Little Cabin Farm
The Icelandic Sheep is one of the world's purest breed of sheep. It has been virtually unchanged in the past 1100 years. The breed is truly a triple purpose breed used for meat, fiber and milking. They are considered a medium sized sheep with ewes averaging 130-160 pounds and rams averaging 180-220 pounds.
FLEECE
We recently had a visitor to our farm who is also a veterinarian. Her first comment about the ewe she was looking at was "She smells so good, so clean, like wool that is already washed!". I had to smile and agree. Icelandics have approximately half of the lanolin that many breeds of sheep have, so they don't have the heavy smell. There is also much less shrinkage from raw to clean fleece for the same reason. Below you will find more details about Icelandic fleece.
The Icelandic sheep produce a premium, very versatile fleece. They come in 17 different colors/patterns making a large variety of natural colors. It is dual-coated with a fine soft undercoat called thel and a long coarser outer coat called tog. The tog fiber, with a count of 56-60 and a micron count of 27-30 grows 6-8 inches in six months time. It is lustrous, strong and water and wear resistant. Tog is a true wool and is NOT kemp or guard hair. The thel with a count of 64-70 and a micron count of 19-22 grows 2-4 inches. The thel provides the loft for the outer coat and insulation for the sheep.
Icelandic fleeces are low in lanolin so there is significantly less loss in weight when it is washed when compared to other breeds. The average adult yearly fleece weighs between 4 and 7 pounds.
The two coats can be spun together into the traditional lopi yarn. This is a lightly spun blend of tog and thel. Thel is very soft and downy and can be used for baby garments, fine shawls as in the style of the Wedding Shawl. The tog, similar to mohair, is wonderful in worsted spinning.
The versatility of the wool, the ease of spinning and the wide variation of tones and colors and a true delight to hand spinners, and put Icelandic wool into the exotic or premium category. It is also known as one of the best fleeces for felting, which is fast gaining popularity in the craft community.
MEAT
Icelandic sheep, while known for their wool, have a delicious, tender, mild flavor meat, considered "gourmet". They thrive on grass-based production and reach the ideal slaughter weight of 70-100 pounds in four to five months on pasture alone. Many people who do not "like" lamb have found that Icelandic lamb is very enjoyable.
We do have some lamb available in the fall. Please contact us directly if you are interested. mvsrkblack@wcnet.org.