Rare Breeds Survival Trust Chief Executive Christopher Price tells us more about one of the rarest sheep breeds.

The North Ronaldsay is one of the UK’s rarest sheep breeds, one of just the four sheep breeds categorised as a Priority breed on our current Watchlist. There is a strong, collaborative effort underway to strengthen the breed’s outlook for the future and to overcome some of the key challenges that the breed currently faces.  In addition to the North Ronaldsay’s genetic and biodiversity value for farming and the natural environment, the breed’s survival is also important on the Orkney Islands in particular for the local meat market, the island’s woollen mill, and for the breed’s irreplaceable heritage and tourism value.

Small and slender, ‘Ronnies’ can be white, grey, black or moorit. With this variety of colours and a high quality, North Ronaldsay wool is popular with hand spinners, felters, knitters and textile designers and the breed is a good choice for smallholders interested in producing and marketing woollen products.The flavour of North Ronaldsay meat is highly prized, with the slow-growing animals particularly renowned for hogget and mutton. Sheep of the North Ronaldsay type are thought to have lived in the Orkneys since the Iron Age.

Small and hardy, it is one of the UK’s seven native primitive breeds alongside the Boreray, Castlemilk Moorit, Manx Loaghtan, Soay, Hebridean and Shetland breeds. Evolving over centuries to survive primarily on seaweed, semi-feral flocks live on the rocky seashore of the northern most Orkney island for most of the year and only need to be brought on to better land for lambing.

The unique sheep keeping system on North Ronaldsay is based on a drystone Sheep Dyke which was constructed by hand in 1832. This essential barrier keeps the communal flock on the foreshore to graze on seaweed, facilitates their light-touch management, and helps ensure genetic distinction from inland breeds.

This article extract was taken from the March 2024 edition of The Country Smallholder. To read the article in full, and learn more about ‘Ronnies’, you can buy the issue here.

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