With low wool prices, Midwestern sheep farmers are innovating with the fiber

At a family farm in central Iowa, a sheep shearer leans over a ram, making smooth, clean strokes through several inches of shaggy wool. For most breeds, this fiber will just keep growing unless it’s sheared off.

By the end of the day here, more than 100 sheep will be about 8 pounds lighter. But farmer Mary Cory said the wool won’t bring in much cash.

“We’ll get just a few cents a pound, really,” Mary Cory said.

Her husband, Tom Cory, started raising sheep in the early 1960s — wool was an asset back then.