Roussin de la Hague - France

The Roussin de la Hague is a French sheep breed originating from the north area of La Manche in Normandy.  It is a very old breed, whose presence in the Normandy pastures has been attested since the 18th century, then it was the subject of various crosses with English breeds, before being officially recognised late in the 1980s.  It is well adapted to the windy climate of the La Manche coasts of its pastures, where it still lives mainly today.  It has white wool and a red head and legs.  The ewes are very maternal and have a good milk production, they are raised as pure breeds or crossed with meat breeds to improve the conformation of the lambs.  The breed, celebrated in August at an annual fair in Jobourg, has a dedicated breeding centre in Tonneville, supported by the General Council of La Manche. 

This is the photo from the listing that I purchase the fleece from

The local breed of the North of the Manche, in the region of La Hague, born in the 18th century from a mixture of Anglo-Norman and Ouessant breeds, was first crossed in 1920 with Dishley Leicesters and South Down rams to increase its butchering qualities.  40 years later, it was crossed again with Suffolks.  The departmental establishment of breeding of La Manche organised the first controls from 1976, and qualified the first ewes of the breed in 1977 of approximately 1,000 animals.  In 1978, breeders created an association for official recognition from the ministry which they obtained in 1982, a very late date given the antiquity of this breed.

It is a large sheep with the rams weighing 100kg-130kg and standing 70-75cm at the withers and the ewes weighing 70kg-90kg and standing 65-70cm at the withers.  It has a white fleece and a brown head and legs and both sexes are polled.  Its forehead is wool free as is the head and legs.

The Roussin is not very demanding, particularly adapted to the humid and windy climate of the Atlantic coast.  It can make the most of fairly poor land and is, for example, raised as a salt meadow lamb, but it is on the rich pastures of the Cotentin that its maximum potential can be exploited.

The Roussin de la Hague is generally raised in small flocks, with fewer than 50 ewes per farm.  Lambing takes place in winter.  The lambs produced are light, they are generally fattened on grass.  The lambs remain renowned in their region of origin.  The Roussin de la Hague can be raised as a pure breed, but also in crosses with meat breeds, in order to produce better formed lambs that are more suitable for the market. 

The breed selection scheme was equipped in 2003 with a breeding centre located in Gréville-Hague.  For a long time, it was mainly interested in maintaining genetic variability within the breed, which remains threatened due to its small numbers, and in working on resistance to scrapie in sheep.  Now that these two objectives have been largely achieved , the very recent breeding centre will allow work to be done on increasing the animals' performance. The selection base remains limited, however, with barely 2,000 ewes in the performance test.

The 7,000-8,000 of the sheep breed are still concentrated in its original cradle, in the north of the Manche department.  The Cotentin Farm Museum displays them to the public.  The first Roussin de la Hague sheep were imported to the UK in 1989.

I brought this breed in a 100g bag of washed fleece in May 2022.  It arrived weighing 110g and felt greasy so I washed it myself and when dried it weighed 105g.

I didn't comb this until January 2024 and I got 67g of lovely combed top from it.

I started spinning this on 13th October, and it took me a couple of days to pick out the little nepps the combs missed and spin it as fine as I could, since it is a bouncy fibre. I finished spinning on 15th October 2026 and achieved a yarn that was 65g/298m. It is soft and could be worn next to skin, but it is not luxuriously soft.

I started knitting the sample on 24th October, finished it on 25th October, and I still have 210m of yarn left to use for something else if I choose to.