The loud bleating of sheep and lambs led Ottawa families to the Canadian Museum of Agriculture yesterday for the final day of this year’s Sheep Shearing Festival.
Ross Creighton, one of only a few professional sheep shearers in eastern Ontario, demonstrated his technique, honed over 32 years, to an audience of museum visitors. In a little under 10 minutes, he’d clipped the hooves of a Hampshire ewe and, with electric clippers, shorn it of about six pounds of wool.
Visitors were also invited to try their hand at knitting, wool carding and wool dying.
“The general point is just to teach Canadians where their food and fibre come from, so in this instance — where wool comes from — and also maybe to educate them about meat production,” said Anne Lemieux-Mitchell, a farm guide with the museum.
Lemieux-Mitchell said the festival is especially aimed at kids. “You can never go wrong with kids and animals,” she said.
Sheep weren’t the only stars of the festival programming. Border collies and other working dogs also showed their skills in sheep-herding demonstrations and on an agility training obstacle course.
