Tiroler Steinschaf (Tyrolean Rock Sheep) - Austria aka Pecora della Roccia Tirolese - Italy

The Tiroler Steinschaf is a breed of sheep from the mountainous Tyrol area of Austria where they are raised in Tyrol and Saltzbrug but they are also known as Pecora della Roccia Tirolese in Italy where they are raised in Bolzano.  The name means "Tyrolean Rock Sheep".  The breed dates back to the early 19th century and is the oldest of the Tyrolean sheep breeds.  This breed is widespread throughout the Tyrol as well as Salzburg, Styria, Lower Austria, Upper Austria and Bavaria.  They are the second most numerous breed in the Tyrol.

The Austrian herdbook was established in 1973 and the registered population reported for Austria in 2012 was 2,780 to 3,500, total numbers are estimated at 12,000.

It is one of 42 native local sheep breeds of limited distribution for which a herdbook is kept by the Associazione Nazionale della Pastorizia, the Italian national association of sheep breeders.  In 2013, no total number for the breed was recorded in the herdbook, but the total number in Italy is only about 60.

They are a multi purpose breed, being raised for meat, milk and wool.  They are very hardy making them perfect for life in the high mountain ranges of the Eastern Alpine regions.  Ewes generally give birth to twins or triplets.  They are well-suited for extensive pastures and alpine pastures and they are also good for landscape management.

In the Ziller Valley in Austria it used to be called "the grey sheep" and in Ötztal, probably because of the grey-blue colour it was called "Blobe" sheep.  The white variety of this breed is primarily bred in the valleys of East Tyrol.  Lambs of the grey varieties are born black and their wool turns grey by the age of 2 with the head and legs remaining black.  Any animal that is born black but does not turn to grey are not used for breeding.  The ideal colour is a light silver-grey and is historically determined.  The loden, which was handcrafted on many farms until the middle of the last century, is said to have a beautiful silver-grey colour.  The loden is used to make the "Tuxer Janker", a jacket made of felted Tiroler Steinschaf wool, usually worn by men and a component of the Zillertal traditional costume.  Strangely, the grey loden is resistant to light and does not fade.  "Tuxer" are still proudly worn on festive occasions by marching bands, rifle companies and traditional costume groups throughout the Zillertal and other regions.

Josef Gredler from Barmerbauer in Tux, recognised the need to preserve the breed and in 1965 petitioned the Tyrolean Chamber of Agriculture to enable and promote the organised breeding of Steinschaf.  At the time, his request was rejected, but in 1972, the "pioneer" of Tyrolean Steinschaf breeding, Franz Fankhauser, also from Tux, managed to convince the same board to begin organised herdbook breeding, despite massive resistance from some officials who preferred the Bergschaf.  In 1973, the Tux-Hinteres Zillertal Association was founded as the first breeding association for the breed.  Fankhauser managed to locate remaining animals in other parts of North and East Tyrol and inspired breeders with his idea.  The breed, which was small due to inbreeding and the meagre winter feeding was crossed with the much more vigorous East Tyrolean breed and then purebred according to a uniformly established breeding goal.  After 35 years of organised breeding, the Tiroler Steinschaf is now a stable breed in its appearance.

A Tiroler Steinschaf ram is the heraldic animal of the municipality of Tux in the Zillertal and stands as a symbol for the original, for independence, self-assertion and the austerity of mountain agriculture.

Tiroler Steinschaf are a medium to large size sheep with white, silver-grey to anthracite-grey or black double-coated fleece.  The face is usually black.  They have small heads and straight noses  . The ears are short and pointed, and the tail is long and thin.  Rams weigh 70kg-120kg and ewes weigh 60kg-100kg.  The forehead and belly are woolly in both sexes.  Rams have beautifully curved, strong horns; ewes are usually polled but can sometimes have scurs.   Fleece weigh around 4.5kg-5kg.  

  

I bought this breed as a 100g bag of washed fleece in September 2023; it actually weighed 114g.  This is sourced from the only flock of this breed in the UK.

It is a double-coated fleece, and the longest fibres are very coarse and are in a whole range of colours: white, grey, black and much longer than the undercoat fibres; but there are some shorter outercoat fibres that are the same length as the undercoat fibres, and there are also some shorter black hairs as well.

What I did was to remove a lot of the coarse outercoat fibres that were longer than the undercoat by pulling on the tips once the locks were loaded onto my combs, and then to remove more with each pass of the combs to the point that the only ones left in are those that are the same or shorter in length as the undercoat.  Some of the shorter black hairs were also removed with each pass of the combs, but I left most of them in as they add to the colour.  It's actually quite soft, considering.  I combed this on 20th January 2024, and I got 49g of hand-combed top from it.

I pre-drafted the fibre, two fibre nests per single, and I noticed that the shortest fibres had a higher concentration of black hairs, making each nest get progressively darker along it's length. I tried my best to even out the colour by pre-drafting two fibre nests together, at the same time, and reversing one against the other so that I pre-drafted light and dark fibres together.  There are a couple of sections that contain a small amount of outercoat, and these sections are more coarse than the rest of the yarn.

I spun the entire yarn in one day, 13th October 2026 and overall the yarn has spun up quite soft, considering that it is a mountain breed. It is very nice and looks a little lustrous or luminous and is soft but ever so slightly prickly. My finished yarn was 49g/188m.

I knit the sample piece over two days, 19th and 20th October 2026.