The Sheep and Wool Story

Come spring, new lambs are born on lush, early
pasture where recently dormant soils are giving up
their best shot of minerals and optimum
digestibility of juicy greens. Raised at their
mother’s side, the flock is kept in rapid rotation
to maintain a healthy stand of grasses and
legumes for nitrogen fixing, minimize parasite
ingestion, and timed to maximize nutritional
requirements and symbiosis of growing lambs and
nursing mothers as well as the soils and grasses
that support them.

Yes, sheep fertilize as they go, which makes them
wonderfully sustainable, but then too much of a
good thing requires balance. No duh. Not so good
to eat where you poop (I think that’s written in
several of the holy books and/or manuals for
better living).

My animals thrive on sun and rain on marginal, top
of the watershed, midcoast soils, as they slowly
grow their primary crop- wool. Soft, warm,
resilient, completely renewable, naturally
fireproof, hair (an animal protein, not mineral or
vegetable) which has the perfect scale structure
to spin or blend for integrity of product
performance through the ages and emulated by every
synthetics manufacturer since their beginning of
time.

After seven months of pasture season, the flock
still “grazes” on harvested, ensiled grasses
placed on the top of well drained hills, with run
in sheds located nearby to house them if they
choose. The ensiled grass is a “live food” like
saurcraut or kim chi, full of natural enzymes
working their magic, helping to break down the
cellulose, and making the digestible protein more
available, and well, digestible, hence producing
less methane.

This better feed for a ruminant than hay or grain
is also more easily made in our New England
climate where the only constant is changeability.
Since it does not need to be dried down like hay,
or lugged around like corn silage, it is shorter
duration to make and requires less fuel in the
making, is wrapped in recyclable plastic, and OF
COURSE we use bio-fuels in the tractors.

“Genetically modified” for thousands of years,
sheep have breed capacities for meat, fiber and
milk, and in their perfection of one, others
traits are balanced against for production
efficiency and context. Though the natural growth
of ruminants to maturity is about two years, with
a one year production cycle for harvestable
product, these breeds have all been tweaked to do
what they do best under circumstances of their
production, distribution, and perishability, each
highlighting the incredible diversity, efficiency,
versatility, and sustainability of the species as
a whole.

Fiber breeds come in two flavors: apparel and
carpet. At opposite ends of the spectrum for
softness and durability, these “fiber machines”
focus their protein energy in trade for carcass,
bone mass, or milk quantities. Meat breeds at
optimum production efficiency grow very big and
fast, making market weight in 120 days and giving
“harvest” in time to breed ewes again for a
shorter than annual cycle.

These “meat machines” are less dependant on the
cycle and balance of grass management as a
primary input, and require more protein in the
form of grain supplements to achieve such
harvestable productivity in such short duration.
And did you know that there are more sheep milked
in the world than any other dairy animal? As a
“dairy machine,” these mammals have a higher
butter fat or milk solids content than any other
domesticated ruminant, where most of the world
gets their dairy calcium through cheese and kefir
or yogurt as they have neither refrigeration nor
the distribution we have become so spoiled to
expect here in the US.

The perfect “diet for a small planet,” my animals
get a haircut once a year, and this becomes yarn,
garments and blankets which I solar dye in
seawater at my farm and are manufactured by piece
workers around New England. You can find these
goodies at www.getwool.com. My lambs grow slowly
for a full year, being a more naturally inclined
ruminant species, designed to yield extremely soft
grades of wool and a fine boned, well muscled
carcass that gets around the hills and grazes well
rather than standing around a feedlot. They get
their first haircut at about ten months, when they
are evaluated for their fiber characteristics.

Then the hard decision is made, who will stay, and
who will be finished for market on the next
spring flush, or sold as breed stock. As such, I
have the luxury of keeping either males as
wethers (castrated for fiber production without
the hassles of hormones) or females, where they
are also selected for mothering ability. At the
end of its long and successful life, after
providing residual and passive warmth thru
retention of YOUR OWN excellent body heat rather
than generated from another harvested source,
wool as a protein chain is fully biodegradable
and breaks back down to the nitrogen molecules
from whence it came, ashes to ashes and all that
good stuff, making way for the next life form it
may have the good fortune to nourish if we let
it.

Just in case you might like to know, oh most
intelligent and wonderful food and fiber consumer.
You are part of the solution, and I applaud you
for being so well informed and making such wise
choices. Now, please chew your food to get the
most out of it, imbibe in balance, and honor my
little gifts from the pasture as you go out into
the world powered up with their own protein energy
to do your best too. We are all in this together,
the balance is held delicately, and there is much
sweet work to do as we all endeavor to feather
our nests without stealing warmth, light or love
from others, where we could in fact fertilize as
we go. And don’t forget- it is not good to eat
where you poop, nor poop where you eat, OR where
anyone else eats either. Enjoy your meal. Go in
Peace.

- Nanney Kennedy