Texas Class(ing)
Texas! Never ever did I anticipate a good reason for my heat-intolerant self to spend a week that far south. Why Texas? Certified Wool Classing school, something I felt would add to the services I provide during shearing and while developing markets for many clients’ wool. Turns out I was right and I’m looking forward to being armed with this new training for the spring shearing season. I write this one week back home in Vermont, happily reacquainted with my favorite below freezing temperatures and snow (I really do love winter) with a new notch in my traveling belt. Experiencing a new place was grand but I also came home with eyes wide opened to a greater breadth of this industry I had never experienced before.
The wool classing school I attended came about because, in short, of the poor reputation American wool had. American wool quality sat at a low point on the global market prior to major education and marketing efforts of the 1980s and 90s. At this time three campaigns were launched, my favorite called “Pack It With Pride”, to build up producers’ awareness and marketability of their clip¹. Two permanent programs by the ASI Wool Council were born out of these efforts: the Wool Quality Improvement Program and Wool Classing School. Both programs have adapted to evolving markets but the goal remains the same: to improve the quality of American wool.
Wool Classing School was developed with large, fine wool flocks in mind but proper preparation techniques apply to all wool. The overarching lesson I brought home was one on critical thinking. Every single fleece is different but as a classer it’s up to you to decide the best line, in other words the most appropriate destination, for every bit that comes off the sheep. Qualities the classer has to consider covers it all; relative fineness, staple length, strength, and cleanliness. Bellies, stains, paint, hair, vegetable matter, everything, and anything that can come along with a fleece has to be gone over and when done well completed quickly. In a proper setting, classers work alongside wool handlers at the time of shearing, so it is a fast-paced job. Let’s take a look at a model shearing set-up to break it down.
from ASI’s Certified Wool Classer Manual
Starting on the right we have a series of holding pens designed to move sheep towards shearers in a low-stress manner. Next is the shearing board where, well you can guess what happens. Between the shearing board and the skirting table is where wool handlers work collecting fleeces and getting them to the table. See what comes next? Classers decide which bin each fleece and skirted bit goes into for maximum value in uniform packages. Full bins get turned into pressed, labeled bales and viola; fresh wool packed and ready to go! I’m skipping over plenty of details but you should get the general idea. Classers can also step into several other roles while on the job. They might help with gathering and skiting fleeces or pressing bales. Their responsibility to class fleeces is critically important though. It’s up to them to maximize value for the producer and create a marketable clip in a way that is understood by buyers.
Classing Schools are hosted in various locations around the country. This one piqued my interest not because of location but timing. January is the easiest time to sneak off the farm. For all my staring at maps while making travel arrangements it never dawned on me to investigate the place I would be spending a short week. As it turns out, I arrived in the wool capital of Texas! To get the complete picture we need to go back a few centuries. Hopefully you enjoy history.
Land on both sides of the Rio Grande and lower Gulf Coastal Plain is steeped in ovine history with established flocks dating back to the 17th century. The first sheep were brought to the Americas by Spanish conquistadors as early as the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries². Iberian-native churra sheep were hardy, resilient little livestock and would eventually develop into the breed we know today as Navajo-Churros². Despite the churra’s small size and light weight fleeces, the breed thrived across the modern day Mexico-U.S. border for the next two centuries. The turn of the nineteenth century saw the beginning of the Vermont Merino boom, which was the start of a consistent source of fine wool in the continent. As an early American wool industry developed, ranchers found motive to raise sheep that grew heavier fleeces. Enter the churra Merino cross…crazy to think about if you’re a fiber artists, I know. But these crosses took hold since they produced fleeces weighing six to eight pounds compared to the churra’s two and a half pounds³. Rambouillet’s have their own history in this country and in the later 1800’s starting to take off as the dominant fine-wool breed in the states. All regions of the colonized U.S. experienced increased demand in wool during the Civil War and for many years afterwards. Angora goats also caught on in the region of Edwards Plateau, just south of San Angelo, and wool warehouses as a marketing focal point were developed. The start of the twentieth century saw San Angelo into the leader of wool and mohair marketing making it a hub for producer promotion as well³.
This is half of a mural I found in downtown San Angelo dedicated to West Texas Ranching. Read about it here.
This is Ms. TAM “Ewe”niversity, the sheep statue at Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center in San Angelo.
To this day, San Angelo is a proud wool town. The city was the founding location of the Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers Association and is the current headquarters along with the Mohair Council of America. Until 1972 it hosted the Miss Wool of America Pageant⁴. In the pageant’s honor there now resides a flock’s worth of painted sheep statues scattered around the city⁵. It’s also home to Bollman Industries, one of only two commercial scouring plants in the U.S. and the Bill Sims Wool and Mohair Research Laboratory at Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center, where Classing School was held. The lab has been operating since the 1980’s but it recently stepped into an even more pivotal role since the closing of Yocom-McColl Testing Laboratories, Inc. in 2019. The lab in San Angelo has been working for two diligent years to get equipment and procedures up to snuff for global standard commercial wool testing. Why is this so important? The majority of American wool is exported but to be taken seriously on the global market, wool has to go through very specific testing. When Yocom-McCall closed, there were no other facilities in this country able to perform the necessary tests⁶. In the interim, huge quantities of wool samples have been going to New Zealand for testing, costing U.S. producers extra delays and expense. With a bit of luck and all the hard work happening at the lab this will soon change and American wool will be tested domestically again.
This is a lot. History lesson, market condition lesson, small Texas city lesson. Hopefully I haven’t bored you but I couldn’t help myself. Wool growers of all scales face tremendous difficulties marketing their fiber. I see it every day that I’m shearing. What I absorbed in San Angelo was the same feelings of concern and discouragement expressed by many of my clients, except here there was hope backed up by action. Bright people from all aspects of the wool industry were there and they were sowing hopefulness. What stands out to me the most, the most most most, is that despite the rightful prestige one could tout with momentous scale of production attracting international buyers and research labs in their backyard I received genuine connection and kindness from the individuals involved. No one batted an eye at talk of (commercially inferior) long-wool breeds, (commercially unsellable) colored wool, or tiny sheep farms in far away, less influential corners of the country. My questions and stories were met with a sense of comradery and message of unison behind a common goal to uplift and improve our industry. Everyone I had the pleasure to meet clearly wants to see a better future for sheep and wool, no matter how different our flocks. By the end of the week I was cleared of all doubt that this line of work is not exactly where I am supposed to be.
Once, not too many years ago, I was advised to get rid of my sheep so I could travel more. Farming does complicate travel. I can’t begin to tell you how much extra planning you’ll run into attempting a single night away. But, sheep can take you places. There’s a modest world of nearly forgotten agricultural importance that folks unconnected to agriculture may never encounter. I’m back from a very different part of the country, having learned an incredible history, and having met wonderful people all thanks to sheep.
Cheers,
Siri
References
American Sheep Industry Association, ASI’s Certified Wool Classer Manual
Decendents of the Iberian Churra. Retrieved from http://www.navajo-churrosheep.com/sheep-origin.html
Carlson, P. (1996, February 1). Retrieved from https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/wool-and-mohair-industry
Retrieved from https://texasarchive.org/2014_00044
Kingsbury K., Welsh T., Roe E. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.sanangelosheep.info
Retrieved from https://www.sheepusa.org/contacts-woolpelt-researchtesting