Happy Feet – Lamb Style

I finally did the deed I’ve been working up to for months. I flipped my lambs onto their bottoms and trimmed their hooves. It was just as the books say — once they are flipped on their backs they are pretty well immobilized. I was overdue for getting my clippers sharpened and had to pry them open periodically to keep them working, but I powered through it. They now have all the excess cleared off so their feet are relatively flat on the bottoms again. I feel pretty proud of myself!

In this picture I am trimming Dot while Cookie hovers nearby. Cookie is always the braver of the two and I had done her first, but she insisted on crowding close to her sister while I worked on her. They feel much more secure near each other.

Look at their long wool. It is only seven months of growth and they aren’t due to be sheared for five more. I wonder how much of their weight is due to the wool because they were surprisingly heavy for little animals.

I am using this first year to gauge how much work the sheep are to care for. My husband is eager to get the girls bred so we can double or triple the herd, but I want to be sure what I am getting myself into first. I am very interested to see how different the wool is for yarn than the goat’s mohair. Mohair takes on color really well and sparkles with a characteristic “luster.” The yarn is very fuzzy, though, and it would be nice to have an alternative that is a bit smoother, perhaps even a blend to get the best of both.

Here is a picture of my latest sweater – all hand-spun mohair from Eddy. It’s the brown yarn that I dyed with walnut hulls.