Woodland Creek Farm

Puyallup,
Washington

(253) 848-5755

Our first Soay Sheep ram at Woodland Creek Farm

Soay sheep are relatively small and easy to handle. They thrive on small acreages on a wide variety of forage. They rarely require any assistance with lambing and have fewer of the medical problems that seem to plague other more "modern" breeds.

Soay sheep are naturally short-tailed so no docking is needed or practiced. As a primitive semi-domesticated sheep, Soay sheep are partway between the wild hair coat and domesticated wool coat. They have both hair types and the relative amounts of hair and wool fibers varies considerably by individual, and it largely inherited, so there are "hairy" and "wooly" and intermediate coat types. They naturally shed ("cast") their winter coats in the spring and early summer - most completely and cleanly but a few less so.

Although some Soay sheep breeders have them for wool, and some for meat, the principle reasons we have chosen Soay sheep for our flock at Woodland Creek Farm is simply for pasture management and the enjoyment of a flock of beautiful animals grazing under towering Douglas-firs. Additionally the genetics of coat colors has become a main interest of our breeding program.

Soay sheep have evolved largely without human influence on remote St. Kilda island of Soay for thousands of years, with more recent introductions to the island of Hirta in the 1930's, where again it has been survival of the fittest, with little or no human intervention, since that time.

All Soay sheep in North America come from two importations (each with very few individual sheep) into Canada - one in 1974 and a second in 1990. See the Soay sheep links for more information on the history of Soay sheep in North America.

To see more of the range of colors and types represented in our flock at Woodland Creek Farm, browse our Gallery link. 

See the Soay Information links on this Woodland Creek Farm website for additional informational papers on these sheep.