Sheep With Colored Wool

Jacob sheep, with their striking multi-horned appearance and unique spotted wool, are a true spectacle. Their fleece is admired for its natural patterns and color variations, adding character to any textile. Sheep can come in a number of different shades of various colors including white, black, red, cream, gray, and brown.

They can be solid or have an interesting pattern of colors on their coats of wool or hair. It really all depends on their breed, bloodline, and genetics. Genetics play the main role in determining what color a sheep will be and, over the years, sheep breeders have finely tuned.

Are you curious about breeding colored sheep? Today we are looking coat color genetics in sheep and how you can select for a more colorful flock. NATURAL COLORED WOOL GROWERS ASSOCIATION If you are interested in naturally-colored sheep and their wool, the Natural Colored Wool Growers Association invites you to become a member of our ever. Suzy the Shepherdess offers 100% wool yarn from historic sheep raised using 19th century farming methods.

The perfect yarn for reenactors, historians and museum professionals! The color of a sheep's wool is determined by a complex mix of genetics, environmental factors, and breed. Here!

So colored wool is making quite a come-back. The color genetics of breeds that are normally mostly white wooled is a bit different from that of breeds that never had color bred out of them. All sheep retain the same basic color genes (see Color Genetics Terms and Sheep Color Genetics Primer for an overview of terminology and basic genetics).

Each year, we will have a select number of Natural Colored lambs available to new homes. There will be black, grey, spotted, and moorit lambs available. These lambs will have been bred to have good rate of gain, be structurally sound, and have incredible wool, perfect for fiber artists and handspinners.

Get on our list to be contacted when lambs are available in 2025! The best-known end use for natural coloured wool is handcrafts. Spinners, weavers, felters and other woolcrafters value the wool from coloured sheep for its natural look and its freedom from dye chemicals.

Some breeders export fleece and carded wool for handcrafts to other countries. This is a niche market for top quality fleeces. The Shetland is an ancient sheep originating from the British Isles and imported into Canada and the United States in the 1980s.

Shetland wool comes in a great range of natural colors which adds to its value, especially for hand spinners.