So what are your thoughts...
Feb. 28th, 2010 08:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fallingbooks...on 'adopting' a sheep and has anyone any experience with it?
If you're not familiar with the concept, there are a number of farms out that that for a fee will allow you to 'adopt' one of their critters (usually in the llama, alpaca and sheep families, although sometimes goats and bunnies.) The idea being that you pay upfront (anywhere from $50-$250) for a lot of the year's care and feeding and in exchange you get to run off with the fleece at shearing season. You also generally get a picture of your adopted critter, updates from the farm, and opportunities to visit if you're local.
I like the idea because not only do I get a fleece (!!!) I'm giving money directly to the farmers and hopefully taking a little worry off their hands by putting money in their hands in the early stages of production. I also think that for ME it's a little more cost effective than a CSA share for the most part, offering a whole 5-6 lb fleece as compared to 1-2 pounds of processed roving/yarn. But that's also because I'm interested in dealing with the fleecy end of things, and don't necessarily need the extra processing, which also adds on additional costs at the farm level.
I still need to research it a bit more, figure out what kind of fleece I want, etc., I'd love to do alpaca, but sheep are more in my priceline at the moment.
I am getting way too into this.
If you're not familiar with the concept, there are a number of farms out that that for a fee will allow you to 'adopt' one of their critters (usually in the llama, alpaca and sheep families, although sometimes goats and bunnies.) The idea being that you pay upfront (anywhere from $50-$250) for a lot of the year's care and feeding and in exchange you get to run off with the fleece at shearing season. You also generally get a picture of your adopted critter, updates from the farm, and opportunities to visit if you're local.
I like the idea because not only do I get a fleece (!!!) I'm giving money directly to the farmers and hopefully taking a little worry off their hands by putting money in their hands in the early stages of production. I also think that for ME it's a little more cost effective than a CSA share for the most part, offering a whole 5-6 lb fleece as compared to 1-2 pounds of processed roving/yarn. But that's also because I'm interested in dealing with the fleecy end of things, and don't necessarily need the extra processing, which also adds on additional costs at the farm level.
I still need to research it a bit more, figure out what kind of fleece I want, etc., I'd love to do alpaca, but sheep are more in my priceline at the moment.
I am getting way too into this.
