Soay (British)

Nobody farmed them. Until 1930, crofters from the neighboring island of Hirta rowed over to collect the wool the sheep had shed onto the rocks. That wool was softer than what their own sheep grew, and weavers blended it into goods they bartered for rent or sold.

The breed reached the mainland early in the twentieth century: the Duke of Bedford established a Park Soay flock at Woburn Abbey in 1910, sheep went to Lundy in 1925, and in the 1930s the Marquess of Bute moved Soay onto Hirta itself, where the flock has been studied by scientists since the 1950s.

North American imports began in 1990, first into Montreal and then south.

Small: 50 to 80 lb, nimble and almost deerlike, with slender bones and clean faces and legs. They are generally brown or tan with a white belly and rump, the mouflon or wild pattern.

Rams are horned or scurred; ewes may be polled, scurred or horned. The fleece varies from wooly to kempy, in colors from light brown to near black, and it sheds each spring: it can be plucked by hand, about two pounds a year, rather than shorn.

They are hardy, resistant to parasites and disease, and thoroughly independent. Do not plan on working them with dogs. This is a sheep that has spent several thousand years not being managed, and attempts to herd them simply scatter and stress the flock; startled Soay sprint-jump like antelope rather than mobbing together.

Meat and fiber on a small scale, and increasingly the job of being a low-maintenance, self-reliant sheep on marginal ground. The plucked wool is a niche fiber with a very old history.

Marginal pasture suits them; lush grass and grain do not, and they get overweight quickly on either. Keep them away from rhododendrons and azaleas, which are toxic to the breed. Lambs need protection from predators, because a 50 lb ewe cannot provide much.

Most of the population is still on the islands, and the island flock is now closed, with no sheep going in or out. It runs somewhere between 800 and 2,000 animals. Around 450 Soay were registered in the UK in 2021, and about 90 British Soay from North America. The Livestock Conservancy lists the British Soay as Threatened.

This page is the British Soay, which in North America is registered through the Rare Breeds Survival Trust's Combined Flock Book; the UK breed society is the Soay and Boreray Sheep Society. Ask which book the animal is recorded in, because North American Soay exist outside the British-registered population and the paperwork is what separates them.

Then plan your handling around what they are: small, quick, and unherdable by dog. Good fences and patience replace the border collie.

Recent sale prices on HoofnHorn, where there are any, are further down this page.