Welcome to the Sheep and Border Collie Pages
of Apple Hollow Fiber Arts!
We will soon be adding more pages and photos to this section. In the meantime, here's the page featuring our flock which appeared in 2001 on Kathleen Bruce's Spinners' and Weavers' Housecleaning Pages.

FEATURED BREED
Rambouillet

Rambouillets in the United States, identified by many as a range breed in Texas and Western states, have become popular in farm flocks as well. Most adult Rambouillets will have a fleece weight of 8 to 14 pounds, with a clean fleece yield of 45 to 60 percent. Typically, fleece staple length will vary from two to four inches, and range in fiber diameter from 18.5 to 23 microns or 64s to 70s spin count. Mature Rambouillet rams weigh between 250 and 300 pounds, and ewes average from 165 to 200 pounds. Generally, range ewes will raise single lambs, although farm-bred ewes will frequently exceed a 200% lamb crop.
The history of the Rambouillet sheep began more than two centuries ago. The Rambouillet breed originated with Spain's famed Merino flocks which were known from the earliest times as producers of the world's finest wool.The Spanish government was so protective of their Merino flocks that any exportation was forbidden. This policy changed in 1786, however, when the King of Spain granted a request from the government of France and sent 359 carefully selected rams and ewes to help improve the native French stock. The sheep were sent to the Rambouillet farm near Paris where, according to government records, they have been bred since 1801. Other Merino sheep were introduced into Germany during the last quarter of the 18th century, and German breeders made extensive use of Rambouillet sires as the breed's fame spread throughout Europe. Many present day American Rambouillets can trace their ancestry back to either German von Homeyer flocks or the flocks of Rambouillet, France.
Some of the characteristics which make the Rambouillets a good choice for small flock owners as well as in range operations are their highly developed flocking instinct, excellent and protective mothering abilities, excellent soft fleeces, and fast growth rate and weight-gain in lambs. The gregariousness within a flock makes them easy to manage as a group, since they always wish to be with their flockmates. Their mothering ability is more intense than in many other breeds, with them being very defensive of their babies towards other ewes and towards strangers. Rambouillet ewes are good milkers, and it's not unusual to find lambs exceeding 80 pounds at 70 days, when good management and free-choice creep feed are available.
Rambouillet fleeces are wonderful for handspinning! So beautifully soft, and being a Merino type, very easy to wear next to the skin. Most Rambouillets are white, although occasionally genetic throw-backs yield soft blue-gray to deep black natural colors. Since the fleeces are so dense, blanketing the sheep is not as necessary as in more open-fleeced breeds, however, for a premium fleece some flock owners still coat the sheep. A nice use of Rambouillet is to blend it with first or second shearing kid mohair to add lustre and intensify the color if dyeing the fiber.
The rams, even though they are quite large, are generally easy to manage if they are not turned into pets. Like any other ram, a little distance makes for safer handling.
The breed registry is American Rambouillet Breeders' Association, 2709 Sherwood Way, San Angelo, TX 76901 Phone: 915-949-4414. Information on Rambouillet sheep can be found at the website of a regional member association, The Greater Wisconsin Rambouillet Association.

About Apple Hollow Fiber Arts

In 1984, a new home for me, Kathi, on six acres of rolling Wisconsin farm land - and I thought, no better use of all these hills than to buy a couple of sheep rather than a riding lawnmower! $2000 in fencing and barn repairs later, a couple of pregnant Hampshire crossbred ewes joined our family. We found the Hampshire crosses so easy to handle that we soon purchased 9 purebred Hampshire ewes. Then, a little black ewe lamb moved in, and handspinning became my passion! As my spinning improved, I searched for a breed which could provide me with soft, wearable, weaving wool, and chose the Rambouillets as my second breed. By 1990, when we moved to an 80 acre farm, we had 55 brood ewes, pretty evenly divided among the two breeds, and I actively searched for a way to make 'the girls' pay for themselves. We worked to develop a consistent 200% lambing and weaning average in both our Hampshire and Rambouillet purebred flocks. Rather than just shipping lambs to market and selling wool to coops, I chose to intensively market our products privately, selling purebred breeding and show stock, flock sires, pelts, locker lambs, Hampshire wool quilt batts, Rambouillet spinning fleeces, mill-spun Rambouillet yarn, and handknit sweaters from our own sheep wool. In 1994 we were chosen as the Wisconsin Master Shepherds, primarily for our creative marketing. As wonderful as that honor was, it was a turning point in my life as well. The daily grind of general handling, sheep health and obstetric care, and what felt like 24-hour a day livestock marketing had gotten to me. I hated raising lambs only to doom them to slaughter. My life began to change as we found homes for some of the girls, trying to make the workload easier, since we both had off-farm jobs as well. As the animal care became less time-consuming, I turned more and more to spinning and weaving as a creative outlet, and began to teach spinning and weaving, and sell spinning wheels and weaving looms in a little on-the-farm shop. The flock got smaller, but the work on an 80 acre farm did not seem to lessen as my business grew. In 1998, my shop went online at and I found my niche - I've met so many wonderful people who have emailed me, and hope that I have given some of them a good start in the fiber arts with my advice and help and enthusiasm! In 1999, I left to be on my own, and opened a new Fiber Arts shop, Apple Hollow, in the town of Edgerton, near Madison, Wisconsin, where I sit writing this paragraph today.* The girls who moved with me were my absolute favorites, and no longer have to work for a living - they are growing fat and lazy, not having to lamb, but I hope to provide a good home for them in their 'retirement' years. All they have to do now is provide a few fleeces for my shop, and for the fleece competitions that I occasionally enter. Last year, Izzy, one of my favorite Rambouillets, had the champion Rambouillet fleece at the Wisconsin State Fair, Shirley had first place half-blood market fleece, and Bell, the Merino, had 1st place fine colored fleece, adding to the woolly achievements of the girls from Apple Hollow. But no other achievement compares to seeing my 8 old ewes (5 Rambouillets, 2 Hamps and a Merino) playing like lambs on a spring morning, then dashing to the barn for pets and grain! They share their lives with 2 guardian donkeys, Assley and Guardenia, and a little Toggenburg goat, Mattie. I've spoken so much about the girls, not meaning to neglect the boys who are so important to me - they are Buddy and Badger and Bean, respectively, 2 border collies and a cockatiel, and my very special partner, Jon. Life is good!

* 2006 UPDATE: The above was written in late 2000, when we were temporarily living in rural Evansville, Wisconsin. Since I wrote the little autobiography above, we have lost all of our old ewes to old age, and 2 new black rambouillet ewes, Ali and Shawn, from our original bloodlines, have joined us. Olive, a Toulouse goose, found us shortly after we moved here. My best friend, Buddy, now lives only in my heart. He has gone to that place in the hereafter that is reserved for only the best of dogs. His brother Badger (now 13 years old) got a new companion, Sparks, a border collie (now 5 years old) that we adopted through a rescue organization, in 2002. And Julia, a female llama, has joined us. We moved to Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin in 2003, decided to take the plunge and finally got married in 2004. The same year, we purchased a building in downtown Sturgeon Bay, to get the retail business off the farm, where it had been located since our 2002 move. Jon now works with me in the business full-time.
Life continues to be good!

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This page last updated: 04 December 2007