Sheep and shearing

We have finally sheared all the sheep. I admit it is a bit late in the year and autumn will be here soon but we wanted to get them all done otherwise their wool gets very matted. I don't think the wool is growing much through the summer anyway and is perhaps just starting to grow now.
The last one we did was Mrs Suffolk's daughter from last year. She doesn't have a name, last year we planned on eating her, but then changed our minds, mainly because we like her (although she is very shy and a bugger to catch), but using the excuse that she might be pregnant. Which in fact she was. We need to give her a name. We will be eating her baby though as it is a boy.
The three we did before her we did in about 15 mins each as they were small and quite cooperative. She took longer though as she struggled a lot, she looks a bit tufty! Although the actual shearing doesn't take too long there is a lot of time spent catching the right ones before we can start so it is quite a time consuming activity.

We are also keeping her sister from this year who is white - we hope they will give good sized lambs with Harris. We haven't sheared any of this years lambs, they don't need doing until next year. Harris is pretty woolly and should be good and warm over winter.

The sheep haven't weaned their lambs yet but I think it should be pretty soon and then they will start thinking about making next years ones... We could force the weaning but we are keen for the ones we are going to eat to get as fat as possible before we do.