[Jacob-list] Shearing Time! / Grey Banding in Fleeces

[Lynette Frick]

Yay! Its finally that time of year.... I only have five left to shear now. I
was pretty much jumping for joy when those fleeces where coming off. This is
the first year that I have used those new feeders for a whole season, and
they worked pretty darn well. There was still debris down the backs of some
of the older ewes and of coarse in the necks, but considering I had to chuck
nearly 25 fleeces last year due to irreversible amounts of VM contamination
I  was pretty impressed. It was nice to finally have workable fleeces...
Next step coating!

I do have a question for you all:

What might be the cause of grey bands in the fleeces? These bands are only
across what would be the "black" spots, and are verying shades of grey. They
look pleasant, but at this rate I'm not going to have any black wool! I'm
thinking it may be something nutritional, but am not sure. Most of the sheep
that I have noticed it on have a tendency towards greying anyway, but this
is extreme, and generally in the same location on each animal. Very
noticeable. I have never had bands like this in my previous clips. I'm
thinking that maybe I should have blood work done to check for mineral
deficiencies? The only difference from the previous years is that the sheep
haven't had regular access to mineral blocks that last 4mo. and that looks
about where the banding would begin?

I put a page up http://www.idealjacobsheep.com/greybands.html which has a
picture that shows pretty clearly how this looks on several of my sheep.

Thanks in advance, and happy shearing!


Lynette Frick
IDEAL FARM
Jacob Sheep
www.idealjacobsheep.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.pairlist.net/pipermail/jacob-list/attachments/20090117/e66e60aa/attachment.htm>