We sell mature rams, yearlings and mothers with babies in May and June. The best time to visit us is in the spring or early summer, when there are the most to choose from. We recommend choosing your animals in person if possible.
We want to spend time answering your questions and offer advice for successful shepherding. Find out about the newest additions to the flock and whose for sale!
We have about 50 new lambs every year, too many to list on the site, but contact us for a list. Be the first to know when the berries are ripe, workshops are scheduled, or leadership fellowships are announced. Icelandic Sheep Purebred breeding stock, meat, and fiber. We sell purebred Icelandic breedstock year-round and enjoy making recommendations for starter flocks. If we are sold out, we can still take reservations to place you in line to choose from the new crop of lambs each spring.
Please email us with any questions. It is not unusual to find triplets warm and dry, with full bellies, sleeping next to mom with no intervention needed. Being born in Spring also means less frigid nights for lambing.
These sheep are often managed in a pasture lambing situation since the lambs are born at the same time the early grass is available in many areas. They all seem to thrive with little intervention either way.
The sheep are naturally short-tailed so no docking is needed. The short tail is perfect for protecting the ewe from flies and sunburned vulvas and prolapse is extremely rare. The vigor of the lambs and the rapid growth rate is noted in the crossbred lambs as well. The hybrid vigor is exceptional and the potential for the crossbred meat market is high. The wool break occurs in the late winter in the rams and later in the spring in the ewes.
The ewes are putting energy into their pregnancies and not into wool growth at that time. The ewes will shed the belly and udder wool and the wool around the crotch first so that shearing is not necessary prior to lambing.
Often the sheep sheds in patches and the fleece may be felted underneath as it loosens. Most Icelandic sheep here are sheared twice each year, once in the late winter or spring and again in the mid to late fall. The sheep grow wool amazingly fast.
The shorter spring fleece is fine for felting and the longer clean fall fleeces are highly valued by handspinners. The colors of the Icelandic sheep are incredibly varied and beautiful. Six patterns are possible in this breed and an infinite range of whites, blacks, browns moorit , and greys are seen. The sheep may also be spotted in addition to showing a pattern. These pattern genetics are well understood adding to the interest in breeding for specific colors and patterns.
The Icelandic sheep is dual-coated. The fleece is open and airy with little lanolin. The outer coat is a wool fiber, not hair or kemp. It is inches long in most fall fleeces and is lustrous, softly waved or in corkscrew curls.
Tog is water and wind resistant, strong and hardwearing. The thel is lofty and warm and very fine with an uneven crimp. This durable dual coat allows the animals to be comfortable outside in the winter with just a three-sided shelter or tunnel hut for shelter from the icy wind and snow.
The two coats can easily be separated for even more versatility. Because the breed was developed over years in isolation and had to endure severe subsistence living conditions, only the hardiest animals survived. The sheep were traditionally wintered over for 6 months on the equivalent of 2 small square bales of hay, winter grazing and that managed to survive and thrive were very healthy, hardy and disease resistant. Since the growing season is short in Iceland and hay scare, the sheep had to lamb in sync with the seasons.
Lambing took place in May and a marketable lamb was produced by mid Sept. Since there was no extra feed to spare for lambs that needed more time to mature, the Icelanders selected for animals that would make rapid early gains.
Since the breeding season doesn't start until mid November and the lambs reach marketable finish weight by Sept. Not only does this decrease the work load for the shepherd at lambing time by doing away with the lambing chore, but the extra testosterone produced by the "intact" ram lambs increase their daily weight gain naturally.
Modern breeds of lambs , by contrast, are banded or castrated at birth because they take 7 to 12 months to reach finish weight and in this time, they cycle through a breeding season. If left intact as rams during their natural early breeding season, the meat would take on an unpleasant flavor. Livestock breeders are just rediscovering the value of having animals that produce in sync with their natural rhythms and the normal growing season, and what it all means to their bottom line thanks to the to decreased reliance on stored feed and additives Stockman Grass Farmer!
The early spring grass flush is the perfect feed needed for ewes in late gestation as it is high in protein and low in fiber. This means that it goes through the digestive system fast and so the ewe can eat more of it and obtain the protein and nutrients she needs. Because the lambs take up a lot of space in her body cavity, it is important that she has this fast, high turnover of high quality feed.
The Icelandic ewe has a huge rumen and is able to utilize this high quality but water filled spring growth. In comparison, modern breeds that have been developed by feeding heavy amounts of an expensive grain, lack the rumen capacity needed to thrive on grass alone and are therefore grain dependent. Icelandic sheep are aggressive foragers that graze longer and forage widely, utilizing all of the available pasture. They do not generally lose body condition even during the hot humid temperatures of summer.
The ewes and lambs will graze during the night to make up for shading up during the hottest parts of the day. There was no grain raised on the island nor was any imported for animal feed, so the sheep had to be able to produce and thrive on grass and hay alone.
From this harsh environment, there developed a to pound short stocky, well muscled, medium sized sheep that would lamb in the spring on grass, milk heavily so that lambs would grow fast, and them make rapid weight gains as soon as the lambs were weaned in the fall.
In order to achieve this, the breed developed very large rumens in order to process increased amounts of forage to meet the needs of the ewe and her lambs.
They also developed aggressive and tireless foraging habits. The breeding season for these sheep starts in mid Nov. Icelandic sheep also developed a long warm, fine, soft, dual coated fleece to combat the cold windy, rainy, snowy climate.
The long outer fiber is strong and wear resistant, not unlike mohair and sheds rain and dirt well. It is not subject to much damage from rain and sun. The soft downy undercoat provides loft for the outer coat and keeps the animal warm and dry. The fleece comes in a wide range of natural colors and patterns including blue black, inky black, brown black, snow white, cream, tan apricot, taffy, coffee, chocolate, dark chocolate, silver gray, lilac gray, blue gray, champagne and oatmeal.
In addition there are parti-colored or "pintos" as well as those that have an undercoat of a different color than the outer coat, which produces a true tweed yarn. No other natural wool fiber has as wide a color range and such versatility. The easily separated outer coat called tot was used by the Vikings for weaving their sails, tapestries, rugs, rope, saddle blankets, boot coverings and embroidery thread.
The soft fine undercoat called thel, was used for soft next-to-the skin wearables, baby clothes, underwear and fine fancy work. The wool was also made into a wide range of felted items, from hats to mittens and boots. The combination of long strong fibers and short fine ones as well as a fast felting time makes this one of the worlds best felting fibers. Icelandic lambs make fast early gains on their mothers excellent milk supply. They are ready for market in 4 to 5 months at the exact time of year that the grass growth slows to a halt in the fall.
This allows the MIG farmer to sell the lambs at that time in order to save valuable stockpiled or stored feed for wintering the ewe flock instead of growing out the lambs on this feed. Gains made on grain or stored feed hay, silage add to the cost of gain considerably.
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