Local Wool Buying

oxplox

Hello, I am looking to purchase small amounts of wool (5-10 kgs) from smallholders who keep sheep (or alpaca). I am located in Cork and would prefer to source as locally as possible. I currently purchase wool from England, and it seems such a shame to not keep the money in the Irish weconomy. If anyone is interested please contact me!

bnear

Hi if you're interested in alpaca fleece try ocathasaigh alpaca stud, they're in cork and have a website so have a look, I'm sure theres contact detail on the site. Well done on buying Irish !!!

Username John

oxplox wrote: »

Hello, I am looking to purchase small amounts of wool (5-10 kgs) from smallholders who keep sheep (or alpaca). I am located in Cork and would prefer to source as locally as possible. I currently purchase wool from England, and it seems such a shame to not keep the money in the Irish weconomy. If anyone is interested please contact me!

Hello,

I am based in Cork, and have some sheep, so will have some wool to sell come June timeframe.

What do you use the wool for?

errisshooter

I have 300 lowland sheep,breeding Zwartble,texel and blue leister and also have 2 alpaca's.if your intrested in a few fleeces you can have your pick from 1st of June

oxplox

Thanks everyone. Looks like I'll have to wait until June, but I would definitely be interested in Alpaca and Blue Faced Leicester, and possibly some others. I use it to spin into yarn and sell on my Etsy shop.

gazahayes

I have a few meal bags of lambs wool i sheared in september if you'd like them.

oxplox

gazahayes - what kind of wool is it? Has it been scoured, or will it still need to be cleaned?

gazahayes

Its mainly texel wool fairly clean but was only shorn and bagged would need proper treatment.

struth

#Errisshooter, I'm a spinner near Cong and very interested in your fleece. Please, please remember me come shearing time and I'll come and pick up within a couple of days. I'm new to blogging so how can we contact each other?

oxplox

So it's close to sheering time! I would be very interested in buying some fleeces, preferably near Cork, but I will also be near Galway and Limerick next week so I may be able to pick up in other locations.

I started a project on Kickstarter to fund the purchase of a spinning wheel and some fleeces, and it has gained quite a bit of traction in only 3 days!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sbreiten/irish-artisan-yarn-project

There seems to be a lot of interest in Irish wool and supporting small-hold farmers!

Please private message me if you're interested in selling!

Graces7

bnear wrote: »

Hi if you're interested in alpaca fleece try ocathasaigh alpaca stud, they're in cork and have a website so have a look, I'm sure theres contact detail on the site. Well done on buying Irish !!!

I have tried to contact them in the past with no reply; met the lady at a market and she promised that when she got the fleeces spun she would give it. I knit and trade to raise money for our work with the homeless and this would have been such a blessing as I love to design and knit speciality yarns. I can no longer spin myself.

I am in West Cork and would love to work with alpaca and other homespun. We cater to the tourist trade.

NB I got a small bag of fleece, Jacobs, mostly at the Kennedy Pet Farm ner Killarney; raw fleece. They gave it kindly... For toys I want to make.

ladhrann

Hello all,

I am investigating the possibility of having yarn spun from locally reared sheep and then having a Donegal tweed cloth woven from that yarn. I have a mill in mind, and am waiting to hear back from the spinners.

In order to produce a high-quality cloth ideally I would need to work with a farmer or farmers in order to manage the quality and make-up of the raw fleece before it is sent to the spinner.

This cloth would be a newer version of the hard-wearing tweed of the past and ideally be an example of adding value locally instead of shipping fleece off to be mulched or turned into insulation/felt as is the current situation.

I would also like to incorporate rare breeds such as the Galway (our only native) in the mix but would be open to other longwools such as the Leicester or Wensleydale to add lustre or handle to the yarn.

I'm floating this idea here to see if anyone's interested.
For Irish farmers to get or add value for their fleece means adhering to stricter controls, i.e. sorting and grading as each animal is shorn, pulling put kemp or belly hair and leg wool and crutching (cutting off the stained tail hair) the animal before shearing. Black or pigmented animals could not be shorn with a main flock of white sheep. Marking/painting an animal should not be done at all

Anyone who was interested could of course get a piece of cloth for themselves. Has anyone else here had experience with sourcing Irish grown fleeces?

ladymary

I Guys am in mayo and have 3 Zwartble sheep fleeces free to good home if anybody is interested

ganmo

ladymary wrote: »

I Guys am in mayo and have 3 Zwartble sheep fleeces free to good home if anybody is interested

black wool is virtually worthless anyway

skimol

Hi, I would love it if it's still available. Never used it before, but would love to try. I am using wool for wet felting

duckling10

ladymary wrote: »

I am in mayo and have 3 Zwartble sheep fleeces free to good home if anybody is interested

Hi ladymary, do you have/will you have Zwartbles fleece this year, i wonder? If so , I would like to maybe get some, please,
I am a spinner in Limerick.
Black is beautiful!!
thanks
d:)

Inchilad

duckling10 wrote:

Hi ladymary, do you have/will you have Zwartbles fleece this year, i wonder? If so , I would like to maybe get some, please, I am a spinner in Limerick. Black is beautiful!! thanks d

I have some in cork if your interested?

duckling10

Hi inchilad.
Do you have black fleece or white fleece? What breed(s) ? Whereabouts in cork? Would you post partial amounts of a fleece, or would it need collecting?
Pm me if you prefer,
Thanks
D

ganmo

duckling10 wrote: »

Hi inchilad.
Do you have black fleece or white fleece? What breed(s) ? Whereabouts in cork? Would you post partial amounts of a fleece, or would it need collecting?
Pm me if you prefer,
Thanks
D

raw wool can't be posted

duckling10

Hi ganmo,
What do you mean precisely? Do you mean that there regulations in the agricultural area or in An Post that raw wool should not be posted?

ganmo

Once it leaves the farm and it's classed as a category of hazadarous material

duckling10

So even if I drove to a farm and tried to collect a raw fleece I should not?

ganmo

duckling10 wrote: »

So even if I drove to a farm and tried to collect a raw fleece I should not?

no you'll be grand in a car
its just because it can carry diseases in its untreated state
I tried checking the an post website and now I'm not sure that they wouldn't carry it, but it still might fall outside their maximum allowed size as wool is very hard to compress

duckling10

wool is perfectly easy to compress. I have bought clean washed wool from abroad many times.
Raw wool is not any more difficult to compress than washed.

Please let me know if you can find a precise reference for regulations of posting of raw wool within Ireland.

ganmo

https://www.agriculture.gov.ie/media/migration/foodindustrydevelopmenttrademarkets/animalby-products/legislation/eulegislation/ECReg142of2011.pdf
chapter 7
best i could find

Inchilad

duckling10 wrote:

Hi inchilad. Do you have black fleece or white fleece? What breed(s) ? Whereabouts in cork? Would you post partial amounts of a fleece, or would it need collecting? Pm me if you prefer, Thanks D

I have both.have hampshire down(white) have few black fleeces from zwartable crosses.also have coarse white wool from scotches.im near macroom.not sure about the postage if its not allowed?