The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Rowantree1 on August 10, 2015, 04:33:04 pm
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This year I have 10 Shetland fleeces to sell or else send away to be spun. Does anyone know of a place that will process my fleeces for me? Last year I used a mill in Derbyshire which was very expensive. Any advice greatly appreciated. :)
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Try The Natural Fibre Co :spin:
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It will still be very expensive.... almost impossible to make a profit (selling spun wool) from that amount of fleece.
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Have you tried selling them to your local spinners guild?
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Thanks for your suggestions. I was hoping to keep some of the wool for myself too, but I know last time I sent it to Derbyshire and it cost me a fortune! :-\
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The only way you're going to get it done for free is to spin, felt or otherwise work it for yourself.
Yes, the mills charge a lot, proportionately more for small quantities. Have you had a look at the Natural Fibre Co website? They give you prices and plenty of advice about fleece and what you can do with it. You will also learn the correct terminology, how best to prepare a fleece for selling, showing or sending to the mill, what options you have for processing, such as carded to batts, carded to roving, spun to yarn, or spun then woven to throws, blankets.
Have a look through past posts on this topic in 'crafts' to see how others deal with this same subject.
For next year, if you are sending meat lambs off for slaughter in their first autumn, you can get the skins back, salt them, then send them off to be processed into gorgeous sheepskins.
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We have sent Shetland fleeces to NFCo and they need about 14-15 to make 20kg weight. You get back roughly half that weight in spun wool. It saves money if you do not have it balled, but left in skeins, or even on cones.
If you do not have 20kg, they will make up the weight but they charge for this. If you want separate colours, you need 20kg of each.