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Susan had a little lamb,
Its Fleece Was...Oh, So Many
Colors
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Article by Raylene Nickel
Photos by Mike Boyatt
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When the creeping, crawling suburbs reached the edge of their
Nevada potato farm, Susan and Rex Mongold knew it was time to
move on. So they sold the farm and took to the road for a year,
looking for a peaceful place in the country to farm and call
home.
Their search ended in eastern Montana on 480 acres of irrigated
grass along a bend in the Tongue River near Miles City. There
they built up a flock of the little-known, multi-colored Icelandic
sheep. Seven years later, they now have a thriving, full-time
business managing a flock of 200 ewes and marketing the many
products their sheep produce, including naturally colored wool
and winter-weather-defying Icelandic felt hats made on the farm.
Icelandic sheep are born in a variety of colors that range
from snow-white to inky black. In between are shades of gray,
champagne, apricot, tan, cinnamon red, milk chocolate, and blue-black,
as well as badgerface and mouflon (black or brown body with
cream-colored points). Their wool is valued for its natural
color, especially by anyone allergic to chemical dyes.
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Rex and Susan Mongold display hats and a sweater
they made from the naturally colored wool of their Icelandic
sheep.
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Long Fleece
The fleece of Icelandic sheep differs from that of other breeds. They
have a fine inner coat which grows to a length of about four inches.
Their soft outer coat is long and naturally wavy, growing up to 18 inches
long in one year. It is also strong and abrasion resistant. These two
types of wool from the same animal can be separated for different uses.
Icelandic sheep naturally shed their own fleece in late winter or early
spring. During this shedding period it can actually be plucked by hand.
But the Mongolds shear their sheep because it is faster, neater, and
removes larger amounts of the wool. The sheep are sheared in both spring
and fall to obtain the best quality wool. Weighing only 160 pounds when
mature, ewes are easy for anyone to handle.
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The colorful outer coat of Icelandic sheep can grow
up to 18 inches long in one year.
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“Icelandic sheep were brought to Iceland in the ninth and
10th centuries by early Viking settlers,” Susan explained.
“There they were developed with no grain inputs. They thrive
on grass and hay alone. They’re disease free, and the young
animals grow quickly during a short growing season.” These
traits, she added, give the breed the potential to be a practical
terminal cross on conventional North American breeds.
The sale of breeding stock is this couple’s largest source
of income from their sheep. Ewe and ram lambs are sold throughout
the United States. They receive $500 to $1,000 per animal. Susan
keeps detailed breeding and lambing records and is able to sell
starter flocks that will reproduce true to a specific color.
Late Summer Weaning
Susan described meat from Icelandic lambs as “light-tasting
and of gourmet quality.” About half of their ram lambs go
to the meat market. Lambs are harvested at weaning in late August
when they weigh 90 to 110 pounds. The meat is sold directly to
stores and individuals.
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Restaurants, health-food stores, and the Miles City Farmers’ Market
are outlets for their meat. A Web page also generates mail-order sales
to customers around the country. When the meat must be shipped long
distances, it is sent by next-day-air, frozen and packed in ice. Shipping
charges often cost the customer as much as the meat. The meat itself
is priced so the Mongolds will clear $100 a carcass.
A bonus to direct marketing of meat is income from the pelt on which
the wool remains attached to the skin. The processed pelt alone is worth
$118. Such pelts are used in the garment industry as fur trim.
Sheared Twice A Year
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The colorful fleeces are also of high value. Sheep are sheared
in March and November. Spring fleeces are sent to a processor
for cleaning because tiny bits of hay from the winter’s feeding
are imbedded deeply throughout. Lamb fleece sells for $15 a pound
while the white and colored wool from adult sheep brings $5 to
$8 a pound. Fall lambs produce three to four pounds of skirted
fleece, which is one that doesn’t include the underbelly
fiber. Each adult sheep will provide a fleece of four or five
pounds.
Susan sends some fleeces off the farm to be spun into yarns,
which she is test marketing. At this time she is selling a new
lace yarn as well as a sports-weight yarn for exceptionally warm
winter socks. The spring fleece is too short for spinning but
great for felting.
“The Icelandic fleece is one of the best for felting,”
Susan said. “The long tog fibers provide a network, or structure,
for the finer fibers to felt around. The result is a soft, lustrous,
supple felt in beautiful natural colors.”
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Rex Mongold prepares to bale alfalfa hay, an important
part of his sheep’s diet during the winter.
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Warm Icelandic Hats
Rex occasionally crafts felt hats from the fleece. Some of his designs
mimic turn-of-the-century beaver hats which are exceptionally warm in
bitter cold winter weather. It takes about a half pound of fleece to
make one hat, which sells for $150 to $200.
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Susan Mongold and her Icelandic friends.
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Felting is an old, but simple art. “You just have to wet
the wool with warm, soapy water,” Susan said. “Then
you rub the wool against itself, and the fibers act like fishhooks.
The more you agitate the wool, the more the fibers hook together.
What you get is a water and fire resistant material you can’t
pull apart.”
The fall fleece works bests for spinning and making yarn because
summer grazing on pasture keeps it clean and free of dry plant
debris. The two types of fiber from the fleece can be spun together
to make a wool suitable for sweaters, socks, and weaving. Susan
direct-markets this fleece to hand-spinners through ads in a craft
magazine and from her Web page.
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One Sheep, Two Wools
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“However, the two fibers cans be easily separated, too,”
she added. “The thule, or inner fiber, is fine and soft enough
for baby clothes and against-the-skin garments. The tog, or outer
coat, is long-wearing, and the Icelandic people used it for saddle
blankets, sails for their boats, and knitted socks that were worn
on the outside of the sheepskin boots to provide a hard-wearing
cover. Tog was also used for thread and embroidery work. Both
fibers are lustrous and soft to handle.”
The hardiness and foraging ability bred into Icelandic sheep
for generations has made them one of the most self-sufficient
of all sheep breeds. Ewes lamb on pasture in April and May with
little human intervention. They are good mothers and don’t
need to be “jugged” with their newborns in close confinement
just to establish a bond between ewe and lamb.
Sheep on the Mongold farm graze irrigated pasture forages from
mid-April through November. A rotational system is used to keep
them on good grass at all times. During the winter months they
eat only grass and clover hay. Ewe lambs also receive a small
amount of corn as a supplement, about one five-gallon bucketful
to every 100 lambs.
For winter shelter the sheep are provided with tunnel huts, made
of cattle panels bent in a U-shape and covered with a tarp.
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All About Lambs
Other than eartagging, the lambs require little attention. Because
they are naturally short-tailed, the lambs don’t need docking.
And because the lambs grow quickly on their mother’s milk and the
clover-grass pastures, ram lambs reach slaughter weights before becoming
sexually active, making castration unnecessary.
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Twin lambs are common in the Mongold flock. Mature ewes typically
produce a 200-percent lamb crop, while yearling ewes lamb at a
125 percent rate.
The sheep are bred with semen imported directly from Iceland.
Ram selection is made with an eye to continuously improving the
fleece, carcass quality, and hardiness of the sheep in their flock.
“I see a great future for Icelandic sheep,” Susan said,
noting that she and her husband earn their entire livelihood from
their flock. “There’s an incredible market for all the
products that these sheep produce. But because of that, it’s
a breed that requires an entrepreneurial kind of person who wants
to direct market those products. The sheep can earn a living for
that kind of person.”
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Susan invites visitors to her Web site at icelandicsheep.com.
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