Charollais - France

Charollais sheep were developed in the Burgundy region of east-central France in the 19th century (1800's) when shepherds crossed imported British Leicester Longwools with their native landrace sheep.  The breed was not officially recognized by the French government until 1974 and then began promoting the fast-growing, muscular breed.  The first export of this breed from France to Britain took place in 1976 and then it was exported to Ireland in 1990, exported to Canada from Britain in 1994 and from there into the USA.   

This is primarily a meat sheep and little care or thought is given to the fleece, which is a shame because they grow fine to medium fleece that are dense but quite short.  They are a medium-large sheep with a pinkish-brown wool free head usually covered in pale coloured hair and both sexes are polled.  The rams weigh about 135kg and ewes about 90kg. Ewes are docile and good tempered.

Average fleece weights are 2-2.5kg and the staple length is usually 1.5-2.5 inches (3.8-6.5cm) with micron counts of 23-30.5 microns.  The locks are rectangular, almost square, due to the shortness.

 

I bought this breed in as 100g of commercially produced top way back in December 2020, when I first started shopping for fibres and fleece for my British Breeds Project and knowing that I would probably do one for Non-British Breeds afterwards.  Also I have not seen any pure breed Charollais fleece for sale at any time since, although I've not been looking specifically for that having purchased this top and I certainly don't want to buy a whole fleece due to the financial cost, storage space issues and the amount of work it takes to prepare and spin a whole fleece by hand especially when the breed has a noted shortness of the staple that I would find difficult to prepare using my wool combs.

The information from the retailer of this is top states that fibre from this breed is dense and springy, its natural brightness makes it a fantastic dye base.  Micron count is 30-33 and the staple length is 80mm (3 inch).  So, the micron count of this seems to be a bit higher than information I can find on this breed elsewhere, so this particular one is not quite as soft as it could potentially otherwise be and the staple length is a little longer than the stated normal range, but that's not unheard off.  Whilst there is information online about this sheep breed most of it is the same repeated information (and I've also just repeated much of it too) and its all about how good it is for meat production, its usefulness as a terminal sire to increase lamb size and profitability and there doesn't seem to be anyone blogging about or promoting the wool of this breed, no one singing its praises or showing off how they prepared the fleece or how they dyed it or anything.  Is no one really enthusiastic about the Charollais in terms of its wool?

I split the commercial top into two lengths and pre-drafted it before spinning a two ply yarn, beginning on 23rd December and finishing on 25th December 2025. I did have to remove some thick hairs and kemp like fibres from this one and the finished yarn is quite crisp and I wouldn't use it next-to-skin. I got a fingering weight yarn that is 96g/399m.

The knitted piece only used 12g of the yarn and I finished knitting it on 10th January 2026.