Boreray Sheep

The Boreray Sheep are a very small breed of primitive short tailed sheep that is descended from the now extinct Scottish Tan Face mixed with Hebridean Blackface bloodlines.  The females have horns that are thinner than the males and are curved.  Rams grow horns that are especially large and they spiral beyond 360°.  According to the British Wool Marketing Board the breed was established in the UK during the 19th century.   

The history of the breed is quite interesting and very complex.  They are from St Kilda, which is a group of four small islands called Hirta, Boreray, Soay and Dùn, and a number of sea stacks that are about 112 miles west of Mainland Scotland. The islands are thought to have been permanently occupied about 2,000 years ago, although there is evidence of Bronze Age occupation dating back to over 4,000 years ago.  

Due to the location of the islands any population would rely on sheep and fishing for their livelihood with spinning of wool done by the women and weaving done by the men and used the wool from all of the sheep, both feral and domesticated, and all from all breeds within the small group of islands.  The population peaked at just under 200 on Hirta in the 1600's with just 36 inhabitants left by 1930. The Islands were evacuated in 1930 after they all almost died from starvation following a particularly hard winter and they relocated elsewhere. The St Kildan's never owned the land on which they lived and worked for a non-resident lord and ownership changed many times, usually between the MacLeods and MacDonalds of Skye.  After the evacuation ownership was in the hands of Lord Dumfries, the fifth Marquess of Bute until his death in 1956, when ownership transferred to the National Trust for Scotland.

Whilst their sheep and cattle were ferried off Hirta they had kept a second flock of domestic sheep on Boreray as a backup in case anything untoward happened to their main flock.  A group of inhabitants would visit once a year to collect the fleece but the trip was dangerous and a group had been stranded on the island for the entire winter one year.  In the last few years before they were evacuated there were not enough able-bodied men to make the trip and so the sheep on Boreray returned to being wild and feral.  Descendants of those sheep are still there today. 

In the 1970's half a dozen sheep were removed from the island as part of a conservation effort to protect their bloodlines and there are now a few small flocks of Boreray Sheep in other areas of Britain.  In 1999 there was an estimate of just 74 ewes and 10 rams and by 2012 there was 204 ewes registered with The Rare Breeds Survival Trust and the numbers have been increasing year on year and in 2017 they were moved from Category 2: Critical to Category 3: Vulnerable (500-900 breeding ewes), where they remain as of the time of writing.

The fleece are small, usually 900-1600g and is usually creamy white or tan, with a small proportion being grey or dark brown and lambs can be born completely black or with large patches of black and whilst they do occasionally stay that colour they usually change to cream or tan.  Sometimes they have dark rump patches and dark collar, particularly rams.  They shed their fleece naturally, usually by July, although some shearing may be necessary in older sheep who do not moult their fleece as easily as younger individuals.  The fleece can vary greatly with some having a fine undercoat and others having long hair like fibres and everything in between.  The staple length can range between 2 and 6 inches.

 

I have bought this breed in as pre-prepared roving which was sourced from a Rare Breeds Survival Trust breeder and my purchase helps to maintain the rare breed sheep.  

There was lots of little bits of vegetable matter in the roving, which I removed before or during spinning, which was a challenge due to the shortness of the staple but its very soft and I am very happy with the results.  My finished yarn is 43g/155m of sport weight yarn.

 My knitted piece for the project only took 8g/29m so I have some left to do whatever with.