Livestock Conservancy Shave Em to Save Em Campaign

Rules

Although not mentioned in the rules, providers (which must be Livestock Conservancy members) can not sell conservation breed wool that is not from their own animals (per correspondence with the Livestock Conservancy late 2018).

Fiber Artists:

This is a great program to help save rare breeds of sheep and also to learn more about the characteristics of their fiber.  Even if you don’t pursue the program you can search through our member listings to locate those near you who are raising rare breeds on the Livestock Conservancy lists.  By purchasing products from them you are also helping to preserve these rare breeds.  For a list of breeds see the next 2 links below.

Heritage Sheep Breeds List by Conservation Priority Status (annually updated web page)

Flyer for Providers Promoting Program to Fiber Artists

For full info see the Livestock Conservancy website:  http://livestockconservancy.org/index.php/involved/internal/SE2

 

Hidden Powers of a Sheep

Nice article in the winter issue of Craftsman Quarterly:

https://craftsmanship.net/the-hidden-powers-of-a-sheep/

Judith Schwartz writes about the people who are trying to turn around the near disappearance of American wool processing within the United States.  Ecological reasons for keeping sheep (they contribute to carbon sequestrian if pastures are managed correctly), natural dying,  and efforts to make  American wool products competitive (based on value not on cost) with Chinese products made from American wool.

Experience Wool Now on YouTube

The American Wool Council has provided fans of the all-natural fiber with a new way to Experience Wool through the creation of a YouTube page. The page currently hosts three videos produced by Brand Juice in the past year to market American wool to a wide variety of consumers.

The videos were shown on multiple occasions during the American Sheep Industry Association Annual Convention last month in New Orleans, and can now be shared from the YouTube page by producers looking to promote American wool and its many benefits.

In The Luxurious Fiber, a narrator explains that the “Fabric designers choose first to achieve pure elegance, absolute luxury and unmatched style” is American wool.

The High Performance Fiber is aimed at more demanding users and offers, “There’s one time-tested, expedition-proven material you can count on. One fabric for four seasons. Experience the confidence of American wool.”

Natural and Sustainable promotes what might be the fiber’s greatest trait. “What this miracle becomes is infinitely remarkable, versatile, beautiful and in the end, sustainable.”

If you haven’t seen them yet, check out the videos. Share them with your friends, family and clients, and help the American Wool Council in promoting this natural, renewable, sustainable fiber that is perfect for any occasion in any season.

Access the YouTube Channel:   https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFhONGmym_OM8ZWxPqw9Fag

For more information on American wool, visit AmericanWool.org or follow Experience Wool on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Source: ASI Weekly February 8, 2019

Links Update February 1, 2024

‘Shop local’ drives sales of American-made yarn

Source:  https://www.morningagclips.com/shop-local-drives-sales-of-american-made-yarn/

 

Raw Material Offers One Woman’s View of the American Wool Industry

New book released Oct. 2018….Raw Material – Working Wool in the West

Follow a sweater with an “Italian Merino” label back far enough and chances are its life began not in Milan, but in Montana.

Many people want to look behind the label and know where their clothes come from, but the textile supply chain – one of the most toxic on the planet – remains largely invisible. In Raw Material, Stephany Wilkes tells the story of American wool through her own journey to becoming a certified sheep shearer.

What begins as a search for local yarn becomes a dirty, unlikely and irresistible side job. Wilkes leaves her high-tech job for a way of life considered long dead in the American West. Along the way, she meets ornery sheep that weigh more than she does, carbon-sequestering ranchers, landless grazing operators, rare breed stewards and small-batch yarn makers struggling with drought, unfair trade agreements and faceless bureaucracies as they work to bring eco-friendly fleece to market.

Raw Material demonstrates that the back must break to clothe the body, and that excellence often comes by way of exhaustion.

With humor and humility, Wilkes follows wool from the farm to the factory, through the hands of hardworking Americans trying to change the culture of clothing. Her story will appeal to anyone interested in the fiber arts or the textile industry, and especially to environmentally conscious consumers.

Stehanie’s website:  https://stephanywilkes.com/book

Book also available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Raw-Material-Working-Wool-West/

 

Pics from the 2018 Festival

The 24th annual Sheep & Fiber Festival was held on Saturday and Sunday at the Hunterdon County Fairgrounds in Ringoes.

The festival was presented by the Garden State Sheep Breeders, a non-profit, educational group promoting sheep and wool products in New Jersey.

This year they added two breeds: the Scottish blackface and Valais blacknose, a new breed to the United States, on display courtesy of Stone Manor Farm.

Source and to see the Photo Gallery:

https://www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-democrat/index.ssf/2018/09/for_24_years_nj_sheep_have_had_their_own_day_in_hu.html

 

2018 Contest Results

Breed Display

1st Place Cheviot, American Miniature The Shepherd’s Croft – Toni Keller
2nd Place Scottish Blackface Stone Manor Farm (Kevin & Reni Melvin)/ Swayze Inn Farm (Bob & Diane May)
3rd Place Romeldale/ CVM Swayze Inn Farm (Bob & Diane May)

 

Fleece Show

Sheep Shows

Babydoll Classics Commercial Grade
 Hampshire Jacob Meat (Open)
Romney, White (no show 2018) Romney, Natural Colored (no show 2018) Shetland
 Wool-Fine & Medium Wool-Long

Shepherd’s Lead

Skein Contest

Contact North Country Spinners.

 

Page Updated:  26-Sep-2018

Montana Researchers Pioneer Using Wool for Erosion Control

The stuff of socks, sweaters and high-tech underwear now has yet another use, according to a Montana State University study: revegetating roadsides to prevent erosion.

At a road cut along Highway 287 near Three Forks, Mont., healthy patches of native grasses are a testament to the lasting benefits of using wool, said Rob Ament, a research scientist at the Western Transportation Institute in MSU’s Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering.

When Ament’s research team began the project four years ago, they suspected that wool might have advantages over the straw and shredded coconut hull used in traditional erosion control blankets, which buffer slopes against sun and rain until seeds germinate and plants take hold. The results of the recently concluded study, however, surprised him.

“We were astonished by the vigorous plant growth,” Ament said during a recent visit to the site.

At the square-meter plots that received erosion blankets made of wool blended with straw, the team observed three to four times more perennial grasses – a result Ament called “stunning.”

Eli Cuelho, a former research engineer at WTI, also contributed to the project, as did Stuart Jennings and Monica Pokorny at KC Harvey Environmental, a Bozeman-based consulting firm specializing in reclamation. Pokorny, who now works as a plant materials specialist at the Bozeman office of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, worked with Ament to develop the wool products and conduct the field trials.

Revegetating disturbed ground along roadsides is required by various laws to prevent takeover by noxious weeds and runoff of sediment, which can harm fish and other aquatic life, and it also contributes to the longevity of the roadbed by reducing pooling water, according to Phil Johnson. He oversaw roadside reclamation for the Montana Department of Transportation for 25 years before retiring in 2017. Johnson provided guidance for the project, which received an MDT grant, and was “very pleased,” he said.

Prior to the experiment, MDT had seeded the road cut in a traditional manner with a seed drill. But the plants on the exposed, west-facing slope had difficulty surviving, and the agency recommended the road cut for the experiment, according to Ament.

“We picked a really harsh site,” Ament said. “We didn’t want it to be easy.”

Some erosion-preventing wool products were available internationally, Ament said. But they were prohibitively expensive to ship and weren’t designed specifically for revegetation. “We had to be creative and work with wool producers here in Montana,” he said.

Ament and Pokorny traveled to three Montana mills and worked with them to produce shredded wool, which was then sent to a Minnesota manufacturer with the specialized equipment for blending the wool with straw to produce the erosion blankets. The researchers then seeded the Highway 287 road cut with native grasses and laid down the wool erosion blankets side by side with various other erosion blankets. They observed the site periodically and measured the growth of the grasses during the course of three years.

“We don’t know what mechanisms, exactly, give wool an advantage,” Ament said.

He suspects that the wool holds more moisture for a longer period. And wool, which is about 17 percent nitrogen, likely has a fertilizing effect on the plants as it slowly biodegrades. Ament said that wool also appears to adhere better to soil on steep embankments.

Ament noted that if wool were widely adopted for erosion control, it could support local manufacturing of the blankets as well as create a significant new market for Montana’s wool growers. Low-grade wool that is otherwise discarded could potentially be used.

Source: Montana State University (from ASI Weekly July 13, 2018)

Youth Ambassador Program

The Garden State Sheep Breeders organization is proud to announce the introduction of the Garden State Sheep Breeders Youth Ambassador Program. Part of our  mission as stewards of the sheep community is to develop and grow our sheep leaders of tomorrow. The program’s goal is to empower the selected candidate with the knowledge, skills and aspirations necessary to develop them into an effective advocate for the Garden State Sheep Breeders. The program will seek to strengthen and expand upon the chosen candidate’s leadership abilities so that they may serve as a positive role model while promoting sheep, build meaningful relationships and support the sheep industry.

For details and an application see the Youth Ambassador Program page.

A swarming, exotic tick species is now living year round in N.J.

An exotic species of tick that mysteriously appeared in New Jersey last year is now here to stay.

The New Jersey Department of Agriculture announced Friday that the East Asian tick, also known as Longhorned tick or the bush tick, which was discovered on a Hunterdon County farm last year, has survived the winter.

“Ongoing surveillance continued during the winter and on April 17, 2018, the National Veterinary Services Laboratory confirmed the Longhorned tick successfully overwintered in New Jersey and has possibly become established in the state,” it was stated in a news release.

Last summer, a farmer walked into the Hunterdon County health office covered in thousands of the ticks after she was shearing a 12-year-old Icelandic sheep named Hannah. Experts were called in to identify the tick which was not previously known to exist in the United States. The Department of Agriculture says it still does not know how the tick made its way to New Jersey.

The sheep has never traveled internationally and has rarely left Hunterdon County, according to Andrea Egizi, a tick specialist at the Monmouth County Tick-borne Disease Lab.

The longhorn tick. The larval and nymphal stages are difficult to observe with the naked eye. Larvae can be found from late summer to early winter. (Photo courtesy New Jersey Department of Agriculture)

When the incident was first reported, steps were taken to eradicate the insect from the farm by using a chemical wash on the sheep and removing tall grass where the they are known to dwell. The exact location of the farm and the identity of the sheep farmer is being withheld by the New Jersey Department of Agriculture.

Although the ticks are known to carry diseases, such as spotted fever rickettsioses in other parts of the world, tests performed on the ticks and the farm animals were negative for diseases.

Local, state and federal animal health and wildlife officials, as well as Rutgers University – Center for Vector Biology, are working together to eliminate the ticks and stop them from spreading. Wildlife and livestock in the area will continue to be monitored throughout the year.

The ticks are known to swarm and infest deer and animals other than sheep, so the department is warning that it has the potential to infect other North American wildlife species. The ticks reproduce asexually by cloning themselves and just one of them is capable of laying thousands of eggs.

State and federal Department of Agriculture employees will be working with the public to determine if the tick has spread and to educate the public about protecting their livestock and pets from the pest.

The nymphs of the ticks are very small, resemble small spiders and are easy to miss, according to the Department of Agriculture. They are dark brown, about the size of a pea when full grown and can be found in tall grasses.

Authorities are asking people to contact the state veterinarian at 609-671-6400 if they see any unusual ticks on their livestock.

Unusual ticks detected in wildlife should be reported to the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife, Bureau or Wildlife Management at 908-637-4173, ext. 120.

Any questions about tick-borne illness in humans should be directed to local health departments or the New Jersey Department of Health at 609-826-5964.

Source: http://www.nj.com/hunterdon/index.ssf/2018/04/a_swarming_exotic_tick_species_now_dwells_in_nj.html#incart_river_index