Sheep Shearing Time

Sheep Shearing Time

I’m Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

Spring isn’t far way now and sheep producers are making plans for lambs as well as shearing. Donna Schoonover of Schoonover Farm in northern Skagit County talks about the type of sheep they raise on the farm.

SCHOONOVER: We mostly raise Shetland sheep, but we have a smattering of others. We have a California Red, a CVM, a Cotwald, a Cotwald cross, and then three Gotland cross sheep.

Schoonover has been raising sheep since 1998, but confesses she didn’t grow up on a farm.

SCHOONOVER: I’d always kind of wanted to have a farm, although I didn’t grow up on a farm.
And then just going to the fairs as a kid and then going to the fairs as an adult I fell in love with sheep. I then researched the breeds and figured out what I wanted and started with the shetland sheep.

Schoonover reports they have nearly forty head of sheep needing to be sheared in March and they don’t do that themselves.

SCHOONOVER: The biggest issue is getting a shearer, and so there’s a guy that comes over from Wales. He and his wife come over to visit his wife’s family and he helps fund the trip by shearing sheep locally.

That’s also the time to get other necessary chores with the sheep done.

SCHOONOVER: Since we have the sheep caught and are going through them one by one anyway we do a lot of other chores at the same time - medications of various types and hoof trimming.

Schoonover says that they recruit volunteers at this time to help and those lucky volunteers are offered a free fleece of their choice for helping out. Tomorrow Schoonover will talk about the marketability of sheep products as well as some of the other animals raised on her farm.

I’m Lacy Gray and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Ag Information Network.