Good dual purpose sheep breeds?

Hello everyone! I'm thinking of long-term goals for my slowly-growing stead. I'm a hobbyist weaver and would love a source of fresh milk, and so I've been slowly considering a small flock of sheep in the future. I've located lambing and shearing classes in my state later in the year, so I'm very excited! However.. there's so many wonderful breeds out there, I can't decide which I would like best!

So, I thought I'd turn to some forums for recommendations; if you were to choose a breed of sheep to provide both ample wool and plenty of milk, which would you choose?

We have kept Jacobs Sheep for 16 years and we love them. I never managed to learn to weave but I have sold a decent number of our sheep to weavers. Apparently it's desirable to be able to use it (wool/fleece) without the need to remove lanolin? Our fleeces don't have it (it's a bad fault in this breed). They don't require grain and they lamb little tiny babies and don't have reproductive issues like commercial varieties do. Full disclosure, I have only milked our sheep a handful of times over the years, generally when there has been an accidental death of a lamb but when we've had sheep's milk it was always our daughter's great delight. We've also had ewe's who would nurse any lamb in the pasture and they had bags nearly as large as the couple of little milk goats I had briefly. The rest of the disclosure is that we do eat the meat of our sheep and even those who swear they won't eat lamb will eat our sheep. They don't have the strong tallow tasting fat that can be off-putting to people.

Wow, they have such an interesting look to them, too! I love the multiple sets of horns! I'll definitely add them to my list of breeds to look into, thank you so much!

You're welcome.

Well, thank you for this post and the suggestion of Jacob sheep. I spent a goodly portion of my day researching an initial foray into sheep breeds because of this post. I am interested in raising just a couple of sheep in the relatively near future. I'm not terribly keen about having to remove lanolin from a fleece before I can spin it into a usable yarn, though having that as a source of base for various cosmetics I might make is appealing. The Jacob hasn't got the lanolin to it's fleece, and I have found it's likely the only breed (allowing for the possibility that I haven't discovered online all the breeds of sheep in the world; 71 are listed at http://www.sheep101.info/sheepbreedsa-z.html under US Sheep Breeds A-Z). But it is magnificent in it's many horns (I'm thinking buttons, knife handles, etc.)

I also learned that there is alot to learn! Some sheep have a fine fiber (Merino), a medium fiber (Corriedale), a longwool (Leicester Longwool), carpet wool (Karakul), or are a hair breed (Katahdin) and not used for their fiber. Some are listed as dairy sheep; yes, some folks milk their sheep! The Lacaune is quite popular in France for this use. But I want a dual purpose (meat/fiber) breed. I am one of those people who actually like eating lamb, and I dream of being able to learn to spin my own yarns that I can then work into useful items, like sweaters or socks.

I learned that California is the highest producer of sheep wool in the United States, but that China beats out everyone else on the planet! And I am sure I have alot more to learn before I get to the point of owning/raising sheep. This was really only my first real look into sheep as a valuable farm critter and how many breeds there are to choose from. I've already begun printing out pages of info to add to a looseleaf notebook for sheep. It joins my other notebooks on various plants and their uses including medicinals, stuff on rabbits for meat and fiber, goats for meat and fiber, bioaccumulators to boost the soil, natural feeds for the critters I plan on having, and on and on...

Wish me well as I dive down the next rabbit hole on these crazy, almost fevered searches for usable information! I'm going back in!