"The Icelandic sheep is one of the world's oldest and purest breeds of sheep. Throughout its 1100 years of history, the Icelandic breed has been truly triple-purpose, treasured for its meat, fiber and milk.” —Icelandic Sheep Breeders of North America

Icelandic sheep are a triple-purpose breed, known for their quality meat, wool and milk. Where other breeds tend to stand out in one of these areas or another, Icelandics are well-known for all three. They are considered to be a medium breed in size.

Unlike some other breeds, it is very common for Icelandics to have twins and even triplets on a regular basis. They are very good mothers and usually have plenty of milk for all their lambs. They are usually self-sufficient when lambing. Lambs tend to be small at birth but are lively and quick to get up to nurse. They are naturally born with a short tail.

Icelandic sheep have a dual coat which comes in a variety of beautiful and unique colours. They have a long, coarse outer coat called the Tog, and a much softer, loftier under coat called the Thel. The combination of these two layers provides the sheep with a great deal of protection from the cold and wet weather. Spinning the Tog and Thel together results in a lofty, light weight but strong lopi yarn. This is great for Icelandic sweaters that will last for years. Icelandic fleece is a favourite of handspinners, felters, fibre artists and knitters!

Unlike many other North American breeds, Icelandics are typically shorn twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall. Their wool can grow 6”- 8” in 6 months. If left unshorn, while they do have a natural ‘wool break’ in the early spring, the remaining wool tends to felt and get matted quite easily (That’s why it’s so good for felting projects!), leaving them hot and itchy over the summer. Shearing them makes them feel much better and helps ensure a healthy wool coat. While they are also shorn in the fall, by the time the cold weather sets in, their fleece has grown enough to keep them warm and cozy through the long winter days.

Icelandic ewes are seasonal breeders (the rams are happy to breed any time of year!). Their breeding cycles typically start in late October or early November. Their cycle is approximately 17 days, of which they are in heat and receptive to the ram for 24-36 hours. They will continue to come into heat every 17 days until either they are pregnant or until spring, at which time they stop cycling.

Around December 1st - after much thought and record keeping, we separate our sheep into breeding groups. Each group includes one ram and a selection of ewes. We usually keep our breeding groups together for 35-40 days. This ensures that the rams have 2 full cycles to get lucky and the ewes to get pregnant! The gestation period for our ewes is typically between 142 and 144 days, which is 3-5 days shorter than average of all breeds.

Early April – Prior to lambing in early May, we have all of our sheep sheared. There are many benefits to shearing before lambing. Of particular note, it is much easier for a newborn lamb to find her/his mom’s milk if it doesn’t have to dig through 6 to 8 inches of wool and poop tags to find it! Getting the lamb to nurse as quickly as possible is critical to ensuring its survival. It is also much easier to see what’s going on during the lambing process and to ensure there are no birthing problems.

Summer – All of our sheep spend the summer on fresh pasture. We practice rotational grazing, which means we regularly move the sheep onto a new section of grass. The purpose of this is twofold: 1) It ensures that the pasture is not overgrazed. This would weaken the root system of the grass and allow less desirable weeds to grow. By moving them regularly, it ensures that we promote healthy pasture growth and that we have plenty of fresh grass to last the sheep through the season. 2) Rotating our sheep through different pastures is also an important parasite management practice. By rotating our sheep regularly, we disrupt the lifecycle of the parasites and therefore reduce their impact on our flock.

Early October – All of the sheep are sheared again. Typically, this clip is very clean as the sheep have been on fresh pasture all summer and therefore have very little vegetable matter in their wool. Their fleece is typically about 6" to 8" long and it amazing for spinning, or using for fibre art projects. This is the lambs first shearing and the wool is extremely soft! The fleece will start growing again quickly and the sheep will have plenty of wool to keep them warm before the cold winter nights come.

Now the planning starts for the next breeding season and we do it all over again!

Icelandic sheep will typically produce 5 to 7 pounds of raw fibre per year per sheep. We shear our sheep twice per year - in the spring and in the fall.

When we have it processed at the mill, the finished weight is about 75% of the starting weight. As the lanolin, dirt and vegetable matter are washed out, you lose some weight. You also lose any felted/matted wool and short fibres in the processing. So, if you get 3.5 pounds of raw fleece from a fall clip, you’ll have approximately 2.6 pounds of processed yarn. Our skeins of Lopi yarn are typically 125g to 135g each, so you’ll get approximately 9 skeins of Lopi. Enough for an Icelandic sweater!

There are many people who may not understand why wool from an Ontario farmer isn’t in the same price as a ball of man-made wool. Thankfully, there is a growing awareness of and movement back towards natural fibres.

There are many articles and much research on the harmful environmental effects of synthetic fibres in clothes and other products we use. We want to support the slow fashion movement and help raise awareness of it. Educating people on the true (and often hidden) cradle-to-grave cost of man-made products will go a long way. This in turn will help us continue to grow, as more people choose to support independent farmers and natural farm-grown fibres.

We want to help people get away from the throw-away mentality and back to appreciating the land and the animals that our food and fibres come from. We are very much proponents of: fewer, better, naturally. Natural, renewable fibres last for decades. And when fashion changes, they can be upcycled into something new!

There has been much to learn. One of the biggest challenges we face is predators. We want our sheep to live as naturally as possible and as such they have access to the outdoors and their shelters or barn 24x7. Part of our property is forested, which means we have an abundance of wildlife, including coyotes.

In order to help protect our sheep, we have a donkey (Shasta) in with the boys and a llama (Isaac) in with the girls. Donkeys can be very aggressive with canines and will strike out, chase and/or kick them. Llamas are very protective as well and will chase and bite at canines. Isaac is always on the lookout with his long neck and beautiful big eyes. When he senses danger, he will chase the girls back to the barn. Both donkeys and llamas are known to be good livestock guardians. We also have motion lights on all of the shelters, which helps act as a deterrent against coyotes.

Another big challenge has been managing the rams. While the ewes are seasonal breeders, the rams are more than happy to breed any time of the year. Ram lambs can start breeding as young as 5 months old. Outside of breeding season, our rams and ewes are in separate pastures. Being that some of them are related, thought and planning has to go into the breeding program. We have also spent a lot of time and effort on ensuring we have an adequate number of fields and that they are fenced appropriately. When the girls come into heat, the rams will smash through fences to get to them. They will also aggressively ram each other if there is a ewe present.

Keeping our sheep fleece as clean and healthy as possible is another priority that we are mindful of all of the time. As fibre farmers, we want to ensure a premium quality fleece. We take great care when feeding our sheep and try to avoid any hay falling on top of them. When they eat beside each other, they are not as careful! We have learned from trial and error and have also had some help and advice from other sheep farmers. We feed them good quality organic hay that we harvest from our property and ensure that they always have free access to vitamins, minerals and fresh clean water.

We’re on a path of continuous learning and improvement! By no means do we have it all figured out. In all that we do, we try to minimize the impact on our little piece of the planet. We have gone through an education and action plan process which saw us get our Environmental Farm Plan Certification. It helped us find environmental risks and opportunities on our farm, including helping us identify several ‘Species at Risk’ that frequent our property.

One such species in particular is the Bobolink, which is threatened in Ontario. They are grassland songbirds and native to our farmland. In the late spring they arrive and lay their eggs in the middle of the larger open hay fields. Early haying is thought to be one of the contributing factors to their decline as the eggs and/or young non-flying birds can be destroyed if haying fields too early. By learning about this, we’ve been able to help the Bobolink population by trying to ensure that the fledglings are well on their way before haying the fields that they are most likely to nest in.

To learn more about these beautiful grassland birds, check out: https://www.ontario.ca/page/bobolink