Erin Wilson
The Soay can be described as delicate in some respects and are certainly small in stature but are among the hardiest of any sheep breed.
For millennia, it was a toehold existence for an ancient breed of diminutive sheep perched on the tiny North Atlantic archipelago of St. Kilda.
They reside there still, 40 miles west of Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. Thanks to the efforts of rare breed enthusiasts like Erin Wilson, they’ve found a new home in North America.
Wilson is among perhaps a dozen or so Soay breeders on this side of the Atlantic. She said they’re a good fit for her pastures, interspersed between the high-altitude rock and pine at Burns Lake in the interior of British Columbia.
“They’re good for marginal land. They’re not designed for good pasture,” she said.
“They’re also great for land clearing. They eat all the weeds, the blackberries and the thistles. They’re even less finicky than a goat.”
Wilson bought her first Soays in 2009, moving them to her former property at Powell River, northwest of Vancouver. Within days several were lost to cougar predation.
Despite the setback, Wilson stuck with her plans. In 2011 she moved to Burns Lake and today owns what’s now the largest purebred flock in Canada. There are about 80 animals in total including 36 lambs successfully birthed this past spring.
“I’ve been stocking them pretty much every year to some extent, trying to get a diversified line,” she said.
“I have tried to stay with what kept them alive all these centuries; their agility, fitness and coordination. They’re very good at not getting caught, believe me.”
The first North American Soays came to Canada in 1974. A second arrived in 1990. Most were subsequently exported to the U.S.
“The Canadian commitment to the breed petered out,” Wilson said.
Descendants of that first group — North American Soays — are true to type but outside genetics are a possibility. Descendants of the second group, British Soays, were imported for scientific purposes with the approval of the UK’s Rare Breeds Survival Trust and are recognized as pure Soay.
Wilson says her Soays come from the second group, acquired from registered Soay Flocks in the state of Washington and Oregon including sheep from Southern Oregon Soay Sheep Farms.
Southern Oregon Soay Sheep Farms, a business founded by Val Dambacher and Kathie Miller, purchased the descendants of the 1990 group from 1998 through 2000. Since then they’ve sought to improve the line by periodically acquiring semen from the United Kingdom.
Getting Soay sheep back to Canada from the U.S. has been a challenge.
“It’s a difficult process to bring them in from the U.S. You have to go through a regulatory and monitoring process,” Wilson said.
That makes Wilson a go-to person for anyone interested in acquiring Soay sheep in Canada. She’s now able to put together small breeding groups and is interested in marketing small groups of rams to people who like living lawn ornaments or who are simply curious about the breed.
She’s also built up a significant amount of Soay knowledge over the past six years.
They’re among the easiest of the easy keepers but there’s a caveat to that reputation. Soays grow slowly and should not be overfed. Pampered Soays can get a taste for grain but grain, beyond being fed sparingly, should be avoided. The same can be said for higher energy pasture and forage.
Centuries on windswept 100-hectare Soay Island, “sheep island,”in the St. Kilda archipelago, conditioned the Soay to thrive in inhospitable locations. They’re relatively small. Mature males average around 38 kilograms and ewes around 24.
“They may look small but the rams, and even the ewes, can break your leg,” Wilson said.
Erin Wilson
This grouping of young Soay rams illustrates the distinctive curved horns of the males along with some of common colouring of Soay breed.
Wilson harvests ram lambs for meat only after they’re reached 18 to 24 months of age. These dress about 25 pounds.
Erin Wilson
Soay lambs will reach market weight in 18 to 24 months when they’ll dress out to around 25 pounds.
“I find it has a milder flavour, a different flavour. I’ve friends who said they did not like lamb or mutton who’ve really enjoyed it,” she said.
“There is a person in Alberta who crosses this sheep with Barbados blackbelly sheep and has a barbecue market.”
The wool of the Soay — it’s not a hair sheep — is also distinctive in that it simply falls out in the spring. It’s a trait that has been bred out of almost every domesticated sheep. Wilson said it’s a bit like moulting in poultry. When it occurs the sheep can look fairly ragged. The wool can also be removed by hand, a process known as rooing.
Properly performed, the fleece of a Soay can be rolled, almost into a single piece. Mature animals yield around a kilogram. Rams lose their wool first. Ewes follow in two or three weeks.
The wool is fine textured. Wilson said that when she was in Powell River an artisan weaver would take some.
“Traditionally, the wool would be gathered and woven into warm undergarments that were both soft and light.”
The new coat is composed of tight curls that give the sheep a sleek appearance. For Wilson, that’s when the sheep are the most attractive.
When St. Kilda was populated both meat and wool would be used by the archipelago’s residents and by visitors from the Hebrides. Wilson said her cousins on the Isle of Skye still venture to the islands.
It’s a trip Wilson herself would like to make some day, tracing her Scottish roots.
“The Macleods were the last clan to have, I’m not sure what to call it, a relationship or a responsibility for those islands,” she said.
St. Hilda is composed of three main islands, Hirta, Boreray and Soay. Soay sheep were essentially left to fend for themselves on the Soay with minimal interference for centuries.
This led to the breed’s famed hardiness and some habits that the owners of traditional sheep may find unusual. Wilson said a Soay flock will scatter into small groups or even as individuals when frightened. They’ll also “go to ground” for the same reason.
Even more remarkable is what might be termed as an instinct of last resort. “When you corner them and they’re stressed, they’ll take a run right at you,” Wilson said.
Predation by coyotes, bears and wolves is a concern for Wilson. Like many other landowners in the Burns Lake region she keeps a rifle — primarily to scare off unwanted animals for her part.
The sheep wander her 320-acre property and another 1,200 acres of leased ground and so the use of guard dogs is essential. Wilson keeps a Maremma and a pair of Portuguese Estrelas.
This past summer seven Estrela puppies were born that Wilson hopes to move on to new homes.
This Estrella puppy familiarizes itself with some of Wilson’s Soay sheep. Guard dogs are a must have when predators are a concern.
The 50-kilogram plus Estrelas are especially useful. They’ll not pursue predators with the intent of a direct confrontation but will instead simply position themselves to shield the sheep until the predators move on.
Outside of predators, the Soays can look after themselves. Trees and the outbuildings at her property serve to protect the sheep from sun and wind, the year round.
The biggest threat is cold, wet and windy weather. On St. Kilda, sheep seek shelter under natural rock outcroppings.
The sheep receive most of their nutrition from the rough pasture through the warmer months and from grass-based hay the rest of the year.
Along with the Soay sheep, Wilson keeps a mixed-breed commercial flock and two other
Erin Wilson
The Clun Forest sheep, like the Soay, have an ancient lineage and a reputation for hardiness.
rare sheep breeds. She has a half dozen Clun Forest ewes and a ram, a breed that originated in Shropshire, England near the border with Wales and a Romney Marsh ram and 14 Romney ewes.
Wilson said she has no farming background but has always aspired to farm, especially in the area of livestock. She used to work as a wilderness survival trainer; an appropriate background for her current occupation.
Wilson can be reached by e-mail at erinwilson2005@yahoo.com
Erin Wilson
Romney sheep are dual-purpose, hardy animals that originated in England’s Romney Marsh.
Soay Sheep 101
The Soay is one of most primitive forms of domestic sheep. Today’s population is descended from sheep located on the tiny Isle of Soay in the St. Kilda archipelago in the North Atlantic, west of Scotland.
Purebred Soays could only be found on this island until a group of 107 were captured and moved to neighbouring Hirta in 1932.
Two years earlier, the entire human population had been evacuated from Hirta, the only island in the archipelago with a permanent population.
The entire archipelago was left to the National Trust of Scotland in 1956 and is now a World Heritage Site
The exact origins of Soay sheep are unknown. Evidence suggests they likely arrived in Britain sometime prior to the arrival of the Romans and may have come with the first human settlers of the archipelago about 2,000 years ago.
What is known is that the sheep were already at St. Kilda when the Norse first explored the islands in the 9th and 10th centuries. They gave Soay its name, Saude-ey — Island of Sheep.
Today’s unmanaged flocks have often been the subject of scientific study, especially in how their populations fluctuate.
They are fine-boned and late maturing, with prominent withers. The tail is short and thin. The texture of their wool can vary, from soft fine wool to more coarse hairy fibres or "kemps", and mixtures in-between. The fleece sheds naturally.
Rams generally have a pair of fully-curled strong horns. Rams with scurred or misshapen horns have been observed and occasionally occur in sheep owners' flocks.
Ewes horns are either partially curled, polled, or scurred.
Soay sheep come in wide range of brown, the dark phase, and tan, the light phase. Most have the wild mouflon pattern characterized by light areas on the belly, rump, inside of legs and parts of the face.
Sources: The National Trust of Scotland; Soay Sheep Society; Southern Oregon Soay Sheep Farms; St. Kilda Soay Sheep Project.
- Jeffrey Carter