The Good Living Guide to Keeping Sheep and Other Fiber Animals: Housing, Feeding, Shearing, Spinning, Dyeing, and More: Raising Fiber Animals and Shearing, Carding, Spinning, and Dyeing Wool - Hardcover

Garman, Janet

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1680994042 ISBN 13: 9781680994049

Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, 2019

Synopsis

A comprehensive and inspiring guide small-scale fiber farming and wool crafting.

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. In these pages, readers will learn 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.

About this title

About the Author

Janet Garman is a farmer and freelance writer in Maryland. A career in writing began after the nest emptied. All the years of studying farm management and raising many species of livestock along with a full house of children led her to begin sharing her experience in a farm theme blog and website, timbercreekfarmer.com. Janet's background includes a degree in large animal farm management and animal science from University of Maryland and decades of farm and homesteading experience. Her other books are 50 DIY Projects for Your Chickens,Chickens from Scratch, Raising Your Own Chickens from Hatch to Egg Laying and Beyond, Habitat Housing for Rabbits, and Margarita and the Beautiful Gifts. She lives in Crownsville, Maryland.

Edition details

• Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1680994042
• ISBN 13: 9781680994049
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 160