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The picture of a flock of primitive-breed sheep, the last of their kind, living on an island off the northeast coast of Scotland, has a certain romance to it. Plenty of knitters, spinners, fiber artists, and citizens of the modern world might idly dream of living on such an island and tending such a flock. With no background as a farmer and only a few years as a shepherd, Jane Cooper decided to bring that dream to life.
Enchanted by the fiber of the Boreray sheep, and with her life transformed by a class on knitting with rare breeds, Jane decided to buy a small parcel of land and start a spinner’s flock by adopting a few wethers from another farmer. In a short time, however, she found herself with more land—and more sheep—than she planned for. And so began her adventure as the shepherd of the “lost flock,” a group of sheep whose ancestors had escaped the official registry.
Since obtaining her first sheep in 2013, Jane not only developed her own breeding program but established several other breeding flocks in the Orkneys. She has explored the recent and ancient history of her sheep, from the Vikings who used dual-coated wool in their sails to the breed registries established in the 20th century (and traced how her own sheep came to be called “the lost flock”).
Surrounded by her Boreray sheep, Jane Cooper reads to her flock from her book. Some of the ewes are ready to be rooed, or have their fleeces gently lifted off. Photo courtesy of Jane Cooper
Through challenges that she never expected and distinctly unromantic aspects of shepherding (including a wool-sorting experience dubbed the “poo party”), Jane wouldn’t trade her experiences as caretaker to the Orkney Borerays.
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Links
Orkney Boreray website
The Lost Flock book by Jane Cooper US edition and UK edition
Blacker and Beyond Ravelry group
Blacker Yarns and The Natural Fibre Company
Woolsack British wool website