes are ok.
If you want crappy wool, yes.
Wethers can, and do have lovely wool - to die for... They are also like teenaged boys. They will spar, jump fences, and generally raise hell.
Runts are runts - in all respects.
Dry ewes are possibly a choice, but they will get fatter every year, and their wool will get worse every year.
I just got 2 nice Finn fleeces for workshops and the yarn feels so cool, silky and soft running through my hands. The locks are fine, long, thin, open and have a tendency to let debris fall between the locks.
The best Finn wool is superb. It can also be fuzzy and terrible. It is a case by case thing. We always culled the fuzzy ones.
Anyway, I loved it and I made my Mom a cap from it and she says she doesn't even know she has it on.
My sympathies to your mother. ;-)}
Ron Ron Parker - FiberNet list mom [EMAIL PROTECTED] For information http://hem.bredband.net/ronpar/fninfo.html
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