Wildcraft sources all of its home grown fibre from our own spinner's flock of sheep. We are building a small mixed flock of a variety of British and continental sheep breeds, with a focus on producing beautiful fleeces for handspinners and knitters.

In 2008 we began building a core flock of pedigree Coloured Ryeland sheep. Ryelands are one of the oldest British breeds of sheep, the majority of which are now white. There is however, a small but growing group of registered coloured Ryelands. Coloured Ryelands generally are born with black or spotted fleeces, which develop a grey/brown tinge as they grow older. The adult sheep are very well covered with wool, which when coupled with their friendly nature, can make them seem rather like teddy bears!

Our coloured Ryeland flock began with Giles, who I bought from Sue Trimmings in Northumberland with the intention of introducing some colour genes into our existing small crossbred flock. Sheep colour genetics in a flock of this small size are hard to determine with any accuracy, but Giles has already produced some coloured lambs from one of our white crossbred ewes. Being a Ryeland, Giles' fleece is a typical downland type. It's a soft to medium grade fibre, that's springy and very crimpy, it should make ideal sock yarns.

In October 2008, I added three pedigree Ryeland ewes, Truffle, Coffee and Chocolate. They were in lamb when I acquired them, and between them they produced five coloured Ryeland lambs in February '09. The Ryelands have a lovely calm and friendly temperament, which makes routine handling, foot trimming etc. almost a pleasure! Our three crossbred Texel ewes (Buffy, Willow and Cordelia) also produced lambs this spring, the first of Giles' progeny and these lambs do seem to have inherited his friendly nature.

The 2010 lambing season produced another fantastic crop of Ryeland and crossbred lambs.  To help us keep a watchful eye on the ewes during the lambing period, we installed a webcam.  In a first for Wildcraft, we also made the webcam viewable from this web site, so visitors could watch the goings-on along with us.  2010 therefore made stars of all our lambs, but especially Small, Murphy and Bandit, who seem to have established early leanings toward careers in show business.

Over the coming year,  I plan to develop the Ryeland flock, with the possibility of exhibiting some of the lambs at a few local and regional livestock shows. I'll also be looking to add some other breeds for crossing with the Ryelands with a view to growing fleeces that are ideal for handspinners.

You can read more about our sheep and their exploits in the Wildcraft Blog

NEWS AUG: We will have a number of pedigree coloured Ryeland and Ryeland crossbred shearling rams available for sale. Please contact us for further details.