Lessons Learned From a Lamb

Here are some of the things I learned today while trying to clip my first ever wool lamb.

When the weather forecast is 111 degrees actual temperature, you worry about the well being of your animals.

When you are worried about the well being of your animals, it is difficult to sleep.

When a friend agrees to swap a goat kid for a wool lamb, back out at the last minute! Don’t do it!

Don’t procrastinate: When your wool lamb is small and the weather starts to get hot and the wool isn’t all that long, SHEER IT!

6:30 A.M. is as good a time as any to sheer a lamb.

It’s not easy to get a 100 lb. reluctant lamb up onto the stand by yourself. But you can.



You can not sheer a lamb with a $10 hair clippers from Dollar General, although it will shave a goat quite nicely.



This is how far I got with the clippers when it quit cutting all together.

A 20 year old pair of Pampered Chef kitchen sheers (here to fore known as “the barn sheers”) works great to sheer a wool lamb!



Wow! Look at me go!

Lambs don’t like to be shorn. They are very noisy about it.

Lambs bleed. Sorry Mr. Tumnus.

Horses don’t help at all when sheering a lamb.

Go away Woodrow!

The lamb will eventually shut up and stand still.



Using a kitchen sheers to sheer a wool lamb by hand will cause pain in the shoulder, forearm, wrist, thumb and hand and irritate your carpel tunnel.



A right handed person CAN operate a scissors with her left hand. Just go a little slower. I clipped most of Tumnus’ left side with my left hand.

Go away, Woodrow!

If you feel like giving up and you don’t think you can finish the job, just keep trying. Stick to it. Slow and steady wins the race. You can do it.



God made some really cool stuff! Do you KNOW how thick lambs wool is? Do you think God knows how many wool fibers are on each lamb? I clipped off 2-3 inches in length. Most of the wool left on him is still about an inch long. The fresh, clean wool is amazingly soft, bright golden yellow (from the corn I feed him?) and greasy! What an amazing creation!

Go away, Woodrow!!!

Horses never listen.

One lamb has a LOT of wool!

Lambs are the opposite of people. They are covered with wool all over their bodies EXCEPT their armpits. Seriously! There is a giant spot right under each front arm that is completely hairless! Who knew?

It takes a little over an hour to clip about 80% of the wool off of a large lamb by hand with a Pampered Chef kitchen sheers by yourself.

Lambs really have a LOT of wool!

Pretty is as pretty does. Mr. Tumnus may look hideous, but he will feel much cooler today and I will be able to sleep in tomorrow!

(p.s. I do care about his pride. Later this week, I will get ahold of a decent pair of clippers and make him all beautiful!)