Icelandic Sheep: Colors, Patterns and Genetics.. an overview

After a couple of hours puzzling over the seemingly limitless choices in patterns and colors a new shepherd remarked in despair “Now I know why people buy those breeds that come in white, white, and only white!” I think she was only partly kidding. Picking the exterior of your sheep is actually fairly simple. There’s the sheep, that’s what it looks like. But when you start thinking about the underlying genetics, and considering what you’d like to produce on your farm... things get very complicated, very quickly!

The Icelandic Sheep gets its fleece color from three genes: the basic color gene, the pattern gene, and the spotting gene. Making a total of 6 genes, inheriting 1 set of three from each parent.

Color refers to the color of the sheep, in Icelandic Sheep the color is always black or "moorit" (brown). White is technically not a color, but a pattern: the pattern gene for "no pattern" turns off the color gene of brown or black to create "no color" or... white. That said, the color black can range from a deep black to a "rusty" black, moorit (brown) can range from a light tan to a deep royal chocolate. The lambs at left carry the recessive gene for the pattern "solid."

Next comes the pattern. In Icelandic sheep, the pattern is one of 6 possibilities, white, grey, solid, badgerface, mouflon, or grey-mouflon. Color "coding" an Icelandic Sheep makes for some very complicated reading.

The pattern "grey" for example is actually a colored overcoat (black or brown) with a white undercoat, creating "grey" which can be a black grey or "moorit," meaning brown, grey (which is actually a brown overcoat and a white undercoat). "Solid" is black on black or brown on brown, over and undercoat, creating a "solid" sheep. To achieve "solid" you need two copies of the "solid" pattern gene. The "Badgerface" pattern gene turns the back, sides, neck, face, and ears to a light tan or white... making the sheep's face resemble a "badger." The color of the sheep shows on the face and neck, the belly, and under the tail, creating either a "black" or "brown" badgerface. "Mouflon" is the opposite of badgerface.. so instead of the color being under the sheep, on the neck and belly, it is on the top of the sheep... creating a mirror image of the badgerface.

We will also see a "Grey Badgerface" and a "Grey Mouflon" as well as Badgerface and Mouflon co-expressed. This means two pattern genes co-expressing in one sheep. There is a rare single gene, "Grey-mouflon" which is, as far as we know, not available in the United States. It is a unique gene which creates a sheep that looks like a combination of "grey" and "mouflon" having a more more pronounced marking pattern than either the grey or the mouflon, distinctly unique to itself.

The pattern "White" (absence of pattern) is dominant over "Grey," "Badgerface" or "Mouflon". The "Grey," "Badgerface" and "Mouflon" have equal weight, and thus can co-express in a lamb."Solid" is recessive... it takes two solid genes to produce a solid black or moorit lamb. Remember "absence of pattern" means the white sheep is still carrying two colored genes under the "wrapper" of the pattern "white." So a white ewe bred to a solid moorit ram (who must carry the two recessive moorit color genes) who produces a black lamb, is carrying the color black. If she produces a moorit lamb, she carries moorit, if she produces a white lamb the best we can say is that her lamb carries moorit. We don't know if the ewe is carrying two dominant white pattern genes (and therefore overriding the recessive gene for "solid") or if the throw of the dice just popped up the pattern "white" again. Remember, you can never breed two sheep who are not white, and produces a white. Never, ever. If you want white sheep, you need to have a white sheep!

The third gene to influence the appearance of the sheep is the spotting gene. All Icelandics carry either spotting, or no spotting. If a sheep inherits spotting genes from sire and dam it will have random white spots within its overall pattern, since not spotted is dominant over spotted. And as you can see... spotting can have a major impact on the look of a sheep.

Now, the truth of it is that while many folks arrive at our farm claiming they’re looking at the Icelandic sheep because it will produce a nice carcass by early winter on little more than pasture alone... at least one member of the household is secretly lusting after that those gorgeous lamb ringlets. Or they can’t wait to get their hands on a lush fall fleece. Any conversation on feed conversion and carcass weight is very short lived. But we can talk colors and patterns for hours, because most small farms are trying for a balance between the size of their flock, and the range of colors in their fleeces. They’re trying to pick their lambs based not only on exterior appearance, but on what they might be carrying in their genes.

So before you start trying to pick out you sheep (and its potential) you should start with an idea of what you want from a fleece.

If you want to dye your wool and have it true to color, you’ll want white wool to work with. Since you can never produce a white lamb unless you have a white ewe, this is something to consider when picking your sheep. And something to consider when choosing the sheep you’re going to keep year to year.

A solid black sheep will produce a black to charcoal wool, depending on the color of the sheep. Likewise, a moorit sheep will produce a chocolate brown to tan wool, depending on the depth of color in the sheep. Both of these wools will dye, but you are overdying over color. You’ll end up with a unique color with base tones of the original wool.

The patterned sheep will produce either a heathered, or a varigated, wool depending on how you process and spin it. A black (color) grey (pattern) sheep which has a black tog and a white thel (over and under coats) will produce a lovely sliver grey yarn if the fibers are spun together. A moorit badgerface will produce a nutty brown wool with white strikes in it if it is handled correctly.

And the Grey, Badgerface, and Mouflon also produce very striking pelts, which show off the long tog fibers and the dense thel (undercoat) fibers quite dramatically.

Let’s take a look at genetics with some real world examples -->> GO

You'll need a way to get those fleeces off!  We recommend Fiskars Soft Touch shears for hand shearing a small flock:

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