Berrichon du Cher is one of two breeds of sheep derived from an older Berrichon from the Berry region of France, which was horned and long-woolled in the 16th century, according to images from the time, but by the 18th century images show them as being polled and having wool of the Merino type. During the 19th century, the original Berrichon breed was crossed with British breeds including Dishley Leicester, Cotswold, Romney and Southdown and also a French breed, Charmoise, all with the aim of improving the meat quality. The Berrichon du Cher is the result of these crosses.
This breed is large, mainly white, with a white face that is free of wool. The rams weigh about 110kg and are about 73cm at the withers, and the ewes weigh about 70 kg and are about 68 cm at the withers. Both sexes are polled. They are a breed that is raised primarily for meat and are hardy to their local climates and the wool is of a very high standard.
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I bought this breed in as 100g of washed raw fleece back in May 2022 from a lady from whom I bought many of the breed samples for my British Sheep Breed Project. I have purchased a number of samples from her for this Non-British Breed Project too, although she doesn't stock very many breeds that fit this category. It was described as a medium fine soft white dense fleece with good crimp and a 4-7 inch staple and this one was sourced from a UK keeper of the breed and this is a really hard to find breed that I haven't seen for available in any of the usual spinning fibre stores here in the UK.
Although it was sold as pre-washed it felt sticky/greasy to me on arrival so I gave it another wash, how I like to wash fleece in preparation for spinning, hot water with a shot of washing-up liquid, and I'm glad that I did as the water turned quite milky when I put the fleece in which confirmed to me that it was still full of lanolin. Lanolin is not a bad thing, it's actually good for dry skin, but it's bad when you are trying to comb a fleece as it makes it really hard work and makes your wool combs all sticky and nasty. My sample actually weighed 109g on arrival and after a wash and dry it reduced to 104g, so 5g of sticky lanolin washed out. I can't remember if the photos of the fleece below were taken before or after I re-washed.
I did notice that the fleece was quite fuzzy, crimpy and the staples looked short, a lot shorter than I was expecting, until I pulled on one of the locks and it suddenly extended to about twice the length and stayed that length even after I let go of it. There were lots of little round balls of wool in the fleece that looked like the pilling that can occur on woollen jumpers and the like.
I finally got around to combing this on 16th January 2024; all the little bits came out very easily with the combs and I am left with 54g of soft, bouncy fibre to spin.
As it is so bouncy, it will bloom once spun and washed so I needed to spin this as fine as I could to achieve the thickness I required for the project. I started spinning on 12th September and finished spinning on 14th September 2026. It was an interesting spin, as I added a lot of twist and yet when I plied it back on itself to test how it was spinning up, it didn't look like there was much twist at all and looked like it was almost unspun. I added much more twist to this yarn than I normally would, and of course, I added more twist to the ply to keep it balanced.
I achieved a yarn that was 55g/267m and is really soft. It is suitable for next to skin wear. I started knitting the sample on 22nd September, didn't knit everyday, and finished it on 28th September 2026.
