The only grooming we do is to sometimes blow vegetation out of the wool with our blower. Most herders have their animals sheared by a professional shearer but since we have the necessary equipment and sometimes have difficulty connecting with the shearer we often shear ourselves. We don't claim to be as fast or good as a professional but we feel that we are more gentle on the animals. Our daughter often comes to assist her father with the shearing.
If one was to leave their herd of long, flowing wooled angora goats in the morning and come home sometime after the shearer had left they might be inclined to wonder where their beautiful healthy goats had gone and what these scrawny little examples were that were left in their place! Following are examples of a goat before and after shearing and lest you think that the finished example is one of the scrawny ones I mentioned keep in mind that this one is ready to kid in a short while!
Since we shear ourselves in a low impact manner we are able to do quite a bit of skirting of the fleece as we go, simply shearing off and gathering up the prime fleece before shearing off and discarding the remainder. As we gather up the fleece to bag we watch for stray undesirable pieces they may have gotten in.
Find out about their wool and acquire some for your next project
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