:: Winter 2005 
Feature
Baa, Baa, Brown Sheep, Have You Moorit Wool?
What is a moorit sheep? CyberFibres has learned that a moorit sheep is not a particular breed of sheep. Rather, it is a term used to describe a sheep whose wool color is brown. This brown coloration comes from a gene that produces a melanin pigment called eumelanin. This pigment is expressed in wool colors of black, gray, and brown. Since the gene for brown wool is recessive to the gene for black, dark brown wool is rarer than black wool.
CyberFibres found one explanation that the word, moorit, comes from a Gaelic word and another explanation that it comes from the Icelandic word, moorut, which means ‘red as the moors.' Since the earlier inhabitants of Scottish, Irish, and Icelandic regions traded goods as well as words, it is likely that this term was common among them.
Breeding for moorit sheep produces lovely shades of brown ranging from fawn, truffle, and cinnamon, to chocolate. When a moorit ram is bred with a moorit ewe, their offspring will be moorit lambs. When a white moorit carrier is bred with a moorit, fifty percent of their offspring will be moorit lambs. Corriedale sheep are used by Rising Meadow Farm in Liberty, NC in breeding for moorit sheep. The fleece of their moorit sheep is very soft and easy to spin and to knit.
CyberFibres recommends that you sample moorit wool and use it in a future fibre project