Hello Ann Great to hear from that wonderful island. We know something about you from the feature on BBC Scotland Landward programme last year .. Great to see you are straight in to your own flock and lambing in your first year. Did you know about sheep and lambing before?
> Shetland sheep. - The one main thing that has to be pointed out about > them is that when you take them away from the area native to them, > shetland, north isles, they very quickly loose the super fine fleece > & the softness. Depends where they are and what the actual management conditions are .... We have brought sheep from Shetland own her over the past 15 years and find that the lambs from mating a ram and ewe from say Clousta and Isleburgh have a significantly finer and denser fleece than the sire/dam. These are the fleeces the BWMB grade as Fine No1 and 2 ( the finest grades) Some of our fleeces have been measured and the best was around 14 micron neck wool ... This was a superb fleece and is the only Shetland fleece ever to win Supreme over all 22 breeds at the Great Yorkshire Show. > With age the fleece starts to loose > its softness & crimp. I look at some of my sheep & see gossamer > shawls en foot, Same here in mid Lanarkshire > you just dont get the low microns from shetlands > raised elsewhere, in effect really, the differences are so noticable, > that they could be termed as no longer being pure shetlands. I think there are many shepherds in England and mainland Scotland who would like to prove theirs are as good. Take a trip to the Royal Highland Show and look at the fleeces on sheep from across Scotland and also compare the fleeces in the Fleece competition .. Took Addie Doull (Isleburgh) a few years to work out how to take the white prize happy to have challenged him there and beaten him with coloured fleeces .. Then we do buy sheep from him. Robin -- Robin and Margaret McEwen-King Lanark Scotland To stop mail temporarily mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: set nomail To restore send: set mail
