Raw Fleece

 Our Fleeces

We go to great lengths to keep our fleece in premium condition. Our sheep free range the idyllic rolling hills and woods of Southwest Wisconsin; they enjoy a wide variety of naturally grown pasture and forest plants.  Because of this you will occasionally find small bits of organically grown vegetation in their fleece.  We do not coat or cover our sheep, this requires more effort in our feeding practice, but we prefer an uncoated fleece.  Coated fleeces will often have matting/felting that occurs on the tips of the wool.  We also feel that the natural sun’s touch adds interesting color variation to the colored fleeces.  Our fleece is high quality fleece.  From the shearing floor it is well skirted, to remove any soiled and undesirable wool; this means that you receive only premium wool.

Our fleeces have consistently placed in the top of the Medium and Course Wool Divisions of the Handspinners class at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival Fleece Show for both the colored and white fleece.

Most of our fleece falls into the medium crimp category.  This is a good fleece for spinning and felting.  Our flock is a make up of various breeds, crossed for their beautiful fleece.  We have Salish, Merino, Border Leicester, English Leicester, and Blue Faced Leicester.  The cross of Fine Wool breeds with the Long Wool breeds creates a medium wool that is easy to work with and has the wonderful Longwool luster.

We shear our breeding stock in early March.  The lambs are shorn in October.  Watch for new fleeces to be listed for sale in those months!

Because some of our fleeces may be larger than you need, we will gladly split any fleece weighing over 4 pounds in half. 

Colored Fleeces

An interesting wool fact is that as sheep age they change wool color, just as people do.  Some sheep turn gray faster than others, some as soon as their first year.  This means that no two fleeces are alike, even from one particular animal from one year to the next.  In our flock we find that the darkest fleece usually comes from the youngest animal. 

I would be glad to send more photos of a fleece, in the interest of quick loading times these are a low resolution.

	Cinda is a naturally brown ewe that is turning to silver.  Her fleece has won 2nd place at the WI Sheep and Wool Festival fleece show, for the colored medium class.  This is a nice medium crimp fleece that has lots of color.  The overall color is more brown than this photo appears.   English/Border Leicester, Salish, Targhee Fleece weight: 7lbs.   Staple length:4"         $10.00/per lb.
	Dani is turning to a beautiful silver stage, she is more silver than brown.  This fleece is great in the natural color, or would make a wonderful heather overdyed.   This fleece will be available after WI Festival Show Sept 9-11.  English/Border Leicester, Salish, Targhee Fleece weight: 6 lbs    Staple length:4"       $10.00/per lb.
	April has a very colorful fleece, it has silver, dark brown, dark charcoal, and everything in between-tipped in light shade of brown.  Salish, English/Border Leicester, Targhee Fleece weight: 6 lbs.  Staple length: 4"       $10.00/per lb.
	Blue Faced Leicester Cross fleeces are soft as a lamb's fleece should be.  We have a number of these fleeces, varying in colors of brown.  Some are finer than others, all very clean and fun to work with.  English/Border Leicester, Salish, Targhee, Blue Faced Leicester.  Average Fleece weight: 3-4lbs.             Average Staple length: 2.5-4" $10.00/per lb.

White Fleeces

Our white fleece have the luster of the longwools, the fleeces shimmer in the sun.  These are beautiful in their natural color or will work great in your dying projects.

To order

To place an order please email us the item description with your name and address so that we may figure the shipping charges.

We ship USPS Priority Mail; you pay only the shipping charges, no handling fee. 

We accept payment through PayPal, personal check, or money order.

Tami and Dan Bowser

7370 Urness Road

Hollandale WI 53544

windridgefiberfarm@yahoo.com