A woman in a red Fair Isle jumper greets a black and white sheepdog beside a drystone wall in the Scottish hills.

With Great Respect: Our Promise to the Sheep and Goats Behind Every Bosie

Every Bosie jumper begins long before it reaches a knitting machine. It begins on a hillside, with a sheep or a goat, and the people who look after them. So when we talk about what makes our knitwear special, the softness, the colour and the way it lasts for decades, we always start with the animals. Their welfare is our highest priority, and we treat both them and their beautiful fleece with the great respect they deserve.

A true Shetland sheep, whose fleece is spun into Bosie's Voe yarn
True Shetland sheep, the source of our Voe yarn.

A natural, renewable gift

Over the centuries sheep have been bred to need shearing. A good shear each year keeps them healthy and comfortable, and the fleece it gives us is a natural, renewable by-product, one of the most remarkable ecological fibres there is. Wool is warm when it's cold, breathable when it's not, and it grows back every year.

All our yarns are mulesing free

Mulesing is a practice used on some Merino sheep, where strips of skin are removed from around the tail to prevent flystrike. It is not a practice involved in any yarns we knit with. 

  • Our Italian Merino comes from a mulesing free spinner.
  • Our Shetland, Voe, Glenugie Nep and British breed wools are non-Merino and mulesing free.
  • Goats are never mulesed, so our cashmere, spun in Scotland by Todd & Duncan, is naturally free from it too.
A Welsh Black sheep, one of the British breeds whose wool Bosie uses
British breeds such as the Welsh Black give us naturally mulesing free wool.

Never plucked, always from high welfare origins

We never use yarns or fibres that are painfully plucked from animals, and we only source from countries with high animal welfare standards. If we can't be confident of how an animal has been treated, the fibre doesn't come into our mill.

Responsible Wool Standard spinners

Our Scottish, British and Italian spinners are Responsible Wool Standard (RWS) certified, or in the process of becoming so. The RWS is an independent standard that looks at the welfare of the sheep and the care of the land they graze, and follows the wool all the way through the supply chain.

Cones of supersoft lambswool Shetland yarn used in Bosie knitwear
Our supersoft lambswool Shetland yarn.

From fleece to jumper

Shorn with care. Each year's fleece is gathered at shearing time, keeping the animals healthy and comfortable.

Spun in Scotland, Britain and Italy. The fleece travels to trusted heritage spinners who are RWS certified or on their way to it.

Knitted seamlessly in Aberdeenshire. Our family mill, founded by my grandfather in 1929, knits our jumpers seam-free in North-East Scotland.

Yours to keep. A jumper made to be worn, loved and handed on, so nothing the animals gave us goes to waste.

Soft cashmere yarn spun in Scotland
Cashmere, spun in Scotland and naturally mulesing free.

Ethically made, at an ethical price

Caring properly for animals, paying fair prices to the farmers and spinners who look after them, and knitting slowly and well all cost a little more. We think that's how it should be. It means ethically made knitwear at an ethical price, so that both we and our customers can sleep soundly.

Read our Animal Welfare promise  ·  Discover our yarns  ·  Shop our knitwear

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