Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1901 — SHETLAND SHEEP. [ARTICLE]

SHETLAND SHEEP.

Are Small and Active Like the POnies— Have Fine Wool. The wool of the pure native Shetland sheep is generally compared to merino on account of its fine texture. Like the Shetland pony, the pure Shetland sheep is a small and very active creature, often to be seen moving with the swiftness and agility of a goat or chamois among the cliffs and crags of the shore. For the first few months the lambs live on the hill pasture with their mothers, but toward the close of summer they are taken in from the hill and tethered, usually in pairs, on the grass inside the dikes that separate the hill pasture from the crofts. This is done, says Chambers’ Journal, to give them a better chance of standing the winter, but when bad weather really sets in they are shut up in smug and com-, sortable little folds every night, and regularly fed. In spring they are again allowed to run free on the hill pasture. Hie wool of the native sheep is not generally clipped or shorn. On the big farms, where cheviot and blackfaced sheep are kept, shearing is, of course, the practice; but the Shetlanders leave the sheep’s fleece intact till the wool is ripe, so to speak, and just about to come off of itself, then it is rooed or pulled off carefully, so as not to hurt the creature, and any part of it that does not come off readily is left till later. The women card and spin the wool, and spend the long winter evenings knitting it by the light of the bright peat fires on the hearths of their cozy cottages, while the rain and sleet, and perhaps the driving sea spray, dash against the panes of the small window, and the wind roars down the stunted chimney of the low thatched roof.