Small-scale fiber processing mills are thriving in Maine

It was supper time for the Icelandic sheep at Moorit Hill Farm. Lambing season ended two weeks ago, and the flock has doubled in size to the 73 curly-haired animals that munched from PVC pipe troughs as sunset approached their barn in Troy.

Their owners, Josh Emerman and Elizabeth Goundie, spent the day operating a small fiber mill in a corner of the cavernous former chicken barn several steps away. It opened less than 18 months ago and has a six-month waiting list.

Like other small fiber processors in Maine, the two believe “ mini mills ” suit the way people raise livestock in the state today.

Maine’s only remaining large commercial mill isn’t ideal for many small farmers. Bartlettyarns in Harmony requires at least 100 pounds of fiber for spinning, more than twice what most Maine farmers produce. As a result, small processing mills are popping up around the state, and there’s still room for growth.

“No mill in the state is looking for work,” Goundie said. The four that process all the way to yarn, including Bartlettyarns, have waitlists of at least six months.

At Moorit Hill, fiber goes through a large washing machine, drying rack, picker machine and carder that turns the fleece into roving — thick, loose ropes of multiple fiber strands — ready to be spun.

The roving moves through a draw frame to align the fibers before a two-step spinning process, a skein winder and another wash.

In a good week, the pair produce 80 pounds of fiber on the equipment they purchased from a retiring operator in Aroostook County. Maine’s last commercial mill, the 203-year-old Bartlettyarns, produces from 500 to 1,000 pounds a week.

It uses equipment designed for large quantities of wool, running 240 spindles for yarn production while a mini mill uses from six to 12.

Most of Bartlettyarns’ customers come for traditional service, dropping off fleece to be processed with a batch including fiber from other flocks, according to Lindsey Rice, who owns the mill with his wife Susan.

Guaranteed processing, where customers receive only their own fiber back, makes up less than 10 percent of the business, Rice said.

A mini mill can more easily process the fleece of a single animal. That scale is an attraction for Janet Beardsley, who opened a mini mill with her husband Kevin Coulter at Catawampus Farm in Minot in January 2023. Their mill only processes to the roving stage, so customers spin the yarn themselves or send it elsewhere. They are booked out from four to eight weeks.

“If you want to make a sweater from your favorite sheep, Patrick, you need to run it on our equipment,” Beardsley said, and a number of her customers do just that. Her own two favorite sweaters were made from matriarchs of her Angora goat herd.

There is room for mills to expand elsewhere in Maine, too, according to Beardsley. Some farmers travel two hours to her because shipping is expensive.

Many fiber farmers she knows raise multiple breeds or species, another reason to keep their processing separate. Moorit Hill has processed sheep wool, alpaca, rabbit, llama and camel, and could handle yak, musk ox and even cat hair.

The majority of Emerman and Goundie’s customers own fewer than 20 animals that produce less than 50 pounds of fiber. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2022 agricultural census recorded 11,510 sheep and lambs on 530 Maine farms, an average size of 21.

Smaller operations are likely the way of the future in Maine, processors agree. Mini mills don’t affect business at Bartlettyarns. Lindsey Rice sees them filling a niche, largely for those who don’t rely on fiber as their sole source of income.

Part of that is a change in the regional fiber economy from the large wool operations that characterized Maine’s past.

Bartlettyarns still buys wool for commercial use from customers who raise sheep primarily for meat, mostly in Massachusetts and southern New England. For many farmers in Maine and elsewhere, wool is a waste product from meat or milk sheep due to its lower quality and minimal returns from processing it.

Those who sell to Bartlettyarns participate in a model similar to the wool pools once brokered by state associations for processors to buy thousands of pounds of wool from farmers.

Growing up in New Hampshire in the 1970s, Rice earned $8 a pound from the wool pool, evenly split between buyer prices and federal incentives to encourage production for military use.

Today, he pays producers 48 cents a pound, which is more than some could get elsewhere, and the highest he feels he can go without a market that provides commercial sales contracts.

That’s not enough for a small operation. Emerman and Goundie said it would cover the cost of shearing less than a quarter of their sheep.

It’s already difficult for sheep farmers to break even, and many diversify to bring in more income. This is part of mini millers’ hopes for the role of small processors in coming years.

“If you’ve only got five sheep, you’re not making a mortgage payment,” Rice said.

At Moorit Hill Farm, Emerman said the state’s fiber economy is in a position to expand beyond the textile market. He hopes to see more people who raise sheep for other reasons use their wool rather than discarding it as a waste product.

He and Goundie have ordered equipment to make felted fabric, and are exploring uses of lower quality wool for woven rugs, garden amendments, building insulation and even oil spill remediation.

Emerman and Goundie aren’t the only ones who see room to expand beyond traditional uses of fiber. The Maine Fibershed , for example, recently organized producers interested in growing the state’s fiber economy.

In the existing yarn world, the Moorit Hill farmers have found local products sell better in person, where people connect with the sheep named on the label and feel like they’re part of the story. Adding one more source of income for a small farm always helps, too, especially on the cottage scale.

“Maine farmers are like that,” said Beardsley of Catawampus Farm. “It’s either because you have a variety of things you’re doing, or you like that individuality.”