Balwen Welsh Mountain Sheep

The Balwen Welsh Mountain Sheep, usually just referred to as "Balwen" is not a particularly old breed and yet I can find no mention of exactly what breeds were used to create this newer breed.  All sources of information that I have looked at say that it was developed by the small group of enthusiastic breeders in the Upper Tywi Valley in Dyfed, Wales in the 19th century but no year is noted anywhere and all sources also say that the breed was wiped out during the severe winter of 1947 all but for one single ram that survived and this ram was used to re-establish the breed.  With that in mind you would think that it would be common knowledge as to what breeds they used to re-establish this breed, but no, not an ounce of information to be found about that but my educated guess would be that it was re-developed using Black Welsh Mountain and maybe the Badgerface Welsh Mountain - Torwen because RBST information states that like the black and the badger face varieties it is more docile than the normal Welsh mountain sheep.

Top: Balwen Ewe
Bottom: Balwen Ram

The Balwen Welsh Mountain sheep, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 4: At Risk (900-1500), so there are less than 1500 registered breeding ewes.  They were historically found only in a very small valley in mid Wales but, although they are relatively small in number, they are now more widespread and are kept by smallholders who are more likely to keep them as pure breeds whilst commercial farmers are more likely to cross breed them using terminal sires.

They are a small, compact hardy sheep and are usually black, dark grey or dark brown with a broad white stripe running from the top of its head to the top of its nose and it has four white feet and a half white tail, dark on the top third to half and white lower down.  Rams have horns and the ewes are polled.  

The fleece is 1.25-1.75kg and the staple length is 2-3.5 inches (5-10cm).  The staples are blocky with curly tips, often sun-bleached.  The fleece can be flicked, carded or combed.  Due to the coarseness in relation to the shortness this wool requires a delicate balance between grist and twist, you need just the right amount of twist to hold the yarn together but not so much that it becomes wiry.  It really isn't worth trying to dye this fleece as it is usually too dark to notice.

Yarns spun from Balwen fleece are probably best suited to outerwear, bags and items that take a lot of abuse, unless you can find a particularly soft fleece.

I have bought this breed in as 105g of pre-washed fleece and there is a number of white hairs which I feel that I have to remove and after I finished combing it I was left with 45g of hand combed top that feels quite a lot like a slightly coarser version of Jacob.

I sat and removed the white hairs using a pair of tweezers

I did actually sit and remove as many of the white hairs that I could using a pair of tweezers as I felt that it is naturally black fleece and the white hairs were really annoying me and I wanted it as clean as possible.  I also removed any remaining ones during the spinning process.

My finished yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand and is quite nice.  It is 42g/95m and I'd be happy to use it to make hats, mittens and maybe a scarf.  It's much nice than my books suggest.  My knitted piece for the project took 15g/34m so I have some left to do whatever with.

Devon Closewool Sheep

The next breed for my British Breeds Project is the Devon Closewool. The breed was developed in the mid 1800's by crossing Devon & Cornwall Longwools with Exmoor Horns and were bred for local terrain and weather conditions.  I haven't written about either of those two breeds yet but they are on my very long list of breeds to write about.

The Devon Closewool is a hardy sheep with a docile temperament and survives and thrives on a pure grass based diet.  They are a medium sized white faced sheep and neither sex have horns.  It has stout legs and a short thick neck, short ears and black nostrils.  It's head and legs are well covered with wool and it's dense medium stapled fleece gives good protection against cold and wet weather.  They were once extremely popular and in 1950 there were around 229,000 Devon Closewools populating the Devonshire countryside, making them the most numerous breed in the county at that time and they were, and still are, raised primarily for meat.  At the time of writing they are in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 5: Minority (1500-3000) registered breeding ewes.  That is one hell of downward shift in numbers in 70 years and it has taken a lot of digging on the internet to find out why.  The obvious go-to sites like the Breed Association and the RBST and Wikipedia all quote the 229,000 figure in 1950 but no mention of why there was such a decline.  However, thanks to a news media site and an article written by Devon Live, we now know that the decline was due to intense farming practices of the 60's and 70's and the preference to breed mule crosses because they carried less wool and produced more lambs than the purebreed.  Thankfully, now, there has been an about-turn and farming is more about restorative practices than intense practices and the Devon Closewool numbers are back on the increase, slowly but surely.

They produce a medium size white fleece that can be up to 6kg in rams and 2.5-4kg in ewes.  The staple length is 7.5-12cm (3-4.5 inches). The locks are dense and blocky and have a tendency to separate from the mass of the fleece in clumps rather than in individual locks.  There may be a small amount of kemp, which is easily removed and there shouldn't be any black fibres.

This fleece can be spun from picked and teased locks if you want a lot of texture or it can be combed or carded.  There may be a slight touch of lustre in the fleece and it takes dye well. 

Yarns spun from Devon Closewool fleece are sturdy but not harsh and make wonderful blankets and such like and finer softer yarns can be used for things like sweaters, hats and mittens.  

I have bought this breed in as a bump of 108g of pre-prepared fibre that is ready to spin.  It would have been really nice to have been able to undertake this project using nothing but raw sheep fleece but that is not always possible due to a whole range of factors that include rarity of the sheep and so scarcity of whole or part fleece, cost to me although some of small amounts that I've been able to get my hands on have cost as much or more than a whole fleece of an abundant breed.  There is also the lack of room in my house as fleece take up a lot of storage space, amount of work involved in preparing everything from fleece and I dare say many other factors.

My finished yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand with a sturdiness about it. It is also a creamy white, not a bright white and is 104g/218m.  My knitted piece for the project took 36g/76m so I have some left to do whatever with.

Castlemilk Moorit Sheep

The Castlemilk Moorit sheep hasn't been around for all that long, only since the early 1900's after Sir John Buchanan Jardine, a Scottish aristocrat who's family home was at Castlemilk in Dumfrieshire, who had a passion for breeding animals such as hounds, horses, cattle and sheep and who fascinated particularly in breeding animals in shades of brown.  He used Shetland Sheep in the Moorit colour, along with Manx Loaghtans and a mouflon ram (a wild sheep that is darker on its upper parts and lighter on the lower parts, including the neck and belly) to produce an easy-care brown sheep with short, tight wool that was suitable for hand-spinning by the family.  

The family continued to raise the breed until 1970 when Sir John Buchanan Jardine died and most of his flock were culled aside from a small number that was sold to the late Joe Henson.  Joe Henson was the owner of Cotswold Farm Park, which was established in the 1960's to protect rare breeds of livestock and all present day Castlemilk Moorit Sheep are descendants of those handful of sheep.  He was also the founder-chairman of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust and received an MBE in the 2011 Queen's Birthday Honors for services to conservation. His son, Adam Henson, is a well known farmer and TV presenter and appears on BBC Countryfile.

They are fine boned, vigorous and self-reliant with long legs and a short tail.  Both sexes have horns, the ewes have two uniform wide-spreading horns whilst the rams have horns that spiral. They are varying shades of brown, from mid-brown to dark brown with similar face colour.  They should have white around the eyes, lower jaw, belly, knees and inside the lower leg and the tail.  They adapt well to most conditions and environments.  The Castlemilk Moorit sheep, at the time of writing, is in Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 5: At Risk (900-1500 registered breeding ewes). 

They produce a fleece that weighs 1-2kg and the staple length is between 1.5 and 4.75 inches long 3.8-12cm).  The fleece is kemp free and the locks tend to be short and blocky and often have sun-bleached tips.  This is probably best carded due to the shortness of the staple and how fine the wool is.  The wool is very similar to that of the Manx Loaghtan, which it is genetically descended from. 

I have bought this breed in as a 106g bag of pre-prepared roving that was ready to spin as, for me, this was the easier option due to the shortness of the staple.

My finished yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand, similar to Shetland and Manx Loaghtan.  My knitted piece for the project took 27g/69m so I have some left to do whatever with.

North Ronaldsay Sheep

The North Ronaldsay Sheep is a very small, fine boned yet hardy and prolific sheep that has adapted to the terrain of the Orkney Islands that are situated some 10 miles north of the North Coast of mainland Scotland with North Ronaldsay being one of the largest and the most northern of the 70 islands that make up the Orkney Islands. North Ronaldsay, at its highest point, rises just 54m above the North Sea.  

In the early 1800's the residents would either burn or dry the abundant seaweed that covered the shores and sell their iodine-rich kelp and ash to England.  This trade made up a good amount of their livelihoods. In 1832 the residents built a 6ft high, 13 mile long dry stone wall around the island and placed their sheep outside the wall to prevent them eating crops that they were growing on the uplands of the island. The sheep had always eaten large amounts of seaweed but they now had to survive almost exclusively on a seaweed diet.  Nowadays there are around 60 people living on the island working in the lighthouse and communications, tourism and tending the sheep. 

As I've already said they are a small, fine-boned yet hardy and prolific breed.  The rams have horns and a fringe of coarse hair under the neck whereas the ewes are not always horned.  According to the British Wool Marketing Board, was established in the UK during the 9th century and at the time of writing, the North Ronaldsay sheep are in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 3: Vulnerable (500-900) registered breeding ewes.  They can still be found on the Island of North Ronaldsay but attempts to "improve" the breed by crossbreeding have failed because the resulting animals have not been able to survive on the island.  In 1974 TV presenter Adam Henson, then aged 8, accompanied his father, Joe Henson, founder of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, travelled to North Ronaldsay Island on an excursion to buy 287 sheep as the Trust had purchased another island, Linga Holm, as an alternative breeding site and 179 sheep were transported there with 108 sheep being bought back to found new flocks in Scotland and England.  There are some that are also kept by rare breed enthusiasts elsewhere in the UK.

They produce a small size fleece that is anywhere from 0.9kg up to about 2.5kg with a staple length of 2-4 inches (5 to 10cm).  They have a double-coated fleece with the undercoat being lovely and soft to keep them warm and the outercoat being made up of guard hairs that are coarse that protects them against wet weather.  Most of the sheep have white or grey fleece (the grey is actually white fleece with coarse black guard hairs) but you can also get black and brown.  The locks are triangular with wide bases and the crimp varies with the undercoat tending to have fine even crimp.

This fleece will need to be washed well before any attempt to prepare or spin, especially if your fleece comes from the island as the fleece will contain a lot of sand and sea salt and around 50% of the weight of the fleece will be because of that.  It is a difficult fleece to card due to the matting of the locks and combing removes the guard hairs effectively to leave the nice soft wool behind for use.  You need to decide if you want the texture of the guard hairs in your yarn, they also provide colour in a white fleece to make it look grey but they also add a scratchiness factor.  Guard hairs will not take up the dye as they are generally black but the wool content will and so if you dye light coloured wool it will give an unusual effect if you are leaving in the black guard hairs. 

Yarns spun from North Ronaldsay fleece that have the guard hairs left in are definitely suited to household items and upholstery and those that have had the guard hairs removed will be more Shetland like and suitable for fine textiles.  

I have bought this breed in as 100g of prepared roving.  There are black hairs throughout but they're not overly coarse.

My finished yarn is of reasonably soft quality to the touch of the hand but you can feel the prickly hair sticking out if you put it to your neck but its not overly nasty and  I do like the colour.  My knitted piece for the project only took 29g/67m so I have some left to do whatever with.