White fleece comparison of 11 breeds spun so far

So far, for my British Breeds Project, I have spun 11 different white fleece and all of them are different in some way.  A white sheep is not just a white sheep, they are not all the same and its not a case of "once you've seen one sheep you've seen them all".  They all have different textures, differences in lustre, matt, hairy, smoothness, squishiness, softness and shade of white.  4 of them are Welsh, 3 of them are Longwool, 2 of them are in the Blackfaced Mountain family and there are cross-overs in categories there too.

I've put together a bit of a visual comparison of the white yarns spun so far.

Poll Dorset Sheep

The Poll Dorset and the Dorset Horn are another two breeds of sheep that my reference books have clumped together as "one breed", just like they have done with the Badgerface Welsh Mountain breeds of Torddu and Torwen.  I can see why they have done this because the Poll Dorset (hornless) has been bred from the Dorset Horn in two different ways and technically they are a different version of the same breed.  Its complicated. The Rare Breeds Survival Trust sees them as two separate breeds.  I will once again try to my best to separate out the information and blog about them separately.  

Poll Dorset - neither sex have horns

The Poll Dorset sheep has been developed in two independent locations and by two different ways.  Firstly, the Australians started to breed the horns out of Dorset Horns in the 1940's by using similar but hornless breeds, Ryeland and Corriedale, and then following a strict back-mating programme achieved close to 100% Dorset Horn blood.  It is known as the Australia Poll Dorset.  The other version, known as the Polled Dorset was achieved by accident in the 1950's at North Carolina State University Small Ruminant Unit when a genetic mutation led to the birth of four polled ewes from parents that both carried the usual horns.  After a few years of breeding one of those ewes gave birth to twin rams, one was normally horned and the other was naturally polled.  The off-spring of the polled ram were purchased by other breeders and within 20 years 70% of all registered Dorset Horns in the US were polled.  

The Poll Dorset that is found in the UK have been imported here from the Australian and New Zealand lines, although that is not to say that there may be some that have been imported from the US bloodlines.  Due to the fact that is technically a hornless version of the Dorset Horn it means that it is highly prolific and can breed all year round because it does not have a seasonal estrus cycle, but a recurring estrus cycle.  They regularly produce twins and triplets are not uncommon either.  It can be bred earlier in the year than other breeds to produce lambs in time for the Christmas meat market or it can be bred more intensively to produce lambs three times over a two year period.  Either way gives financial advantages to the farmer.  At the time of writing the Poll Dorset is the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 6: Other UK Native Breeds (over 3000) registered breeding ewes.

They are a medium sized sheep with a white face and characteristic pink nostrils.  They produce a medium size fleece that is very thick and weighs 2-4kg with a staple length of 2.5-6inch (6.5-12.5cm).  The fleece is very white with an organised, regular and fine crimp pattern in both fibre and lock and it feels firm with good body.  Micron counts are 26 to 33 so finer fleece can be used for next-to-skin items with coarser fleeces more suited to household textiles.  Due to the inclusion of a tiny little bit of down-like genetics from the Australian breeding the fleece found in the UK is likely to be a bit denser and have more bounciness than that of the US fleece.

The fleece can be combed or carded, depending on the length of the fibres but can also be spun from the lock if you prefer.  The longer length fleece with more open crimp pattern are easier to spin than those that are shorter with more Down-like qualities, which may require more experience to control.  You can spin either woollen style or worsted style, it really is quite a versatile fleece.  It will take dye very clearly.

I have found reference to the fact that there are some coloured Dorsets that have black fleece but it doesn't state whether these are polled or horned and are most likely from being cross bred at some point and so are probably not true Dorsets.  

I have bought this breed in as 100g of washed fleece and it provided me with 72g of hand combed top.

My finished yarn is really nice and has good bounce.  It is 67g/171m of double knit weight and is a nice pale cream/warm white. My knitted piece for the project took 19g/49m so I have some left to do whatever with.

Derbyshire Gritstone Sheep

Derbyshire Gritstone sheep have been around since about 1770 and are one of Britain's oldest hill breeds.  It hasn't always been called the Derbyshire Gritstone though.  It was once known as the Dale of Goyt/Dale o'Goyt sheep, named after the area on the edge of the Derbyshire Peak District where it first originated.

The Derbyshire Gritstone sheep, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 4: At Risk (900-1500) registered breeding ewes. They are usually found in the Peak District and along the Pennines, so basically the counties of Derbyshire. Cheshire, Yorkshire and Lancashire.  

The Derybshire Gritstone is a large hardy hill sheep with a blackface that has white irregular markings in no defined pattern.  It has no wool on its face or legs and both sexes are polled. The ears are black and white and carried slightly forward.  The front legs are white with black knees and hooves, the back legs have black markings down the back of the leg and black hooves.

They produce a good sized white fleece that is usually 2-3kg in weight with staple lengths of around 6 inches (15cm). It should be free of black fibres and kemp, although some may occur, especially if the fleece is from a sheep that has been raised primarily for meat and not its wool.  It is consistent, dense and has enough crimp to give good loft and resilience.  Typically finer than wool from other Blackfaced Mountain and hill breeds.  The locks are not particularly distinct from one another, often coming away from the main mass of the fleece in strips.

This fleece can be spun from picked teased out locks or combed.  Carding works better on short stapled fleece.  The longer the staple the less twist will be needed to keep it together and helps with the softness.  Often has a very slight bit of lustre which suggests that dyes will take well and produce good clear colours.

Yarns spun from this breed are good workhorse yarns and are very versatile so make sweaters, blankets, hats, scarves and anything else your heart desires.    

I have bought this breed in as pre-prepared fibre.  All I could get my hands on at the time was a 100g carded batt and so not my preferred preparation for spinning.  It was quite greasy feeling and had lots of black hairs and bits of vegetation in it.

I did try to comb the fibre from the batt to both clean it up and to get it into my preferred form for spinning but due to the amount of grease/lanolin that was still in it this wasn't any easy process and I was loosing so much fibre that got stuck in the combs that I decided to give up and just pull the roving into strips as best as I could and spin from that.

My finished yarn was sticky and greasy. looked lifeless and was very dirty looking.  When I washed it, like I wash all of the yarns after I spin them, the water turned a cloudy milky colour, this is the lanolin and grease coming out of the yarn.  Now the yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand, has bounce and is whiter than some of the other natural whites. There is 78g/208m of sport weight yarn.  It's amazing what a wash can do sometimes. My knitted piece for the project took 25g/67m so I have some left to do whatever with.

Balwen Welsh Mountain Sheep

The Balwen Welsh Mountain Sheep, usually just referred to as "Balwen" is not a particularly old breed and yet I can find no mention of exactly what breeds were used to create this newer breed.  All sources of information that I have looked at say that it was developed by the small group of enthusiastic breeders in the Upper Tywi Valley in Dyfed, Wales in the 19th century but no year is noted anywhere and all sources also say that the breed was wiped out during the severe winter of 1947 all but for one single ram that survived and this ram was used to re-establish the breed.  With that in mind you would think that it would be common knowledge as to what breeds they used to re-establish this breed, but no, not an ounce of information to be found about that but my educated guess would be that it was re-developed using Black Welsh Mountain and maybe the Badgerface Welsh Mountain - Torwen because RBST information states that like the black and the badger face varieties it is more docile than the normal Welsh mountain sheep.

Top: Balwen Ewe
Bottom: Balwen Ram

The Balwen Welsh Mountain sheep, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 4: At Risk (900-1500), so there are less than 1500 registered breeding ewes.  They were historically found only in a very small valley in mid Wales but, although they are relatively small in number, they are now more widespread and are kept by smallholders who are more likely to keep them as pure breeds whilst commercial farmers are more likely to cross breed them using terminal sires.

They are a small, compact hardy sheep and are usually black, dark grey or dark brown with a broad white stripe running from the top of its head to the top of its nose and it has four white feet and a half white tail, dark on the top third to half and white lower down.  Rams have horns and the ewes are polled.  

The fleece is 1.25-1.75kg and the staple length is 2-3.5 inches (5-10cm).  The staples are blocky with curly tips, often sun-bleached.  The fleece can be flicked, carded or combed.  Due to the coarseness in relation to the shortness this wool requires a delicate balance between grist and twist, you need just the right amount of twist to hold the yarn together but not so much that it becomes wiry.  It really isn't worth trying to dye this fleece as it is usually too dark to notice.

Yarns spun from Balwen fleece are probably best suited to outerwear, bags and items that take a lot of abuse, unless you can find a particularly soft fleece.

I have bought this breed in as 105g of pre-washed fleece and there is a number of white hairs which I feel that I have to remove and after I finished combing it I was left with 45g of hand combed top that feels quite a lot like a slightly coarser version of Jacob.

I sat and removed the white hairs using a pair of tweezers

I did actually sit and remove as many of the white hairs that I could using a pair of tweezers as I felt that it is naturally black fleece and the white hairs were really annoying me and I wanted it as clean as possible.  I also removed any remaining ones during the spinning process.

My finished yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand and is quite nice.  It is 42g/95m and I'd be happy to use it to make hats, mittens and maybe a scarf.  It's much nicer than my books suggest.  My knitted piece for the project took 15g/34m so I have some left to do whatever with.

Devon Closewool Sheep

The next breed for my British Breeds Project is the Devon Closewool. The breed was developed in the mid 1800's by crossing Devon & Cornwall Longwools with Exmoor Horns and were bred for local terrain and weather conditions.  I haven't written about either of those two breeds yet but they are on my very long list of breeds to write about.

The Devon Closewool is a hardy sheep with a docile temperament and survives and thrives on a pure grass based diet.  They are a medium sized white faced sheep and neither sex have horns.  It has stout legs and a short thick neck, short ears and black nostrils.  It's head and legs are well covered with wool and it's dense medium stapled fleece gives good protection against cold and wet weather.  They were once extremely popular and in 1950 there were around 229,000 Devon Closewools populating the Devonshire countryside, making them the most numerous breed in the county at that time and they were, and still are, raised primarily for meat.  At the time of writing they are in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 5: Minority (1500-3000) registered breeding ewes.  That is one hell of downward shift in numbers in 70 years and it has taken a lot of digging on the internet to find out why.  The obvious go-to sites like the Breed Association and the RBST and Wikipedia all quote the 229,000 figure in 1950 but no mention of why there was such a decline.  However, thanks to a news media site and an article written by Devon Live, we now know that the decline was due to intense farming practices of the 60's and 70's and the preference to breed mule crosses because they carried less wool and produced more lambs than the purebreed.  Thankfully, now, there has been an about-turn and farming is more about restorative practices than intense practices and the Devon Closewool numbers are back on the increase, slowly but surely.

They produce a medium size white fleece that can be up to 6kg in rams and 2.5-4kg in ewes.  The staple length is 7.5-12cm (3-4.5 inches). The locks are dense and blocky and have a tendency to separate from the mass of the fleece in clumps rather than in individual locks.  There may be a small amount of kemp, which is easily removed and there shouldn't be any black fibres.

This fleece can be spun from picked and teased locks if you want a lot of texture or it can be combed or carded.  There may be a slight touch of lustre in the fleece and it takes dye well. 

Yarns spun from Devon Closewool fleece are sturdy but not harsh and make wonderful blankets and such like and finer softer yarns can be used for things like sweaters, hats and mittens.  

I have bought this breed in as a bump of 108g of pre-prepared fibre that is ready to spin.  It would have been really nice to have been able to undertake this project using nothing but raw sheep fleece but that is not always possible due to a whole range of factors that include rarity of the sheep and so scarcity of whole or part fleece, cost to me although some of small amounts that I've been able to get my hands on have cost as much or more than a whole fleece of an abundant breed.  There is also the lack of room in my house as fleece take up a lot of storage space, amount of work involved in preparing everything from fleece and I dare say many other factors.

My finished yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand with a sturdiness about it. It is also a creamy white, not a bright white and is 104g/218m.  My knitted piece for the project took 36g/76m so I have some left to do whatever with.

Castlemilk Moorit Sheep

The Castlemilk Moorit sheep hasn't been around for all that long, only since the early 1900's after Sir John Buchanan Jardine, a Scottish aristocrat who's family home was at Castlemilk in Dumfrieshire, who had a passion for breeding animals such as hounds, horses, cattle and sheep and who fascinated particularly in breeding animals in shades of brown.  He used Shetland Sheep in the Moorit colour, along with Manx Loaghtans and a mouflon ram (a wild sheep that is darker on its upper parts and lighter on the lower parts, including the neck and belly) to produce an easy-care brown sheep with short, tight wool that was suitable for hand-spinning by the family.  

The family continued to raise the breed until 1970 when Sir John Buchanan Jardine died and most of his flock were culled aside from a small number that was sold to the late Joe Henson.  Joe Henson was the owner of Cotswold Farm Park, which was established in the 1960's to protect rare breeds of livestock and all present day Castlemilk Moorit Sheep are descendants of those handful of sheep.  He was also the founder-chairman of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust and received an MBE in the 2011 Queen's Birthday Honors for services to conservation. His son, Adam Henson, is a well known farmer and TV presenter and appears on BBC Countryfile.

They are fine boned, vigorous and self-reliant with long legs and a short tail.  Both sexes have horns, the ewes have two uniform wide-spreading horns whilst the rams have horns that spiral. They are varying shades of brown, from mid-brown to dark brown with similar face colour.  They should have white around the eyes, lower jaw, belly, knees and inside the lower leg and the tail.  They adapt well to most conditions and environments.  The Castlemilk Moorit sheep, at the time of writing, is in Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 5: At Risk (900-1500 registered breeding ewes). 

They produce a fleece that weighs 1-2kg and the staple length is between 1.5 and 4.75 inches long 3.8-12cm).  The fleece is kemp free and the locks tend to be short and blocky and often have sun-bleached tips.  This is probably best carded due to the shortness of the staple and how fine the wool is.  The wool is very similar to that of the Manx Loaghtan, which it is genetically descended from. 

I have bought this breed in as a 106g bag of pre-prepared roving that was ready to spin as, for me, this was the easier option due to the shortness of the staple.

My finished yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand, similar to Shetland and Manx Loaghtan.  My knitted piece for the project took 27g/69m so I have some left to do whatever with.

North Ronaldsay Sheep

The North Ronaldsay Sheep is a very small, fine boned yet hardy and prolific sheep that has adapted to the terrain of the Orkney Islands that are situated some 10 miles north of the North Coast of mainland Scotland with North Ronaldsay being one of the largest and the most northern of the 70 islands that make up the Orkney Islands. North Ronaldsay, at its highest point, rises just 54m above the North Sea.  

In the early 1800's the residents would either burn or dry the abundant seaweed that covered the shores and sell their iodine-rich kelp and ash to England.  This trade made up a good amount of their livelihoods. In 1832 the residents built a 6ft high, 13 mile long dry stone wall around the island and placed their sheep outside the wall to prevent them eating crops that they were growing on the uplands of the island. The sheep had always eaten large amounts of seaweed but they now had to survive almost exclusively on a seaweed diet.  Nowadays there are around 60 people living on the island working in the lighthouse and communications, tourism and tending the sheep. 

As I've already said they are a small, fine-boned yet hardy and prolific breed.  The rams have horns and a fringe of coarse hair under the neck whereas the ewes are not always horned.  According to the British Wool Marketing Board, was established in the UK during the 9th century and at the time of writing, the North Ronaldsay sheep are in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 3: Vulnerable (500-900) registered breeding ewes.  They can still be found on the Island of North Ronaldsay but attempts to "improve" the breed by crossbreeding have failed because the resulting animals have not been able to survive on the island.  In 1974 TV presenter Adam Henson, then aged 8, accompanied his father, Joe Henson, founder of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, travelled to North Ronaldsay Island on an excursion to buy 287 sheep as the Trust had purchased another island, Linga Holm, as an alternative breeding site and 179 sheep were transported there with 108 sheep being bought back to found new flocks in Scotland and England.  There are some that are also kept by rare breed enthusiasts elsewhere in the UK.

They produce a small size fleece that is anywhere from 0.9kg up to about 2.5kg with a staple length of 2-4 inches (5 to 10cm).  They have a double-coated fleece with the undercoat being lovely and soft to keep them warm and the outercoat being made up of guard hairs that are coarse that protects them against wet weather.  Most of the sheep have white or grey fleece (the grey is actually white fleece with coarse black guard hairs) but you can also get black and brown.  The locks are triangular with wide bases and the crimp varies with the undercoat tending to have fine even crimp.

This fleece will need to be washed well before any attempt to prepare or spin, especially if your fleece comes from the island as the fleece will contain a lot of sand and sea salt and around 50% of the weight of the fleece will be because of that.  It is a difficult fleece to card due to the matting of the locks and combing removes the guard hairs effectively to leave the nice soft wool behind for use.  You need to decide if you want the texture of the guard hairs in your yarn, they also provide colour in a white fleece to make it look grey but they also add a scratchiness factor.  Guard hairs will not take up the dye as they are generally black but the wool content will and so if you dye light coloured wool it will give an unusual effect if you are leaving in the black guard hairs. 

Yarns spun from North Ronaldsay fleece that have the guard hairs left in are definitely suited to household items and upholstery and those that have had the guard hairs removed will be more Shetland like and suitable for fine textiles.  

I have bought this breed in as 100g of prepared roving.  There are black hairs throughout but they're not overly coarse.

My finished yarn is of reasonably soft quality to the touch of the hand but you can feel the prickly hair sticking out if you put it to your neck but its not overly nasty and  I do like the colour.  My knitted piece for the project only took 29g/67m so I have some left to do whatever with.