Wool

Over the weekend the last 2 sheep got rid of their wooly coats and as we drove home with the smell of sheep on my hand I realised how different they smelled compared to a few days earlier where I assisted shearing somewhere else. When you use as many fleeces as I do you you start to notice subtle (and not so subtle!) differences in the smell of wool. Everyone talks about the feel but the smell is not often discussed. Unless it is from a brave person who has never set foot in a farmyard and bought their first fleece!

I often talk to shepherds and farmers about fleeces the may sell or give me and give them feedback about how the fleece appeared. Wool breaks, yolking, canary and scurf all indicate things about the sheep. Wool break an simply be because of the weather and the time the sheep was shorn. If it is half way down a lock it is more likely that that sheep experienced something very stressful.

A healthy sheep will have a fleece that smells almost sweet, with a good bit of lanolin. If it smells sour that sheep was most likely over fed and uncomfortably fat. A sheep that had fly strike at time of shearing has a very particular smell that is a bit like decay. difficult to describe but oncec you have smelled it once it is a smell you will never forget. Sheep that have excessive mites have their own smell too.

Those that have been exclusively grass/hay fed vs those that get a lot of grain smell differently too. Not all different is bad of course! Our oldies get extra feed in winter as they would struggle otherwise. Some meds are necessary and fly strike is a horrible reality that will be dealt with quickly and still leaves a trace in the fleece.

So next time you get a raw fleece give it a good sniff and see what you can figure out from that!