River Oaks Farm & Studio
Shetland & Bluefaced Leicester Sheep, Fleece , and Heritage Crafts
All text and images copyright Becky Utecht, Mora, MN USA.
We added Bluefaced Leicester sheep to our flock in June, 2006. My original plan was to crossbreed Shetland ewes with a BFL ram to create Shetland Mules (see below). We did that for three years and the crossbred ewes were wonderful producers of lamb and wool. But the personality and the fleece of the Bluefaced Liecester sheep was enough to get me started on a purebred BFL flock of my own. You can check out our Bluefaced Leicester Flock Page for more information about the individual sheep in our flock. I am very excited about new bloodlines being collected and inported from the UK. I’m looking forward to using artificial insemination on my ewes in the future.
Thefirst generation progeny of a Bluefaced Leicester ram and any hill breed ewe is known as a “mule”. In the UK mules from various hill breed ewes are bred to terminal sires to produce market lambs on grass alone. They are part of a three tier system, with mule ewes being the most popular commercial ewes for lamb production. The mules retain the hardiness of their hill breed mothers with increased carcass size and improved wool quality from their BFL sire. Our crossbred lambs have weighed 75-85 pounds by fall.
I was nervous about the large size of the BFL’s after raising the small Shetland breed, but they are gentle sheep and easy to handle. I love the fact that the rams arepolled. All of our crossbred ram lambs have been polled also.
For more information on Bluefaced Leicesters, please check out the Bluefaced Leicester Union Breed Registry
Bluefaced Leicester Sheep
Above Beechtree Dougal and Lanora grazing in July, 2006. Our first two BFLs.
Below, Beechtree Granite and Rhyn
in August, 2007.
Our first two Shetland mule ewe lambs born
in April 2007.
Our mule lambs have ranged in weight from
6. lbs. to 10 lbs. at birth.
Colors and markings can appear in the
crossbred lambs making the fleeces
even more interesting.
