Fleece Yield Calculator

Raw "grease" fleece straight off the animal is nowhere near all usable fiber, and this calculator walks through each stage of loss to tell you how much spinnable fiber you'll actually end up with. Starting from the raw weight, it subtracts grease/lanolin, vegetable matter (hay, seeds, burrs), and dirt/suint as separate percentages of the raw weight — these three losses happen together during washing/scouring, so their sum determines the washed weight and the "wash yield" percentage reported alongside it. A second, independent loss is then applied to that washed weight for second cuts and skirting waste (short, unusable fiber from a second pass of the shears, plus material trimmed away during sorting), since that loss only becomes visible after washing reveals the fleece's true condition.

The final spinnable weight — reported in ounces, pounds, and grams — divided by the original raw weight gives the overall yield percentage, the number that matters most when you're pricing a raw fleece purchase: a merino fleece with 30-45% grease content might only yield 45-55% spinnable fiber, while a low-grease breed like alpaca can yield 85-95%. These percentages are estimates from visual inspection or breed averages, not a lab wash test, so treat the output as a planning figure — actual yield varies with an individual animal's grease content, how thoroughly you scour, and how strict your sorting standards are for second cuts.