Grace writes:
<<Spin Off lists Shetland
as a "down breed," and omits Dorset, Shropshire and Suffolk>>
Yes, I was annoyed by that, too--plus doesn't seem to me that Black
Welsh *Mountain* is going to be a Down breed, and I'm not real sure
Cheviot really fits in that category, either.
Clearly, they got the examples straight from In Sheep's Clothing, which
didn't know where to put Shetland, at least, with its variability.
Ironically for Shetland, Down-type wool is the type LEAST likely and
desirable, and the sample pictured is clearly a primitive-type staple.
Shows how powerful the marketing for Shetland is in the UK, that it
wasn't placed in the primitive chapter of the book.
Is there someone who really knows Down breeds as they were, say, 100
years ago, in England? In my experience, which is limited, they're
always pretty short--3" and under--very crimpy, and very 'crisp', which
seems to be something of a euphemism for coarse and crimpy :) Of
course, it's marvelous wool for quilt batts, blankets, and anything
needing tremendous springiness without a risk of felting.
None of which describes 99.9% of Shetland wool. We had *one* ram we
bought for his coloring (he was born spotted and with patches of milky
brown and pewter gray on a white ground) who had Down-type wool--as an
adult, it was indistinguishable from Suffolk. We used him for a couple
years, then 'got rid of him' because of the wool type. I've never seen
another sample of Shetland anything like that wool, in 9 years of
breeding and looking at others' Shetland sheep and wool.
Holly
with lambing over, and 13 Shetland lambs running around out of 7
ewes--gray, moorit, musket, and white, one musket spotted or
patterned--why it's always the muskets and grays that are spotted, I
can't say, but it means that by the end of the first year you'd never
know they had been born spotted
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