[Bex]

All my time is spent daydreaming and planning our smallholding. Recently been thinking about hair sheep but I'd also like to spin and knit my own wool. So...

Do hair sheep shed all at once so you can collect all the hair? Is the hair any good for spinning and knitting? Is it reasonably similar to regular wool once carded and spun?

[devonlad]

We have hair sheep and as far as I'm aware the shed wool is not really any use as its too coarse and won't spin.

[Bex]

Ahh, I thought that might be the case. 

So other than saving you the trouble and expense of sheering, what are the benefits of hair sheep over regular wool sheep?

[Fleecewife]

I thought hair sheep, like the Barbados black belly, had short, straight coarse hairs, sharp at both ends, and that they were scattered as shed.
For spinning you need wool, which has scales on the shaft of each fibre, so they cling together in the yarn.

If it's not having to shear which makes you interested in the hair sheep, go for a shedding breed such as Soay or Shetland.  They can be shorn, but can also be roo'd, where the fleece is separated from the new growth in small tufts, by hand, no shears involved.  In fact this is a great way to collect fleece for spinning, as sometimes you can spin direct from the tufts, or card each tuft into one rolag, and you get no noils from double cuts.
Roo'ing can take some time, but is one of those jobs when you can commune with your sheep in the sunshine.

Try spinning a variety of different breed fleeces before you decide to keep a particular one, so you know what suits you. 

[Tim W]

Ahh, I thought that might be the case. 

So other than saving you the trouble and expense of sheering, what are the benefits of hair sheep over regular wool sheep?

Benefits of clean-skin sheep (hairsheep or shedding sheep) include;
No shearing/dagging
No need to mutilate (cut tails)
Vastly reduced flystrike risk
Almost never get cast when heavily pregnant
High energy - meat conversion ---(less energy wasted on wool production)

Cons might be
No wool !
In general hairsheep have been subjected to less selection over the last 100 years and so are often not as high producers as some woolly sheep ----but there are some types that break this rule, St Innes (Brazil) Exlana (UK) Meatmaster (Aus) , Royal White & Katahdin (USA)

Try http://www.nolana-schafe.de for information on the many types of hairsheep in the world

[Bex]

Thanks everyone. I guess I'm just trying to have it all! Really I should have meat production (and possibly milk production?) in the forefront of my mind and wool spinning as secondary.

Perhaps I'll start with the hair and bring the wool in later...
Could I run two breeds together as one herd?

Tim W - those benefits sound pretty good to me. You mention that hair sheep have been subjected to less selection over the years. Does that make them less domesticated? As a beginner I don't want anything too wild (especially if I want to try milking them).

Does anyone else here milk their sheep? Hair or otherwise?

 

[SallyintNorth]

Could I run two breeds together as one herd?

errr... flock

Depends on the breeds.  If evenly-matched, and either both horned or both polled, then probably.  If not evenly matched then it'll depend on temperament and treatment - if there's enough space and no competition for resources, they can run themselves as two flocks if they want.

And as for fleece for spinning - it's lovely to spin your own wool, but frankly it makes no economic sense. It's so easy to source a huge range of lovely fleeces from all sorts of different types of sheep, you really don't need to have your own to have nice fleeces to spin

[Tim W]

Hair sheep will be no wilder than any other breed---it's more to do with how you treat them (I have 1000 hair sheep + some Charollais and the Charollais are just as mad as the hairsheep)

You could always start with shedding/hair sheep (?wilts horn or easycare?) and then cross them with a woolly breed if you decided you wanted wool ---2 crosses /generations will leave you with a good woolly sheep again!
But you could very easily buy nice fleeces at a reasonable price and save yourself a whole lot of hassle?

Milking sheep are fairly specialist if you want decent yields (Lacune/Friesland) but if it's just for the house I guess any decent ewe will do? Some Dorsets are easy to handle and quite milky ---but if she has a lamb at foot you won't get much milk from her?

Keep it simple if you are starting out?

 

[Bex]

Could I run two breeds together as one herd?

errr... flock

Ha! Yes flock. Posting in 'Cattle' and 'Sheep' at the same time must be making my brain squishy! 

Keep it simple if you are starting out?

 

Will do. This is all just theoretical at the moment. I haven't even got the smallholding yet so I'm just throwing some ideas about.

Thanks for the replies 

[devonlady]

I had Friesland sheep 30 years ago and had the best of all things. Milk, meat and fleece plus, of course, they are multiple lambers. Our best was sixteen lambs from four ewes, quintets, two sets of quads and triplets!! The ram lambs were popular as terminal rams.
Downside, the work involved in rearing lambs, ours were bottle fed. Also, you only get milk for six or seven months of the year, it does freeze well though.
I had mine alongside goats and never wanted for milk, meat or sheep's fleece.