The Easy Care Black & Coloured

Border Leicester.

By Terri Barrell

Delco Stud

As a breeder of these very regal sheep, my opinions may be a little biased.

Easy care

Because of their straight body shape, ( no wrinkles like the merino) they have very little fly strike problems, they have nice width between back legs so very little soiling from faeces and urine, as long as they have no dietary or internal parasite upsets.

Wool free faces and lower legs, means no grass seed problems in those areas, and no wool blindness like other breeds.

Temperament

My experience with the Border has been to note the calmness of the breed, not a flighty animal, more likely to stand their ground like a goat then go headlong into fence at the first sign of trouble, I have also found the rams to be calm and easy to work in the yards, and to show less rambunctious ness than other breeds.

Breeding

As they are a British bred sheep they only come into estrous in our Autumn, if you fail to mate them in this shortening of day light season, you will have to wait till next year to join them again.

Being such a large breed of sheep they often have twins, and the mothers on good pasture, will have no trouble raising two large lambs, Borders are excellent milk producers.

Wool

Borders produce a strong wool, It should have good style, nice even waves down each staple and fibre of wool, good length, border wool is usually 7 – 8 inches of 17 – 20 cm. A nice clean fleece should weigh between 4 to 6 kilos.

Border wool has a beautiful luster or sheen, as the thickness of wool fibre increases, the cuticular scales become larger and lay flat against the shaft of the fibre, therefore become more light reflective.

Spinning Border Wool

Because of the length of the Border wool, it is an excellent wool to learn to spin, good Border wool should maintain its softness, there should not be a harsh hairy feel to it, because the Border fleece is not as dense as the merino, you will sometimes get a bit of weathering of the wool along the back line (where the rain has washed out the condition or lanolin in the wool) I discard this and concentrate on the beautiful soft conditioned wool on the rest of the sheep.

To spin yarn that keeps its luster you should use the worsted method of spinning not the woolen        (although woolen will give you a lighter weight yarn, you will lose some of the sheen)

Because of the elasticity of the border wool you can wash it in very hot water and have minimal shrinkage, you will also get no pilling of Border wool in your made up garments. Although I would not make this wool into garments that I would wear close to the skin, great for coats, hats etc.