Rooing

Primitive varieties of sheep  shed their fleece every year . It is something that has been bred out of the usual sheep that you see. They are sheared to remove the fleece. There are some historical pictures of rooing sheep  - most seem to come from the Shetland Archive

 Icelandics, Soays  and Shetland can all be rooed, as can Borerays.




They were starting to shed  and would rub themselves up against the fencing and bits of fleece  were appearing on fencing.

So we decided to roo.




So first you have to catch and immobilise your sheep . That's a tale for another occasion.

And then  hold some of the fleece  and pull - and it separates at the layer between the old and new fleece , and comes away .

and just keep going. It doesn't seem, to bother that sheep (being restrained initially bothers them  more)

The fleece will that is removed will need to be processed in due course.
For some of the sheep , not all the fleece comes away  at the first sitting - so they will be back  in a week or so for another roo.

And the  roo'ed sheep  wanders off to go and do what sheep do in May ( eating grass mainly)