LAMBING SEASON WITH THE FIRST SHERINO'S

v.l.n.r. Ronan (Sherino), Robyn (Shetland) Rory and Richard (Sherino), mum Lora (Shetland), Rhoslyn (Sherino)

Why Sherino's?

Shetland wool is magic, some fleeces are silky and soft, some are soft and fine and some sheep have double coats.
This wool has a unique handle and of course, all those colours!

Merino wool is very fine, but has a completely different handle than Shetland wool. For most spinners it is difficult to spin.
2 Years ago we asked ourselves if a touch of 25% Merino would add something special to the Shetland wool.
Of course we are familiar with the Bowmont, but this wool is still difficult for spinners, and no colours.
We wanted the silky touch, the good handle and the colours.
And I wanted a fleece that doesn't disappear in the field because the ewe is shedding the fleece. And those fleeces are always the best ones!
The wool is easy to shear, at least the cross Shetland Merino. I use hand shears. The difficult part is all the wool on their legs.
(but the Sherino's don't have so much wool on their legs)
Last year we started off crossing Shetland ewes with Merino rams.
This gave us 6 ewes, one black, and 2 rams (one piebald).
As a lamb they were very vulnerable and that was not what we were looking for. The Sherino needed to be harder.
This season we crossed as many Shetland ewes with the 2 rams and the cross Shetland/Merino with as much different Shetland rams.
And than we had to wait……………………..!

WHAT WAS THE RESULT?
We never had so many different colours and markings. The wool is very nice, very nice structure, but we have to wait for more months to really see what the result is.
The lambs are very vital and hardy. They are a bit bigger than the Shetland lambs, their back is longer. They grow very fast.
This year we will breed with the Sherino's and then we have to wait if the breed will be consistent.
The breed has the same feed conversion rate as the Shetlands.

The plan is to have the Sherino's acknowledged as a new breed. We are in contact with the authorities on this. It will be a long and hard way though.
If you want to know more about our project, please don't hesitate to contact us.

When you click on the photo of the rams, you will enter a new page with the ewes and the lambs.

Have a look at our films

	IGNATIO He died the beginning of this year, but we have a very nice off spring.
	LLEWELLYN Our gulmoget ram.
	PETE, Son of Naomi and Jesmond, very nice conformation and wool.
	PACMAN, Son of Miss K and Ignatio
KOETJE, Son of a black Merino ram and a moorit ewe	We already noticed that Pickles had a very nice blended grey fleece. But when I sheared him this was the incredible result. The fleece is magnificent, silky, long and a beautiful colour. He is now our jewel on the dike!
	PLUTO Son of a white Merino and moorit ewe.