The Sheep are Shedding

When I said that katahdins shed kinda like a horse would in the springtime, I meant that some of them shed in the springtime, same as a horse.  After that the similarities stop.  Horses shed their fine hair rather evenly.  Katahdins on the other hand  might shed coarse hair with a certain amount of fine wooly undercoat in funny looking clumps or even sheets.  Each sheep sheds a little differently, depending on its coat type.  Phoebe here has rubbed up against the fence and effectively taken the shedding hair off her sides already, leaving the top part of her coat a little rough looking.  

"Oh great," I thought to myself upon seeing this mess in the field. I thought at first it was a pile of feathers, the remaining evidence of some predator lunching on one of my chickens.

Upon closer examination though, I found it to be hair that the sheep were finished with and had left. Whether they had rolled in the grass and left these piles or whether the chickens had had themselves a party tearing apart chunks of hair that the hubs had pulled off of the sheep's backs, I'm not sure. I was just grateful I hadn't lost a bird.

This is what it looks like up close. Note the coarse outer hairs and the fine wooly undercoat fibers. It's those finer undercoat fibers that kept Phoebe warm over the winter.

Emily is almost through shedding her coat out. In just a couple short weeks or so, everyone will have a smooth summer coat.