“Sweaters for the Soil”

By Ellie Koning

Article excerpt from Offrange formerly Ambrook Research published March 1, 2024

“…While Shetland wool is prized and crafted into colorful clothing, there are meat breeds like the Shropshire where it’s often not worth trying to sell the wool — prices for their coarser fleece is simply too low. Though we’ve done well selling Shetland wool on Etsy, the Shropshire fleeces often remain unsold.

This excess wool is sometimes called “waste wool”; shepherds like me are looking for ways to use it instead of throwing it away. One potential solution: the Indiana Sheep Association (ISA, where I am secretary) purchasing a wool pelleting machine that turns raw fleece into soil amendments….

Wool pellets are made from low-quality wool that can’t be sold, whether because of vegetative matter buried in the wool, its staple length, breaks in the fiber, or the big diameter of each fiber, as in a Shropshire’s coarse fleece. A pelleting machine transforms the fleece’s long strands into cylinders that can more easily be handled. The pellets are then sold as soil amendments, providing water retention, nutrient recycling, and soil aeration.

For sheep producers, selling pellets reduces fiber waste, provides a safe and sustainable soil amendment for their communities, and opens up a new revenue stream. All of that has caught our attention…”

Read the full article at https://ambrook.com/offrange/livestock/wool-pelleting-waste-soil-amendment