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Late I've been shooting with a friend and he had a sack filled with sheep wool a target. This was quite impressive! I've never seen such a cheap and yet qualitative target!

As I don't have any shepherds near my home or among my friends, I wanted to search for unprocessed wool on the web. However, that's not quite easy since most of the wool is already washed, quality checked etc. and therefore too expensive and too good too just get shot at. The closest thing I could find is "raw wool". However, this is already slightly cleaned and quality checked (matted parts are apart and so on).

What should I search for? The best thing would be a name for unprocessed wool waste that can't be sold. I hope to get it for free :)

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    Just ask a farm - a lot of wool doesn't sell well but the sheep still need sheering. My farmer friend says his wool makes them slightly more than the cost of sheering the sheep.
    – Aravona
    Sep 23, 2016 at 11:25
  • @Aravona I think you should expand that comment a bit and post it as an answer. I know I'd give you an up-vote because I was thinking the same thing.
    – Erik
    Sep 24, 2016 at 0:21

3 Answers 3

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I think raw wool / raw fleeces are already your best bet on researching this.

At least e-Bay turns up some results that may be what you are looking for (based on where you live).

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A raw fleece is the wool just shorn from a sheep. It's filled with grass and manure and possibly ticks, bugs, and worms, it smells bad and is greasy with lanolin. That's probably what you're looking for.

If you find a fleece that's been washed or skirted, it's been prepared for textiles. Spinners pay a premium for those. Avoid those.

Your best bet is to go to a local wool wholesaler and ask for a discard. That would be a poorly shorn or incomplete fleece or one with too much hair or other problems. If you describe what you're using it for you can probably get it for free.

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As requested. So certain wools are worth more than others when it comes to breed, quality etc.

For a lot of wools the wool itself isn't used in textiles, and as such it does not sell well. In these cases the sheep have to be sheered (leaving a thick dirty fleece on sheep leads to maggots growing inside it) for their own health and hygiene, and the wool is often sold at a value only slightly above the cost of having the sheep sheered.

If you're looking for wool for as cheap as possible, or even free, and are only looking for a handful or so, consider contacting your local farm. If they can't provide it themselves they may known who or where can.

Source: A farmer friend who works on a farm that has sheep

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