A Lesson in Wool Classing

I wondered yet again as I crept up the mountainous gravel road to my AirBnB in the pitch dark, what had made me decide to register for the Wool Classing Course offered by the Vermont Sheep & Goat Association? Sure, I’ve spun my own yarn for two decades, and am acquainted with shepherds through my guild and various fiber festivals. But I’ve never raised sheep; I’d hardly set foot in a sheep barn before registering for the course! I figured on being the “weakest link” amongst the seventeen participants gathering at a branch of Vermont Technical College.

The next morning, as I approached our classroom building, I passed a car sporting a bumper sticker that read, “No Farms, No Fiber!” That was the answer to my presence here: I came to learn more about what a fiber farmer faces, and how I can be of support—including improving my ability to recognize quality fleeces.

Lisa Surber, of LM Livestock Services and the American Sheep Industry, welcomed us to three days of intensive discussion of wool: everything from how it emerges from the skin of the animal, to issues of health and handling that can damage the “clip” (crop) of a flock, to how the large-scale washing, carding, and spinning of wool in this country and elsewhere affects the monetary return that farmers see for their efforts.

On Western ranches, fine-wooled sheep are run in flocks numbering into the thousands. At shearing time, large numbers of shearers, wool handlers and wool classers work together in large and efficient staging areas. In this context, wool classers can have as few as seven seconds per fleece to determine fine distinctions in the health, diameter, and crimp of its wool. Sorted (“classed”) wool is pressed into 440-pound bales for transport to huge re-sale warehouses and scouring facilities in Texas. The very finest wools are then purchased by big-name design companies and trucked to North Carolina for carding or combing and spinning into yarn at the huge Chargeurs company.

However, a typical sheep farmer in the northeastern US may have only a handful of sheep, which may primarily be raised for their meat. The stronger (and often colored) wool that comes from these animals may draw only pennies per pound when collected at a local wool “pool.” Yet Surber emphasized over and over that every kind of wool has a purpose. Just as end-use consumers need to be educated about the qualities of wool that make it superior to synthetic fibers, farmers can also learn more about how to improve the cleanliness and quantity of their wool crop to maximize their return on the effort of keeping sheep.

We learned about everything from keeping polypropylene out of the barn and pasture, to avoiding spray branding, to coating individual animals as ways of reducing the contamination and sunburn that can affect the value of a fleece prior to shearing. Perhaps most importantly, we all learned how to assist with shearing: by keeping the shearing board clean; by handling a freshly-sheared fleece properly; and by “skirting” fleeces carefully, to remove the portions that may be stained or contain dung or kemp fibers, in order to leave the most valuable wool available for the easiest processing.

It is exciting to consider how this kind of information can benefit both consumers interested in purchasing local wool and the farmers who raise it. By taking part in the LocalFiber community I hope to help play a role in the mutual education of farmers and consumers to improve wool yields and pricing.

A Lesson in Wool Classing

Marcia Weinert

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Christine Edge