Blog

Where did the time go?

WINTER ACTIVITIES

You may not have heard or seen much from Flock and Fleece since our appearance at the Luzerne County Fair, and that would totally be accurate! We have been the busiest of bees this past semester and over the winter as well. Kaitlynne and I both worked very hard the receive two very important licenses/certifications. The first was during the fall semester, which was our licenses as Certified Poultry Technicians within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from the Department of Agriculture. With the recent confirmation of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza cases in PA, it is of the upmost importance that our state has CPTs that are well versed in the appropriate biosecurity processes and are able to respond to these cases to try to keep the disease under control. We are thrilled to have this license and ability to help. Another certification we both received was the certification of successful artificial insemination of dairy cattle. This was not an easy feat, to say the least. This was a hands-on, two-day course in December that focused on successful artificial insemination of cattle. While the experience was overwhelming, we are at least happy to have an opportunity to play a key role in improvement of animal genetics, a concept that is so closely tied to conserving endangered breeds of livestock and the work that Flock and Fleece hopes to go on to do. Besides that, our Winter was filled with resume updates, networking, and job applications. We hope to get into the field in some capacity upon graduating in May of 2025.  

SPRING ACTIVITIES

We both have some exciting classes this Spring. We are in Small Ruminant Science, which has a focus on sheep. We will be partnered up in an extensive lambing project that will focus on the entire process of reproduction, parturition, and processing of the lambs. We will be using cameras to monitor our assigned ewe. Please cross your fingers that we will be able to be present for the birth of the lamb! We are also in the Pathology and Diseases of Small Animals course, which can be seen as the final course in terms of animal health and diseases. This will give us a great technical understanding of diseases and how they act from start to finish.

WHAT'S NEXT FOR US?

We don't know! There are so many opportunities for us, and we are excited to try and figure out which is the right one to come next. If you or someone you know is looking to hire someone like us, please feel free to reach out on either of our LinkedIn accounts- Kyleigh's can be found on this link, and Kaitlynne's can be found on this link. We are happy to work behind-the-scenes in supporting roles or hands-on in the field. We are looking for state jobs, private livestock companies, pretty much anyone who needs the help of skilled individuals with a passion for animal health and disease!

WHAT'S NEXT FOR FLOCK AND FLEECE?

Flock and Fleece will be at A-Day at Delaware Valley University April 25-27, 2025! Beyond that, we are excited to see the ways in which Flock and Fleece will finally grow and change. Flock and Fleece will continue to serve as the professional representation of the combined work that Kaitlynne and I do. Will we always sell crafts? Hopefully not! Though we will always love to craft and may sell it in our free time, we hope to offer our services to livestock under this name as we continue to acquire skills. We also hope to continue to grow the aspect of endangered breeds of livestock under this name, and perhaps one day own some of these breeds ourselves, making beautiful items with the products they provide us. As always, stay tuned, and stay on your toes! Flock and Fleece will always be a name that you are familiar with, in one way or another.

Sincerely,

Kyleigh, on behalf of Flock and Fleece

Welcome to the newest version of flockandfleece.com!

NEW WEBSITE

Kaitlynne and I are so excited to be launching the new version of our website. We hope that it is much easier to use and more accessible for us to be able to update frequently! We are starting to get more comfortable in our career goals, and education is a huge part of that. We hope to work with the resources from the Livestock Conservancy as well as personal resources that we value to be able to provide everyone with really good tools to learn more about heritage breeds of livestock and why they matter! 

IN PERSON EVENTS

Our in-person events are better than ever, with so many new educational materials for people to part ways with. We love telling people about our passion, especially when we get to be the first to introduce someone to this niche yet important area of agriculture! Our next event is this week at the Luzerne County Fair! This is one of my favorite events because it is near and dear to my heart. The Luzerne County Fair is an agricultural fair that is centered around community. I always meet wonderful people there, and it warms my part that I can play a role in its production as a vendor. We will still be selling our adorable plushies, cute accessories, and pet bandanas, but my heart is in the education. Please feel free to come ask questions about the goals that we are working towards and learn something new. 

SCHOOL

Somehow, Kaitlynne and I are entering our final academic year at Delaware Valley University. The time has truly flown by!! Since we are getting down into the last classes here, our schedules are nearly identical. We are taking so many excellent courses that will enable us to be educated in very specific areas in the animal science world. Two things that I'm extremely excited for this semester is for us to gain our licenses as Certified Poultry Technicians and certifications in Artificial Insemination. We understand that the thought of those things may be off putting to some, however, we live for it! We love helping animals and caring for them, and we can't wait to see where these skills will take us. 

Sincerely,

Kyleigh, on behalf of Flock and Fleece

SCHOOL

Kaitlynne and I just finished a very intense semester at Delaware Valley University. Who knew Junior year would be so hard?! We both have our semesters planned up to Spring 2025, which is when we graduate. It is so exciting but a little scary at the same time. Going forward in our academics, we both have a lot of upcoming opportunities that will provide us with hands-on, practical endeavors that will give us a lot of experience to apply to the future of Flock and Fleece. We can’t wait until the day comes when we are both ready to begin offering services under our business name. While we love sales and public education, we can’t wait to start doing what we are dreaming of. What does that look like, you may ask? You’ll just have to wait and see all that we accomplish. We will both be individually documenting our experiences in this new blog section of our website, so you will have to stay tuned!

SALES AND THE FAIR

You may have noticed that Flock and Fleece has been a bit quiet since September, and that’s mostly because being a vendor at the Luzerne County Fair was super overwhelming! We are a very new business, so taking on a 5-day event was crazy, but we were ready for it! However, we were not ready for the devastating storms and mandatory evacuations that occurred as a result of unpredictable weather. Losing the few days of sales was difficult, but we were so thankful that our inventory stayed intact and that everyone at the fairgrounds was safe. We know there were other vendors that were not as lucky and endured a lot of hardship. Above all, I am thankful that nobody got hurt at the fairgrounds and I am so grateful for the volunteers. The Luzerne County Fair is entirely volunteer-run, and missing out on days of the fair was detrimental for them, not to mention that amount of damage that the fairgrounds took on. However, they were so graceful about it and were very ready to do what they could to help the vendors. During the flood evacuation on our last night there, so many volunteers stood at the exit to wave us goodbye. It gave me chills to see all of them, soaked from head to toe, and I can never truly explain what they all mean to me. After all of this, Kaitlynne and I decided that it was time to take a pause on crafting and turn to focusing on school and building up the business internally. This was definitely a needed break, but we are excited to start things up again after the holidays!

LOOKING FORWARD

We are excited to start the 2024 in-person market season! We have some events planned out, but we will not announce anything until it is confirmed. We do plan to start as soon as the semester is over in May, so keep an eye on our social media around that time. We love in-person events because it gives us the opportunity to talk to people about livestock conservancy, a topic that so many people haven’t even heard of. While we will still be crafting, as that is what funds the mission of Flock and Fleece, we will have a greater focus on public education, similar to our display at the Luzerne County Fair with brochures and information. We also plan to create more interaction-based education opportunities to add to what we have already done. We are so excited for what comes next for us in 2024!

KEEP IN TOUCH!

If you haven’t already, please consider signing up to be on our email list using the form right under this paragraph. I control what gets sent out, so you won’t be getting spam. I plan to update this new blog section at least once a month, so the email list will include updates from here, as well as any educational material I create that I think is worth sharing. Also, feel free to send us a message utilizing the form at the bottom of our homepage. I always keep my eye on our inbox, so I will return your message very quickly. As always, thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Kyleigh, on behalf of Flock and Fleece