HOMEGROWN
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
Baa, baa, business
East Oregonian/Hermiston Herald
Lostine woman raises rare sheep,
runs multipurpose farm
By KATHLEEN ELLYN
EO Media Group
June Colony of Lostine
has reached a milestone in
creating a wool-producing
sheep extraordinaire.
She’s been breeding her
sheep for 14 years and now
she has what she thinks is the
base of her own breed. This
year she will select three of
her best ewes and her best
ram and register them as a
breed of their own — the
Colony Cross.
Her journey began when
Colony bought out Jennifer
Hobbs’ herd. Hobbs, of
Lostine, had come up with the
idea of crossing Wensleydale
sheep, known for their long,
lustrous locks, with Targhee
sheep, known for wool so soft
it could be used for under-
garments. The combination
of the two breeds created
a sheep with long, lustrous
wool of astonishing softness.
Softness in wool is
measured in microns (the
measurement of the diameter
of wool fibers) and the
famous Merino sheep have a
micron count of 10 to 20. The
lower the better for micron
count.
Wensleydale sheep, on the
other hand, grow beautiful
curly locks up to 12 inches
long per year, but their
micron count is 29 to 42 — a
tough fiber ideal for carpets.
But that sturdy Wensleydale
wool has a strange quality.
It doesn’t have “kemp,” a
term used to describe short,
rough strands of wool. It
is those short strands that
make wool itchy. So even
though the micron count for
Wensleydale wool is high
compared to Merino, fine
mohair garments contain
Wensleydale wool to give
them structure, durability and
luster while still preserving
the softness.
Colony’s choice of
crossbreeding was well
planned. She was going for
was the beauty and durability
of the Wensleydale wool with
the softness of Merino.
She chose the Targhee
because it is the American
version of the Merino, a
breed which is most common
in Australia. The Targhee
was developed in Dubois,
Idaho, following a similar
crossbreeding program to
what produced the Merino.
Targhee is popular in
Montana and Idaho, produces
fine soft wool, packs a meaty
body and is hardy.
The Wensleydale comes
from the Dales region of
Yorkshire, England, and is
considered a rare breed.
Now, after 14 years of
breeding, Colony has a herd
of sheep that produces a wool
with a micron count of 27 to
32.
“The wool of every one of
my sheep has been tested,”
Colony said.
It’s that careful and
scientific approach that has
defined Colony’s every
move as she developed her
business.
She began by writing a
grant in 2009 that would
allow her to study the
feasibility of raising wool
sheep. At a time when the
market for wool was in the
basement, Colony wanted to
see if she could create wool
Kathleen Ellyn/Cheiftain
“All these girls will lamb in April,” June Colony says. Colony has found a way to make small flock management
a paying concern.
for another market altogether.
“Since I got my original
grant in 2009 I’ve learned a
lot,” Colony said.
And she never lost faith in
herself. Early on she simply
kept the fleeces of her early
crossbreds, unwilling to
sell for the low prices being
offered. She now has 500
such fleeces in storage. This
summer she plans to cash
them in.
That’s because part of
her business plan was to
diversify her operation and
reduce waste. She purchased
a cleaning mill and a felting
machine. The cleaning mill,
like a cotton gin, picks all
the seeds and weeds from
washed wool.
“It comes out of the
machine like dandelion fluff,”
Colony said. “It’s been all
pulled apart.”
That fluff is then fed into
the pin-felting machine,
where barbed needles push
through the wool and pull
back fibers, stitching the wool
together into a 60-inch wide
blanket.
This blanket can be used
as batting inside quilts or
to make hats, coats, wall
hangings or rugs. The wool
can be fed through the
pin-felting machine several
times to make it more and
more durable.
But that’s just part of
Colony’s diversification
plans.
After bathing each of her
16 sheep, Colony shears them
by hand, carefully separating
the wool according to usage
and value.
“Sometimes I leave the
front cape of wool on the
sheep,” Colony said. “They
look like a lion with a mane
for a year. I shear it in the
second year and I can get
locks up to 24 inches long.”
The long, lustrous locks
sell for up to $30 a pound
online through eBay. Her
customers, many of them
spinners, are from all over the
world. And once they’ve used
her wool they come back for
it again and again.
Page 5
Those are her top sellers,
along with shorter locks
colored with natural dyes
she creates from walnut
shells, beets, barks and other
products.
But that’s not all she
has done to diversify her
operation.
Colony has begun
analyzing the vitamin and
mineral content of various
feeds for her sheep.
She has discovered and
now grows Northern Indian
Flint Corn, a dried corn that
is not only an excellent feed
for her sheep, but also good
for grinding into cornmeal or
polenta and making muffins.
“I am absolutely in love
with the cornbread from the
Saskatoon White,” Colony
said. “It’s amazing. You will
never eat any other kind of
cornbread once you’ve eaten
Saskatoon White.”
The Flint Corn is a
marketable product for
Wallowa County, because
there is no commercially
grown GMO corn in the area.
Colony also began feeding
her sheep root vegetables and
that has helped the animals
produce more offspring.
“I fed root crops to my
animals in the fall last year, in
addition to irrigated pasture.
And the first seven ewes that
lambed produced five sets of
triplets,” Colony said. “When
you feed root products you
go way beyond the vitamins
and micro-nutrients of alfalfa,
and still have a similar
protein to alfalfa.”
Furthermore, feeding root
vegetables is more in line
with what was historically
fed to sheep.
So, Colony harvests her
crops for human consump-
tion, then turns her sheep out
into her gardens where they
dig for the roots and feed
themselves on the gleanings.
But that’s not the end of
Colony’s diversification plan.
The addition of the meaty
Targhee bloodlines to her
leaner Wensleydale creates a
pretty good meat lamb.
A lamb will sell for about
$100 in October, which is off
the main sale months of July
and August.
“They’re happy to see
me at the auction by then,”
Colony said. “And it’s after
shearing. I’ll get about $100
for the lambswool fleece I’ll
shear before I sell the lambs
at auction.”
That’s still not the end of
Colony’s diversification plan,
but it’s enough for now.
This summer she’s
finishing her machine shed
and setting up her picker
and pin-felter. She’s also
expanding her gardens. And
she’s picking out those top
four sheep to try to register
her own breed.
The list is already long for
next year.
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