Diversity

About Rya SheepAbout Rya Sheep



Rya sheep are from Sweden, they are also known as Swedish Carpet Wool Sheep or Ryafar sheep. They originated from Norwegian, Swedish, and Norwegian Spaelsau sheep. They were raised to produce long, wavy and shiny wool to produce rya-wool.

Few long wool sheep breeds remained in the province of Dalarna, leading to the restoration of this sheep breed in the early 20th century. And there was a stable population of about 2000 Rya sheep in 2000. Currently most of the population of them can be found in the northern and central Sweden, and most of the herds are located in Dalarna. Dalarna had a population of sheep with long wool at the start of the twentieth century, which was popular in the area to decorate national customers. Breeding was done for obtaining sheep that produce the rya-wool in 1915. Read some more information about this breed below.

Rya are medium-sized sheep. They are generally white, but black, brown and gray animals are also found in the breed. They have relatively short legs, and have strong and shiny long wool fibers. Their legs, tail, cheek, forehead and crown do not have wool. The wool can be about 6 inches long for a 3 month old lamb. And the wool can be up to 12 inches long for an adult Rya sheep. Half the fleece should be the hair coat, which should be lustrous with a well-defined, broad crimp. Both rams and ewes are usually polled and have long tails. Average wither height of the adult rams is about 75 cm, and around 70 cm for the ewes.