I had a quick look around the spinning sites but there's not much info re fleece apart from it being called a medium, tight, fine fleece. Further digging round the breed society lists came up with the info that it has a fineness of 26.5 to 30 microns. Sounds rather nice actually, especially if your particular sheep fleece has a longer than average staple length. I don't mind spinning short fine stapled fleece at all and it gives a lovely bouncy yarn but there's no denying that the more fibre ends you have, the more the resulting yarn will prickle for a given fineness. So if you have access to a lot of this stuff be really fussy and use the longest sections. As to what kind of draw to use and what thickness well, I'd experiment. I'd probably start with one of the longer extended draws rather than a worsted draw but I really don't know tbh, I've never spun this particular fleece.
But just because a sheep breed is a meat breed it doesn't mean it hasn't got a good spinnable fleece, it possibly just means the spinning tradition locally was dying out by the time this particular breed evolved and that the fleece was seen purely as a by product. Having said that you'd think any sheep developed from the merino would be at least partially aimed at fleece production, it might be that it just hasn't been readily available to modern hand spinners. So definitely give it a go and report back. I for one would be interested to know more.
Topic: Anyone heard of Berrichon sheep fleeces? (Read 2097 times)
