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The Good Living Guide to Keeping Sheep and Other Fiber Animals: Housing, Feeding, Shearing, Spinning, Dyeing, and More
A comprehensive and inspiring full-color guide to small-scale fiber farming and wool crafting—from selecting and raising sheep and alpacas to shearing, sorting, combing and spinning.
Fiber crafts—such as knitting, weaving, and crocheting—continue to surge in popularity, with sites like Ravelry (a social media community for the wool obsessed) gaining more than six million members. Artists are seeking quality raw materials in greater numbers. The cottage industry of supplying not only raw fleece, but handcrafted yarns, is strong.
Janet Garman has a small fiber flock (including Pygora fiber goats) and shares her expertise, as well as interviews, tips, and advice from fiber farmers and craftspeople across the country.
She offers the basics of properly raising sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas, and rabbits, with tips on selecting animals, feeding, housing, breeding, and healthcare. From there, instructions are provided for shearing, sorting, skirting, washing, picking, carding, combing, and spinning the wool. Enthusiasts will also find recipes and instructions for natural, plant-based dyes and advice for selling your finished yarn.
The proper care of fiber animals leads to a superior yarn product. Lapses in good care can show up in the fleece. As the demand for quality yarn and fiber grows, more people are becoming concerned with the animals’ treatment and care. Give your animals a good home and a happy life and enjoy superior fleece and yarn products for your own homestead or to sell.
Fiber crafts—such as knitting, weaving, and crocheting—continue to surge in popularity, with sites like Ravelry (a social media community for the wool obsessed) gaining more than six million members. Artists are seeking quality raw materials in greater numbers. The cottage industry of supplying not only raw fleece, but handcrafted yarns, is strong.
Janet Garman has a small fiber flock (including Pygora fiber goats) and shares her expertise, as well as interviews, tips, and advice from fiber farmers and craftspeople across the country.
She offers the basics of properly raising sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas, and rabbits, with tips on selecting animals, feeding, housing, breeding, and healthcare. From there, instructions are provided for shearing, sorting, skirting, washing, picking, carding, combing, and spinning the wool. Enthusiasts will also find recipes and instructions for natural, plant-based dyes and advice for selling your finished yarn.
The proper care of fiber animals leads to a superior yarn product. Lapses in good care can show up in the fleece. As the demand for quality yarn and fiber grows, more people are becoming concerned with the animals’ treatment and care. Give your animals a good home and a happy life and enjoy superior fleece and yarn products for your own homestead or to sell.
176 pages, Hardcover
Published February 19, 2019
17 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 5, 2021
I read a book about wool processes in America and they were discussing about how raising sheep isn't appealing to younger generations nowadays and my immediate gut feeling was, "But I'm interested!" and then I needed a moment where I had to check that, like, I'm interested?
But yes, I'm interested. (I've even had dreams about shearing sheep, ha.) The more I learn about fiber and fiber processes the more I'm aware of the pollution and human rights violations caused by the modern textile industry. The further I can get away from that, the better.
After I get my MFA in textiles, my future is pretty open. I'd like to raise sheep at some point, but I think I'll start with the angora rabbits as outlined in this book. (I...love...rabbits.) This was a good introduction and basic overview to raising fiber animals, but I'll need to read more and attend some workshops before I make any moves.
But yes, I'm interested. (I've even had dreams about shearing sheep, ha.) The more I learn about fiber and fiber processes the more I'm aware of the pollution and human rights violations caused by the modern textile industry. The further I can get away from that, the better.
After I get my MFA in textiles, my future is pretty open. I'd like to raise sheep at some point, but I think I'll start with the angora rabbits as outlined in this book. (I...love...rabbits.) This was a good introduction and basic overview to raising fiber animals, but I'll need to read more and attend some workshops before I make any moves.
September 26, 2020
Good easy read; I felt more confident about my new found friends (two young wethers) after reading this book. Skipped a bit over the fiber section but I know this book will be on my shelf for reference for years to come.
January 18, 2021
A great introduction and overview to a world I want to enter into and know basically nothing about. It’s lacking in detailed specifics for many areas, but it has given me ample information about what I need to learn more about.
April 3, 2022
Full of information, easy to use, vibrant photos, and a variety of topics. I love that she promotes other authors and content creators and farmers for further/more specialized research and information
June 16, 2021
Good introduction to raising fiber livestock heavily focused on sheep though with only briefs bits about other animals
April 25, 2022
Good introduction for anyone curious about raising animals for fiber. She focuses more on sheep in this book and I was particularly interested about rabbits, which she only had a few pages on.
April 14, 2019
Fantastic treatment of subject matter. Clear, concise and comprehensive. I’ve been a fan of the author’s blog, timbercreekfarmer.com, and felt- haha, no pun- I had to pick up this book in particular, given that fiber animals are- hopefully- in my future! I borrowed from the library, however, will purchase for my own farming library as it has all the information I need to get started and thrive!
June 12, 2020
Meh. Nothing new here. I’m more interested in alpaca than sheep.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews