Gestrikefår - Sweden

Gestrikefår are one strain of several Swedish breeds referred to as "forest sheep", each of which is geographically and genetically unique and very rare.  This breed of sheep originates from the village of Mörtebo in Gästrikland (Gestrike) province in east central Sweden and were once very common.  They were "rediscovered" in 1994 after seemingly been kept in small numbers in closed herds on a handful of farms. They are an endangered conservation breed with just 216 breeding ewes registered as of 2021.  Gestrike have been in the gene bank of the Swedish Farm Sheep Association since 2000.  

They are known for being unusually tame and affectionate.  They are quite small with rams weighing around 60-70kg and standing 69cm at the withers and ewes weighing around 45kg and standing 65cm at the withers. They have short tails, which often go bald as the sheep ages.  The ewes usually have twin lambs but can also have single lambs, triplets, or quads. Both rams and ewes can have horns, but they are usually polled. When horns are present, the Rams will have large horns, whilst the ewes will have small horns.  They come in a whole range of colours: white, grey, brown, black and all colours in between, spotted and parti-coloured. Some lambs are born white and some black or brownish and the fleece can lighten in colour with age. They have double-coated fleece, which varies from very fine wool to long wool type.  The undercoat is often dense.  The wool has tapestry wool or rya-type wool.  I've not been able to find any information about the fibre diameters or microns, but as this is a conservation breed and not in huge numbers, and the fact that the fleece is double-coated and can vary, then I am not surprised that the information is not available.

I bought this breed in as 113g of unwashed raw fleece that was part of a sample pack that featured 8 different Swedish breeds that I purchased back in early May 2022 from a lady called Anita Grahn based in Uppsala, Sweden.  I was going to add a link for Anita and her shop but when I looked her last social media post was in October of 2024 stating that she was in hospital and she has not posted anything since and her online shop is empty as of June 2026. I do hope she is OK.  However, I can provide a link to Swedish Fibre, a small business run by Sandy Zetterlund who has a passion for knitting, wool, spinning and now a passion for bringing these beautiful fleece from these rare conservation sheep kept by small farmers into the limelight and put them in front of similarly passionate hand spinners like myself who care about ensuring the future and continuation of these rare and unique breeds.  The demand for and sale of fleece from these rare breeds really do help the survival of the breed.  

I washed this just a few days after it arrived and the water turned really brown.  All of the beige-brown fibres became white and after it had been washed and dried I was left with 103g, a drop of just 10g.

I combed the fleece about a month later on 19th June 2022 and it gave me 77g of lovely interesting top ready to spin.

I split the fibre into equal amounts to spin a 2ply yarn and pre-drafted it, trying to ensure that the black guard hairs were evenly distributed throughout. It was quite nice to spin, spinning it over a couple of days and finishing on 2nd June 2026. The wool itself was a mix of white and pale grey, which made for an interesting yarn.

The yarn is sturdy, crisp, a little prickly, definitely not next-to-skin. I measure it to be about a sport weight and 73g/229m.

I finished the knitted piece on 10th June 2026.

I think the lettering is fairly easy to read and I love the pooling of colour within the knitting.