There is a lot to love about the Shetland Breed

History:

Shetland Sheep can be traced back, some researchers believe, to the Iron Age. Although Shetlands are considered a British Breed, they have roots going back over thousands of years to Scandinavia. Norse people most likely brought the ancestors of our Shetlands to the Shetland Isles when they settled there. Star with goats Shetlands were first imported from the U.K. to Canada, the Flett flock in Saskatchewan in the 40s and the Dailley flock in Ontario in 1980, and have now spread throughout North America. Within the last few years there has been an importation of purebred Shetland semen for the U.K to the United States, which will compliment the established bloodlines from the original importations.

When "unimproved" means better:

Shetlands are classed as a landrace or “unimproved” breed. This characterization is borne out by their ability to survive, thrive and procreate in their harsh Shetland Isles environment. Over the centuries they have retained their traits of hardiness, thriftiness, and adaptability.

Small, friendly and smart:

Shetlands are the smallest of the British breeds. Ewes usually weigh about 80 to 110 lbs and the rams between 100 to 135 lbs. They are fine boned, agile and have a short fluke-like tail. Shetlands are calm and docile for the most part, love attention and scratches under the chin. You may get a tail wag as well. Even rams are generally safe to be around, unlike most breeds of sheep. Naturally, one uses caution around even the friendest of rams. Shetlands are smarter than the “improved” breeds as they still have all their inherited instincts and quality intact.

Beautiful, colorful and practical too:

Shetland rams usually have beautiful spiraled horns and the ewes are typically hornless. Shetlands have the widest range of colors of any breed of sheep; brown, golden brown, reddish brown, white, fawn, grey brown, grey, blue-grey, and many shades in between. There are eleven official colors as well as thirty markings. Shetlands are well known for the quality of their wool, which is one of the finest and softest and is well suited for ease of spinning and knitting. It is a strong, lustrous wool with a Bradford spinning count usually in the upper 50s to lower 60s. There are many ways to use fleeces. Fleeces can be shipped and professionally cleaned and processed into roving for spinning or made into yarn for knitting and weaving. Fleeces can also be shipped to a mill and woven into Shetland blankets for you, for sale or as gifts. Woolen battens can be made to fill quilts.

Multipurpose:

Shetlands are a multipurpose breed as they dress out well, rating high in taste as well as being a smaller, leaner cut of meat. Good for the soul as well as the heart. Ewes have their lambs generally without any assistance, provide lots of milk and are natural mothers even first timers. They are smaller (about knee high) and are wonderfully efficient eaters (they love poison oak and blackberries too.) Shetlands do well on little or no grain. They are easy to manage with no tail docking, they are friendly, with fleeces of many colors that spin up like a dream, and provides meat for the table (one can have too many rams). All this makes Shetland sheep a wonderful, practical choice whether for a couple of homestead acres or a hundred.