Hebridean Sheep

The Hebridean Sheep is a small black sheep that looks slightly different now than it use to do about 200 years ago.  Originally these sheep may have been descendants of a primitive sheep that Vikings bought  to the Hebrides a millennium ago, that is both the Inner and Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland.  The original strain had white faces and legs, usually had two horns, rarely had four and had more range of colours including blue-grey, brown, black and russet. The original strain died out when crofters moved to raising "improved" breeds such as the Cheviot and the Scottish Blackface.  Thankfully during the late 1800's a handful of flocks were bought to England to become "lawn ornaments" on estates owned by the aristocracy.  They may have been bred with the Black Welsh Mountain sheep because the Hebridean sheep today have black faces, black legs and the fleece is always black, which lightens to grey or reddish brown on the tips with both age and exposure to the sun and the multi-horned trait runs much more strongly throughout the breed.  Both sexes have horns, although some ewes are occasionally polled.

A two-horned variety of Hebridean

A four-horned variety of the Hebridean

The Hebridean sheep, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 6: "Other UK Native Breeds" (over 3000) registered breeding ewes, having recently progressed from category 5.  

Hebridean Sheep are now found throughout the UK and are popular with smallholders and often used in conservation grazing schemes because they can thrive on what would be considered to be poor grazing for other breeds and are good at scrub control as they have a strong preference for browsing and they would need more than hedging, which they will eat, to prevent them from escaping.  They are small, fine boned and hardy and can outwinter severe conditions and can tolerate wet weather extremely well.  They have strong black hooves with few foot problems.  The face and legs are usually free from wool.  Fully grown ewes weigh about 40kg and the rams are proportionately heavier.

They produce a black fleece of 1.5kg-2.5kg that is dual coated that has a soft insulating undercoat with a coarser rain shedding top layer and the sheep just give themselves a quick shake to rid themselves of the rain.  Some fleece have a noticeable demarcation between the coats whilst others are not so clear and is more of a gradual shift between the two but are still easy to separate into fibre types.  The fleece are popular with hand spinners who appreciate the subtle mix of colours and textures within the fleece. The staple length is 2-8 inches (5-20cm).  The locks are triangular and lustrous and may contain hair or kemp, especially on the hindquarter area of the fleece.

Preparation of the fleece will depend on the length, the type of dual coat and whether you want to separate out the different fibres or spin them together.  Spinning can be a bit of a challenge.  It has a luscious dark colour and a lot of durability.  As for dyes, no point trying as the wool is so dark that you won't see it. Use yarns as appropriate as it depends on what and how they are spun to how soft they are but if you have left the waterproof outercoat in your yarn that waterproof quality will be in your yarn so would be great for outerwear.

 

I had a small issue with when getting this fleece because I ordered a large bag of 250g of washed fleece, knowing that it was a dual coated fleece, and only 100g was sent so I had to wait for more fleece to be prepared and then they sent me 300g as compensation when I was only expecting the missing 150g. Whilst I waited for it to arrive, I combed the 100g that they had sent.  It was quite black with a lot of white hairs and I didn't get a lot from it and I forgot to weigh it.

When the replacement arrived it was a completely different colour and texture.  This replacement was dark brown and felt different to the touch, and I forgot to take photos of the replacement fleece before starting work on it.  300g of fleece became 85g of soft fibre.

See how different the two lots are.  That is a prime example of how fleece can differ from animal to animal never-mind breed to breed.  I did try to remove more of the white hair from the first batch but I was left with so little soft wool and it was a different colour that I decided to just use this brown-y one instead and threw the other stuff in the bin.

My finished yarn is of good quality and soft to the touch of the hand and a very rich dark chocolate brown, much darker than it looks in the light box.  My knitted piece for the project took 29g/48m so I have some left to do whatever with.