The Shetland is a small, wool-producing breed of sheep originating in the

Shetland Isles Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the n ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...

, but is now also kept in many other parts of the world. It is part of the

Northern European short-tailed sheep The Northern European short-tailed sheep are a group of traditional sheep breeds or types found in Northern Europe, mainly in the British Isles, Scandinavia, Greenland and the area around the Baltic. They are thought to be derived from the f ...

group, and it is closely related to the extinct Scottish Dunface. Shetlands are classified as a

landrace A landrace is a domesticated, locally adapted, often traditional variety of a species of animal or plant that has developed over time, through adaptation to its natural and cultural environment of agriculture and pastoralism, and due to isolati ...

or "unimproved" breed. This breed is kept for its very fine wool, for meat, and for

conservation grazing Conservation grazing or targeted grazing is the use of semi- feral or domesticated grazing livestock to maintain and increase the biodiversity of natural or semi-natural grasslands, heathlands, wood pasture, wetlands and many other habitats.

. Although Shetlands are small and slow-growing compared to commercial breeds, they are hardy, thrifty, easy lambers, adaptable and long-lived. The Shetland breed has survived for centuries in difficult conditions and on a poor diet, but they thrive in better conditions. Shetlands retain many of their primitive survival instincts, so they are easier to care for than many modern breeds.

History

Up to the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

, the sheep of the British Isles and other parts of northern and western Europe were small, short-tailed, horned only in the male and variable in colour. Short-tailed sheep were gradually displaced by long-tailed types, leaving short-tailed sheep restricted to the less accessible area