The North American Gotland sheep Breeders Association allows the use of Border Leicester, Wensleydale, Blue Faced Leicester, Leicester Longwool, Lincoln, Finn, Shetland and Icelandic ewes as foundation ewes. Since I already had well bred Icelandic ewes, I began my upgrading program with these. The 2007 LAI lambs are 50% Gotland and 50% Icelandic lambs. The ewe lambs from this first crossing will be LAIed back to 100% Gotland rams to produce 75% Gotland lambs. An observation on the use of Icelandics as the foundtion breed: While I liked the character of the fleeces, I thought the lambs were too britchy, lacked the luster and the sheep little smaller than the standard for Gotlands. I do think that the use of the primative breeds will be of vital importance to keeping the size and naturally short tails in the higher percentage Gotlands. In 2007 I was lucky enough to find 4 Leicester Longwool ewes and 3 BFL cross ewes to use in my upgrading program. These were LAIed in the Fall of 2007 for 2008 lambs. We will be posting pictures of their lambs in the Spring of 2008. All of our 50% Gotland rams will be wethered and available for sale to handspinning flocks.
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| June 2007 Gotland/ Icelandic cross lambs & Icelandic ewes. |
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| 2007 Gotland/Icelandic cross fleece. While closer to Gotland type fleece than Icelandic, we aren't there yet. This young man, Hercules, has since turned a beautiful grey. |
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| 2008- Claire and little Lily a 50% Gotland & 50% Leicester Longwool ewe lamb at 3 weeks old. Claire is a black factored LL, so I would have expected her lamb to be grey. |
| Even at 6 weeks old, Lily's fleece is much closer to a true Gotland fleece. It looks like Lily will have the conformation, size & fleece that we are looking for, however. The tail is too long though and of coarse, we will be working on getting the Gotland Grey fleece. |
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