Sheep lock up carbon in their wool.

Roughly 50% of the weight of clean wool is carbon. This carbon came from the grass sheep graze, which is roughly 40% carbon. Like all plants, grass draws this carbon from the air around it in the form of Carbon Dioxide. Our sheep are shorn yearly. They then regrow a new fleece over the following year, building this wool from the grass they graze on our farm. This means that the fleece they grow has been built using carbon that ultimately came from the atmosphere over the previous year.

This is in contrast with synthetic (man-made) textiles such as nylon, polyester and acrylic which do the exact opposite. The most common synthetic fibers are made from petrochemicals – fossil fuels that should really have stayed locked up in the Earth.

The other main elements in wool are Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen and Sulphur. If wool is returned to the soil, these beneficial elements will be released into the soil.

Minimal Chemicals are Used in Processing Our Wool

The manufacture of many textiles often involves a LOT of damaging chemicals. This is even true of some of the plant-derived textiles such as rayon/viscose and lyocell. Our wool is scoured (washed) using a detergent and then sent to be mechanically processed. This involves machinery spreading, layering and punching needles into the wool, not coating it in chemicals.

We Care About Animal Health

Strong-wool farmers don’t remove wool for fun or for profit. Shearing is physically incredibly hard work and requires a lot of skill. And there are a ton of ways we’d rather be using our time. On top of that, strong wool, the type of wool we grow, is worth a pittance. We shear our Romneys because it is in the interests of the animal for it to be removed. In warmer weather a ewe with a full fleece is prone to getting cast – not being able to get up off the ground – which can be fatal if she isn’t found quickly. On top of that, flies just love to lay their eggs in wool where their maggots then enjoy a nice dark microclimate in the wool as they feed on the sheep’s skin and muscle tissue. This is flystrike and it’s devastating to see animals suffering with it. So the wool has to go. Apart from the odd cut when a sheep wriggles at the wrong moment, shearing doesn’t hurt the sheep any more than it hurts when we get our hair cut.

Our sheep are born and raised on Wyoma farm. They are eventually destined to be meat animals but we try to give them a really good life while they’re here. They are 100% fed by the grass on the farm and no food is ever brought in for them.

We have a Zero Waste Policy

We do our best to minimize waste during manufacturing but there will always be some. Any offcuts of wool are used to make some of our smaller products such as the pet products and car air fresheners. We will work on finding uses for the fabric offcuts but in the meantime, they’ll eventually get used to stuff the beds of our hard-working dogs.

Oh and if you purchase one of our products we will do our best to repair it for you if it’s at all possible.

We are Plastic-Free (almost)

One of our major motivations is to give consumers plastic-free options for clothing and homewares where options are currently limited. We’ve tried to keep all products as plastic-free as possible by using wool, metal, wood, hemp and cotton in the construction process. The major exception is zips. We’ve sourced excellent-quality zips with metal, rather than plastic, teeth from YKK but the tape is recycled polyester. Our labels are also made from recycled polyester. It is possible to get cotton labels but they are quite pricey and would have to have been made offshore.

All our products are manufactured in New Zealand

This means that you can trust that everyone along the way has been paid a fair wage and all companies have been subject to our environmental protection laws.