As you know, we buy the Herdwick wool for our Chimney Sheep directly from the farmers. This is easy to write in one sentence, but the reality of it is that it is a complicated process. We’ve been collecting it from the farms and sending it straight to the scourers (commercial wool washers) in Bradford. This means coordinating several farmers to get at least 5 tons in a load, with hauliers’ availability and the scourers’ availability. Finally, the scourers said they needed the wool in proper bales, not stuffed into wool bags, and the whole thing became so complicated that the only option was to get a shed built at our premises so we could collect the wool and get it baled and weighed and stored until we actually needed the washed wool.
Fortunately, a grant came up last summer and we were lucky enough to be successful with the application. Not only does it cover half the cost of the wool shed, it also contributed to the purchase of some machinery: a baler for compressing the wool into nice solid bales, and a wool pelleting machine. We like to use the Herdwick wool for the things Herdwick is good for: Chimney Sheep for its coarse wiriness, underlay for its springiness and rugs for its gorgeous colours and hard-wearing properties. However, we get a lot more wool than we actually need. And, this may surprise you a little, because it surprised me, but even though we are paying well above market rate for the wool, we’ve been getting some that’s, well, how do I say this? Not the best quality. So, we’ve invested in a wool pelleting machine, and the poorer quality wool can be made into sheep wool pellets. We’ve been buying these in bulk from another supplier, and they’ve proved to be very popular. They are great for absorbing moisture, and slowly releasing it in hanging baskets and planters and such. They simultaneously slowly release fertiliser for the plants. And they have slug and snail-deterring properties. So they are a great product, and in demand from our green-fingered customers. As you know, we hate waste at Chimney Sheep so it suits us perfectly to be able to use our quiet time in the summer months to make our own sheep wool pellets.
Having the wool shed also means we can take more of the other types of wool that farmers offer us. We’re selling Herdwick wool in its greasy form in 10kg bags, as well as white and black wool. This is principally for putting on the garden as mulch / fertiliser / slug snail deer and rabbit deterrent, but it is also bought by customers who like spinning greasy wool. We don’t always have it in stock but if you click on “email me when back in stock” you’ll get notified when we’ve had a delivery and got it all bagged up in 10kg lots.
