I remember reading an article in something when I first joined the Guild about a sheep in New Zealand, a Merino sheep, who had evaded shearing for 6 years until in 2004 he was found in a cave. He went missing from his herd in 1998, the owners presumed he'd died.
He captured the worlds (of spinning anyway) imagination and was finally sheared live on tv which can be seen here (it's a bit long but you can skip through it, worth looking at just to see his size and how they rolled him over to be sheared!). His fleece at that time weighed 27kg! Can you just imagine that! It was sold in auctions and the money went to a kids charity.
Sadly Shrek, as he was named, died a few days ago at the grand old age of 17, a grand age for a sheep (over 90 in human years). RIP Shrek x
Dawn - that was amazing! I watched the whole thing, and I will let John and James see it later. We took a short video of our 2 this morning, and I will try to find a space to post it sometime. I thing the way things are going it might take us 9 years to shear them too!
ReplyDeleteThanks for that. xx
Blimey he must have been hot ;o)
ReplyDeleteI thought of you and your sheep Jacqui, imagine the wool though! I watched it all - was amazed at the sight.
ReplyDeleteYes Shell, no wonder he was in a cave, trying to keep cool!
Wow, I remember reading about that!! What an enormous amount of wool. Imagine how light and free he must have felt once it had all been sheared off. I'm going to watch the shearing now, thanks for that!!
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