Shepherding a n-ewe business toward success

Meghan Diemel

Contributor

September 29, 2025

EAU CLAIRE – Ewe and Me Wool Company co-owners Jannell Sworski and Beth Ivankovic have turned their passions for sheep, environmental conservation and gardening into a growing business.

Two years ago, the entrepreneurial duo said they took the business to the next level by launching Woolly Belly Pellets, a product crafted to enrich soil naturally and sustainably.

“It kind of fills your soul, if you will, when you’re actually passionate about something to begin with, like sheep, and you get to make a new product out of it,” Sworski said. “That’s how Beth and I became friends, [through] sheep. [We were both] kind of looking for a new adventure, and it’s fun.”

Healing, one sheep at a time

Ivankovic said what began as a personal journey through unexpected grief led to a new friendship – and, eventually, a new business.

Following her mother’s death in 2017, Ivankovic said she was struggling through the turmoil of what she called “kind of a midlife crisis.”

After purchasing land, she said her husband nudged her to find a purpose for it – something meaningful to make it her own.

“So, I bought some sheep,” she said. “I [didn’t] grow up on a farm, [and I] really had no idea if I’d like it or not. Well, I fell in love with sheep, and now I have way too many.”

Ivankovic said she met Sworski while she was learning about lambing and this new farm life she was building.

“Jannell and I just hit it off,” Ivankovic said. “She’s just a lovely person, our husbands like each other and [we’ve] turned out to be really good friends.”

Ivankovic said Sworski was well into her farming journey when they connected – owning and operating a farm on Eau Claire’s west side with her husband, John, where they raise Angus cattle, grow hay and various cash crops and care for a mixed flock of Polypay, Southdown and South American Meat Merino sheep. 

Since making the leap into farming, Ivankovic said she and her husband, Slavko, had embraced a diverse approach – raising Cotswold sheep, rotationally grazing them along the hills south of Eau Claire.

Cotswolds, she said, are a heritage longwool breed of sheep that are now listed in the Threatened Category by the Livestock Conservancy.

Beyond the sheep, Ivankovic said they have cultivated a well-rounded homestead that includes chickens, homegrown vegetables, seasonal flowers and a natural dye garden.

The 60-150 sheep Sworski raises, Ivankovic said, are sheared at least once a year, while her 60 Cotswolds – which grow an inch of wool each month – are sheared at least twice a year.

However, she said not all of that wool is destined to become a cozy fisherman’s sweater for Wisconsin’s long winters.

“There are 60 different types of sheep in the United States, and each sheep has a different type of fiber,” she said. “That fiber can run from very fine – like a Merino or Rambouillet – to very coarse, which would be more like most of the generic white sheep that are around.”

Due to the wide variety in wool types, Ivankovic said finding a reliable market for it can be challenging.

“We have our wool, and then we know [other] shepherds, [and] we know shearers,” she said. “We’ve had people just drop wool off [at the farm], because there’s no market for wool, really. The mill that… serviced the Midwest was in Ohio. [It] would take all different kinds of white sheep wool, [but] it went out of business a few years ago, so people are sitting on wool.”

With a surplus of wool and an understanding of its benefits for gardening, Sworski and Ivankovic said they made the decision to pursue a more eco-friendly path: transforming wool waste into nutrient-rich pellets and shreds for garden use.

Embracing the natural benefits of wool

For gardening novices, it may seem strange to add wool fleece to garden and potting soil, but Ivankovic said it has many benefits for water retention, soil amendment and more.

“Wool on top of the ground is a great insulator, plus it holds over three times its weight in water, so it helps you water less,” she said.

Ivankovic said wool also adds vital nutrients – like nitrogen and potassium – back into the soil, and, as it breaks down over time, can increase the porosity of the soil.

Unfortunately, when using a full wool fleece, Ivankovic said it can take a couple of years to break down and leave gardeners with “a felted mat of ‘yuck’” after the growing season, making it difficult to turn over into the soil.

Wool pellets and shreds, she said, solve that issue, breaking down faster and making wool easier to use in spaces like a raised garden, in porch pots or in hanging baskets.

In addition to their pellets, which are sold in a variety of sizes, Ivankovic said they’ve also started selling their Sheepy Shreds brand, which is wool fleece that’s been shredded into smaller-sized pieces.

“It helps with weed control, and using a shredded fleece or shredded wool on the soil breaks down faster than if you use a whole fleece…,” she said. “At the end of the season, you can just turn it into the soil. It breaks down in a little over a year, so by the next spring… there’s a little bit left, but not a lot.”

Sheer innovation

Though pellet machines have been available overseas for decades, Ivankovic said it was a cost-prohibitive endeavor for shepherds in the United States.

Once machines became more affordable and available in the States two years ago, she said they decided to invest in their own.

Ivankovic said they are not only learning how to operate the pellet-making machine but also discovering creative ways to streamline and improve their workflow.

The duo said they first put the wool fleece through a shredding machine, which cuts it into inch-long pieces.

From there, Ivankovic said the pieces are fed into the pelleting machine, which has rollers that force the wool through a die.

As it does that, she said the natural friction causes heat, to the temperature of about 180 degrees Fahrenheit – which helps kill off any errant seeds that might be in the wool, while the lanolin in the wool helps hold that pellet together.

“It’s a pretty labor-intensive process… and that’s reflective in the price [of the products] at the moment,” she said. “John, Jannell’s husband, is an engineer, so he has done some things to help us with the labor end of things and trying not to touch… the wool as much.”

Ivankovic said that’s their biggest hurdle right now – “it’s a labor-intensive process.”

Nurturing their passion for sheep, lifelong learning

As shepherds and gardeners, Ivankovic said making more sound decisions for the environment is always top of mind for her and Sworski.

She said they’ve also found that developing the Woolly Belly Pellets and Sheepy Shreds lines spoke to their passion for lifelong learning.

Ivankovic said their website, woollybellypellets.net, offers highly detailed information about the science of wool pellets and shreds – all of which they’ve tested personally to ensure that what they preach is accurate.

“I think what we have on a label, and truth in labeling, is so important,” she said. “I probably drove Jannell crazy, because I [said], ‘We have to have this exactly right. I need to know that every number we’re telling people is exactly right.’ I think that’s what we need to do as a manufacturer.”

Building on their shared passion, Sworski said she enjoyed launching the business with Ivankovic and continues to embrace the learning journey alongside her.

“Like everything you do with a new business, it’s learning…,” Ivankovic said. “We love to jump into things and try new things out.”

Right now, Ivankovic said that continued learning involves marketing, social media, website management and newsletter creation as they grow their business.

“It opens up a new world when you start a new business, and that’s been really fun,” she said.