Triage

about a third of the triaged white wool

With a lot of wool for Susie to wash card and spin we thought about trying to have some of it done mechanically "out of house".  There is a mill about an hours drive away in Niaux. We sent out first batch of wool there to be washed about 7 years ago but were not happy with the results as it came back felted. I think ouessant wool being very fine, felts easily if not treated carefully. We washed our white fleeces soon after shearing but then found out that Niaux will only spin batches of at least 50kg into yarn - equivalnt to about 120 ouessant fleeces! We have 12 white and 12 brown/black. We eventually found a number of smaller mills in other parts of France but because of the equipment used, won't accept washed fleece.

Niaux have no minimum for carding, so we decided to give it a go on the remaining white fleeces. First we needed to do a third triage to eliminate any remaining vegetable matter, coarse or felted fllece. The fleces are already triaged at shearing and before washing. Three enormous sacks of white fleece weigh just 7.5kg. The triage took us about 7 hours and eliminated about 1kg. 

Now we have to wait for the results. Meantime there are the brown fleeces to do.

Susie is keen to try putting coats on the sheep to keep the fleeces clean and unfelted...we may try a couple.