Thirteen Mile Lamb & Wool Company

COMPANY PROFILE

A full-service, small-scale natural fiber processing mill is now underway at Thirteen Mile Lamb & Wool Company. We are processing our own wool, and we are doing custom processing for other fiber producers---washing, picking, carding, pin-drafting, felting and semi-worsted spinning. We can produce roving or batts directly off the carder, pin-drafted sliver, felt, or yarns. We set out to build a mill that is versatile enough to add value to regional fibers, that is consistent with our goals of organic management, and that is a pleasant place to handle the natural fibers that grow, remarkably, from grass. After remodeling, reroofing, and rewiring, the white barn at Thirteen Mile Farm was ready to receive and wool processing equipment in early 2004. With partial financial assistance from Northwest Energy Corporation for renewable energy projects, we hired a local firm to install solar water heating panels on the barn''s south-facing roof. This solar energy system supplies most of the hot water needed to run our wool wash tank. An adjacent greenhouse, built primarily to replace the lambing-barn space stolen by the wool mill, also houses drying racks for the wool-washing

MACHINES

McDermott machinery for picking and carding is the heart of the mill. For especially clean fibers, we can sometimes bypass the machine picking if there is risk of excessive breakage of delicate fibers. Our 32" McDermott carder, with a few Thirteen Mile modifications, has proven capable of handling a wide range of fiber types and lengths from ~2" to 12". We can produce roving or 30" wide batts. You can specify the thickness of either.

HAPPENINGS / NEWS / PRESS COVERAGE

By the end of the month the sun had melted the snow off the south facing slopes of the Bridgers. These lambs are on crusty snow that has been with us since mid-December.

BUSINESS INFORMATION