Source: Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food
Duane and Margaret Rose’s Shepherd’s Cottage Wool may have started out as a retirement project, but it is turning into an agricultural success story for the sheep wool industry in Saskatchewan.
“We originally started to look for an animal that was raised specifically for the fibre. We found information on Shetland sheep, and as it turned out, there was a flock at Fort Qu’Appelle that would be for sale in the next few years, and we eventually acquired it.
Shetland sheep are unique in a number of ways. They are a small, primitive breed, but the wool is very nice to work with, explains Margaret. It can be of 11 different colours. The Roses have Shetland sheep that are black and grey, and light grey and white, and brown, and light brown and very dark brown.
"It is quite a marketing asset to have the natural colours," explains Margaret.
From their initial 19 ewes, the Roses now have 85. The purebred Shetlands are being registered with the North American Shetland Sheep Association (NASSA).
“We shear them each March,” explains Margaret. “They quite enjoy it because they start getting really warm with a year’s worth of fleece on them. This can be quite a long fleece in the Shetland—six to eight inches. In the last few years, we have been breeding for shorter fleece because the mills have a hard time working with the long fleece. The long fleece is good for people who like to hand process the fleece or hand spin it.
“When we had only a few sheep, I did some of the processing myself—that means washing the fleece, picking and spinning it, but now we send it to a fibre mill to be processed. They turn it into either yarn or into spinning fibre called roving, and then the yarn is sold as either knitting or weaving yarn. The best way to add value to it is to turn it into finished product. Hand knitting, as you can imagine, is not a speedy process. So it takes quite a bit of effort to knit a sweater, but I do have knitters who knit for me.”
At Shepherd’s Cottage Wool, the farm retail shop, the Roses sell wool products from their sheep that include yarn, spinning fibre and the finished products like sweaters, mitts, hats, scarves, slippers, socks and other things.
“We also sell knitting-related products, such as spinning wheels, knitting needles, knitting bags, knitting baskets and carders," Margaret points out.
Her husband and business partner Duane is quite proud of Rose Farm’s accomplishments.
“We are pretty much self-sufficient in that we grow our own grain, barley or oats. We have grown field peas in the past, as well. We have our own hay field and our own pasture—we own a quarter section. So we have a place for the sheep for summer and winter. We have several barns and corrals to manage them and the equipment to do all this, to put up the hay and harvest the crop.”
After a rewarding career in education, Margaret and Duane needed to undertake a project that would enable them to stay engaged in lifelong learning.
“Our parents were farmers,” says Margaret. “We grew up around Swift Current, but we were living in Regina and looking for a way to get out of the city and to do something interesting. I always wanted to farm.