Sheep Industry News April 2024

LONG WOOL SUPERSTARS The Wagners attribute much of their success to the Coopworth breed. Despite the fact it’s a long wool not often thought of as fine wool, it was exactly what Carol was look ing for when she set her mind to developing her own flock. After all, the wool initially was going to be just for her own personal use, so it needed to be something she liked and could work with on a daily basis. Carrie Flores – who works as a trusted assistant with both the mill and the flock, and documents it all with stunning photos that she regularly enters in the ASI Photo Contest – said Carol has developed an expert eye when evaluating the flock’s wool. “She has an exact idea in her mind what she wants the sheep to look like, and what she wants from the fleece they produce. There’s Coopworths, and then there’s Hidden Val ley Coopworths. She’s spent 30 years picking out what she thinks she needs. Now, she can just look at them and go, ‘Yep,’ or ‘Nope.’” So, what does Carol base her selection decisions on? She admits her standards aren’t that difficult to follow. But the process clearly takes a trained eye. “If I’ve got a lamb who’s fiber looks like an adult fleece already, then that’s not what I want,” she said. “It’s only going to get coarser. I look for length of fiber, does it have luster? Coops don’t have crimp, they have waves. If they’re

too straight, they’ll just become hairy, and that’s not what I want. I guess over the years I just learned to really look at the fleece and know if it was I wanted or not.” Paul was onboard with any dual-purpose breed. “I told her she could have any animal she wanted, but it needed to be something that I could eat,” he said. “The Coopworth is a great dual-purpose animal. The fiber indus try has been a godsend for us. We make more money on wool than we do on meat, and I’ll sell 300 lambs a year. But it won’t come close to touching what we make on the wool. I think the whole industry has overlooked this tremendous resource.” Color certainly sets Hidden Valley apart. In addition to natural colors from the sheep, Carol and Carrie spend quite a bit of time dyeing wool in a variety of wild colors that quickly draw knitters and handspinners to the company’s booth at any show. Carol and Paul setup shop at approxi mately 10 fiber shows a year throughout the Midwest in addition to weekly appearances at nearby farmers’ markets. “I was on the board in Wisconsin when they started the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival,” Paul said. “Originally, they wanted it to just be sheep shows, but I fought them tooth and nail on that. It started with 20 vendors, and now there’s 100 and something. That show is really supported by the fiber people. Carol runs the fiber classes and they’ll have 2,000 students coming in for those.

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