Fleeces

Many farms have flocks that can and do produce excellent fleeces, but the sheep is just the first step in producing a fleece that the handspinner will truly enjoy.

Welcome to the MEGLIFLEECE Advantage!

Lets start with nutrition, we have formulated our own feeds and supplements to maintain our flocks health in all phases of life.

Next is stress management, nobody needs stress in their lives and our sheep don't either. M & M Livestock is situated in the rolling hills of Southwest MO and the combination of shade, water and pasture helps us provide a stress and "break" free fleece.

Now its time to talk about shearing, many farms hire a professional Shearer to come by once a year and shear their entire flock. Here at M & M Livestock we shear the fleece when it is at its prime. Loris is with the flocks and is examining the animals on a day by day basis to determine exactly when the best time to shear. Commercial Shearer's are fast , but speed isn't always to your advantage. They try to minimize second cuts but they need to shear at least 100 animals a day just to feed their families! We shear when the fleece is ready, remove all tags from the fleece and do a preliminary skirting right on the shearing deck! At that time we give the fleece a grade and determine if it will be sold as a MEGLIFLEECE premium fleece or a standard spinning fleece or even a felting fleece. And yes, there are times that we will throw a fleece away because it wont stand up to our standards.

Next, the fleece is individually bagged and numbered so we will know which animal produced it and stored in our warehouse for future cleaning.

In a few weeks the fleece is pulled out of the warehouse and receives and intensive picking through, every lock of fiber is handled, inspected and picked. We DO NOT lay a fleece on a skirting table and pick at the veggie matter, we have designed and built our own cleaning tables and clean the fleece lock by lock, this is a process that takes anywhere from 1 to 3 hours. We know that that is a lot of labor but we feel that you our customer is worth it.

Next the fleece is judged, (just like in a fleece competition), Loris teaches fleece judging all over the Midwest and he uses the same scorecard on every MEGLIFLEECE as we use in a show.

Now is the time for the fleeces photograph, we take this image so you have an opportunity to examine the color and crimp on the web. We also wash a lock of the fleece at this time to get an idea of the finished product and insure that is will wash out easily, if it doesn't, it will never be awarded the title, MEGLIFLEECE!

Now the fleece will be loosely packed in a cardboard box to await sale to you, the customer with the MEGLIFLEECE ADVANTAGE!

After the sale, we package the fleece in a almost indestructible bag and include, a hard copy of that fleeces scorecard and fleece washing instructions.

As you can see, the trek that our fiber takes to go from sheep to MEGLIFEECE, is an arduous one but we think that you should have the very best fiber we can produce. Now please take the time to review our scorecard and familiarize yourself with the definitions so when you link to the card from the auction description you can start to apply the MEGLIFLEECE ADVANTAGE. Happy spinning!