# Fleece prices



## sbanks (Dec 19, 2010)

Do you sell your fleeces?
What breed?
Commercial buyer or hand spinner?
Washed or in the grease?
What's the average price?
Colored or white?

Trying to prove to my hubby that this could bring in a few extra $.

What other products do you sell from sheep?


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## sheepish (Dec 9, 2006)

Last year we got $86.86 net for about 65 fleeces from the Canadian Woolgrowers Coop.

The most I have gotten is about $12 for good ~10 lb. white or coloured young Corriedale fleeces, well-skirted, in the grease from hand spinners. That was many years ago.

Now we don't have sheep with consistently good fleece, so I don't try to market them.


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## bergere (May 11, 2002)

Had just a small flock.. 10 breeding ewes, few rams and what ever lambs I had each year.

I used to show my fleece at State and local Fairs, won a lot too.
Always had more buyers than I had fleece and back then, would charge $8.00 per pound.
I had very high quality clean fleece, well skirted.
Mostly colored fleece, though some white too.

Spent a lot of time marketing, which helped a lot.

If you have good quality fleece and willing to do a little work, you should be able to find buyers for it.


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## jerryf (Apr 1, 2006)

I have Shetland ewes. I sell my fleeces- raw unwashed- well skirted- very little vegetable matter (hay) I do not jacket my ewes. they are as nature intended.
A fleece is $25 plus shipping of $9. Colors are musket- light and dark, black, white, cream, light tan, brown. I will be shearing next week
Jerry


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## lambs.are.cute (Aug 15, 2010)

If I sell my wool (I use it myself mostly) I sell it locally to the spinner's guild. I usually charge $5 a pound unwashed but will wash it for a fee. Only have two ewes that provide handspinning quality wool so I don't jacket my ewes. They are a purebred romney - grandchampion wool every year at the two county fair - and a merino cross. Both provide white wool. In a way white wool is easier to sell because it can be dyed - and thus sold commercially- but there also is a fairly good demand for colored wool with handspinners (not so much the commercial). 

If you sell commercial you get less money. Around her black faced wool (suffolk, etc) was $0.92 a pound and white faced was $1.20 a pound (dorset, merino, romney, etc) when we shore last fall.


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## Olivia67 (Mar 6, 2008)

I sell my raw wool from our little flock for Babydolls for about $10.00 per fleece. I heavily skirt it and have pictures on our website of each fleece. I sell our fleeces on a raw wool yahoo egroup and have good success. I charge exact shipping charges. I've been told that we aren't charging enough so I may up my price to $12.00 per fleece this year. Basically I try to get back our shearing fee which is about $80.00. I may send out one or two to be professionally cleaned and turned into roving and try to make a little more on that this year. We don't jacket out sheep, our sheep have tight fiber that doesn't allow much VM to really work in and I hand pick out my sheep all the time anyway. It annoys them but I love to work my fingers through their fleeces and I love the smell of their lanolin too.


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## Somerhill (Dec 13, 2005)

We produce 30-40 fleeces per year, and sell about 5-10 of these as raw wool - just the cream of the crop. They are $12-15 per pound. I sold one fleece at our national show in Oregon for $19 per pound. The remaining fleece is washed and sent out to be made into rovings and yarns. The roving sells for $32 per pound, and the yarn for $64 per pound. I select the prettiest locks, wash and dye them, and sell for $3 per ounce. I'm told this is too cheap (by my customers- haha) 
I sell most the ewe lambs for breeding stock, a few breeding rams, and the remaining lambs are sold as meat at a farmers market. We plan to increase our ewe flock size this year and next.
We raise Bluefaced Leicesters. 
Lisa
http://somerhillfarm.blogspot.com


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## sbanks (Dec 19, 2010)

I've heard the Leicesters are the cream of the wool crop for handspinners.

I am looking at Icelandics right now and one southdown wether.


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