ANY DISCUSSION OF SHEEP RAISING needs to begin with breeding and breeds, whether you are purchasing your first sheep or adding to an existing flock. Remember, although it may be tempting to bring in an exotic breed from a far-off place, it may not be practical or simply not be affordable. The best route may be to use a more available breed or crossbred sheep that are locally available, knowing that a careful and patient breeding program can upgrade your flock and potentially even provide many of the desired qualities of the less available breed. The addition of one special ram at a later date might just accomplish your breeding goals.
For anyone interested in breeding sheep, a primer in genetics is helpful. The idea of selecting for desired traits has been around since humans began domesticating animals. Statues and artwork from ancient cultures in the Middle East and Africa show that selection for wool was taking place by 4000 to 3000 BC. But early breeding was somewhat haphazard.
In the mid-1700s Robert Bakewell elevated the art of breeding to a higher level and began to establish what we know today as true breeds. Bakewell, who influenced Charles Darwin’s work in evolution, began keeping extensive records to help select animals for breeding and began using linebreeding. Much of Bakewell’s work was with sheep, with his most important contribution being the development of the Leicester Longwool.
In the mid-1800s an Austrian monk named Gregor Mendel was the first person to begin moving breeding from an art to a science. Mendel experimented with peas to demonstrate that observable traits could be passed from parents to off-spring with predictable results. In his experiments, Mendel used green peas and yellow peas. But what he discovered about the genetic process with those peas applies equally to all living organisms.
The essence of Mendel’s work demonstrated that inheritance is controlled by a hereditary unit now called a gene, that genes come in pairs (one gene from the mother and one from the father), and that each gene maintains its function from generation to generation. (Mutations are the rare exception to that last part, and we’ll discuss them in a minute.) Mendel also hypothesized that each gene could come in different forms, called alleles. In peas there is an allele for yellow pods and an allele for green pods.
Mendel’s Genetics Experiment If you breed a green pea (with two GG genes) to a yellow pea (with two YY genes), each offspring will show the dominant green trait but have one Y and one G gene. Breed one of these offspring to a yellow pea (middle row, right above) and half will show the green trait, half the yellow.
Some alleles are dominant and some are recessive. When a dominant allele is present in a gene pair, the trait represented by that dominant allele is observable. For peas the green pod is dominant. For a recessive trait, such as the yellow pod, to show up, both halves of the gene pair have to have that allele. In reality, most traits in most animals are the result of not one gene pair, but many gene pairs working together, referred to as polygenic traits. Some recessive alleles are extremely undesirable. Lethals are one type of recessive allele. As the name implies, an animal that receives two lethal alleles dies, often before birth. Fortunately, lethal alleles by their nature are rare.
So how do these genes actually get passed along? Well, in every cell of a body — except the sex cells (eggs in the female and sperm cells in the male) — there is a full complement of the genetic code that defines who and what that animal is. This code is complex and consists of many gene pairs that are strung together like two strands of string twisted around each other. In humans, for example, there are more than 100,000 gene pairs that make up the code. Each egg or sperm cell carries one-half of the parent’s genetic string. Remember, there are lots of sex cells in each parent’s reproductive tract, with half the cells carrying one string of code and the other half carrying the other string.
SOME UNDESIRABLE RECESSIVE TRAITS IN SHEEP
At conception, a sperm cell fertilizes an egg, and the resulting cell (called a zygote) has a full complement of genetic material for its species. It is a matter of chance that determines which half of each parent’s genetic code is brought to the mating, but there are just four possible combinations of alleles for each gene pair from any pair of parents.
Geneticists use letters to represent all possible alleles on each gene pair. A capital letter is used for the dominant allele and a small letter for the recessive allele. Let’s look at a simplified example. For domestic sheep, white is a dominant color and black is recessive. We’ll use the capital letter W for the white allele and the small letter w for the black allele. In this example, both the ram and the ewe are white, and both have one dominant allele (represented by W) and one recessive allele (w). On average, these two animals would produce three white lambs out of every four lambs they have as offspring.
Remember, this is a very simple example; the final color of the W fleece over the whole body is actually controlled by as many as 16 gene pairs working together, depending on the breed of sheep. This is why, in colored flocks, there are many shades of black, gray, and brown. However, in dark sheep, age can also play a role in the color of fleece, as brown may turn to tan or black may gradually turn gray, just as hair turns gray with age in humans.
Color inheritance probability of lambs born to two white-colored sheep with a recessive black allele (Ww). On average, there is a 75% probability their lambs will be white. (W = white allele; w = black allele)
Some traits, such as eye color, are fully the result of genetics, but most traits are influenced by both genetics and environment. A particular breed may have a high incidence of multiple births, but if the ewes aren’t fed adequately, their conception rate won’t be as high despite their genetic potential. Or a breed may be known for producing really fine fleece, but if an individual animal has been sick, its fleece may be of poor quality. Since many traits are at least partially heritable, they can be taken into account when you’re making breeding program decisions.
As a rule, sheep are considered to be seasonal breeders, meaning they are able to breed only during the late fall and early winter because their estrus cycles are controlled by hours of daylight. But some breeds are able to breed out of season. Lambs born out of season can command good prices, and this trait also may be desirable for shepherds interested in accelerated lambing. This refers to a program in which ewes give birth more than once per year on average, but accelerated lambing requires exceptional skill and management and does not always provide “accelerated” profits.
Although multiple births require more attention and care, the profits seem well worth the effort. A 1987 University of Wisconsin analysis found that 5,721 ewes producing one lamb each generate the same profit as 353 ewes producing two lambs each. This may not sound feasible, but remember that the amount of feed for the smaller number of ewes would be radically less, and each ewe would produce twice as many lambs.
Of course, if it isn’t possible for someone to be at home during the day during lambing season, then ease of lambing is a much more important trait to select for than high growth rate or even multiple births. In Minnesota we raised Karakul sheep, which have a fairly low rate of multiple births (the flock average was about 120 percent), but we were also milking cows at the time, so we had little time to deal with the sheep. Despite their relatively low lambing percentage, they were great, self-sufficient mothers that never required any assistance with lambing.
When you are evaluating breed characteristics (and making culling decisions), keep in mind that wool on the sheep’s legs should be considered a disadvantage because it is unusable and makes shearing more time consuming. Wool on the face, which is very heritable, is another disadvantage. Tests have shown that an open-faced ewe (with little or no wool on the face) will raise more and heavier lambs than sheep that have wool on the face. Also, open-face sheep don’t suffer from wool blindness or collect burrs on the face. But if you live in a cold climate and expect your sheep to brave the great outdoors in January, those same traits suddenly become less of a disadvantage. Wool on the legs and head, like socks and a hat on people, help the sheep maintain body temperature.
Skin folds, in general, are also undesirable. They do produce a higher grease weight of fleece, but they also cause more shrinkage. For handspinners, excessively greasy fleeces are harder to wash. Folds make shearing more tedious and cause more second cuts, and since maggots can hatch and thrive in moisture-retaining folds, the folds predispose sheep to flystrike. According to the U.S. Sheep Industry Development program, skin folds usually indicate somewhat lower fertility and productivity.
If you intend to spin your wool, your needs differ from those of people who sell large quantities of wool to a dealer or who are interested primarily in selling market lambs. If you plan on selling handspun fleece or direct marketing lambs, remember that some research indicates that hair sheep and sheep with coarser wool have less muttony-flavored meat. However, many of the heritage breeds (see page 38), though they grow more slowly than the commercial breeds, can provide both delicious meat and desirable fleeces.
Although humans have successfully domesticated only about 50 species of animals, they have developed many thousands of distinct breeds from those species. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that there are currently 1,000 breeds of domestic sheep throughout the world and 60 breeds in North America.
The myriad breeds of sheep located throughout the world provide diversity for our gene pool. But this diversity is being lost at an alarming rate. The FAO, the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (ALBC), and the Canadian Rare Breeds Conservancy estimate that worldwide 30 percent of all domestic animal breeds are at risk for extinction and that as many as 6 breeds are lost each month.
The problem isn’t limited to other areas of the world. In North America, 24 sheep breeds are considered at risk for extinction, whereas just 4 breeds account for more than two-thirds of the total sheep population. The Suffolk breed alone accounts for about 50 percent of the purebred North American sheep population.
The development of any new breed is slow, even with modern technology — which includes frozen embryos, frozen semen, ovum transfers, and computerized record keeping — combined with vigorous selection and extensive culling. Within the past several decades, new breeds have been developed, such as the Booroola, the California Red, and the Cormo. Composite is a term often used for new breeds during development, indicating that they are being bred from a mixture of other, older breeds. It takes years for a composite to develop the genetic integrity of the breeds that have been around for a long time, though undoubtedly some will.
Breeds that were uncommon in North America but have been bred in other areas of the world for long periods are now being imported. For example, the Perendale was first imported from New Zealand in 1977, the Romanovs were imported from Russia to Canada in the 1980s, and the Dorpers and Icelandic sheep were brought into the United States in the 1990s.
The breeds that have fallen out of favor with high-input, industrialized agriculture are referred to as rare, heritage, or minor breeds.
Many of these were major breeds just a generation or two ago. For instance, in 1900 there were 71,000 registered Cotswolds; at the turn of this century, there were fewer than 1,000.
Some heritage breeds are now getting attention, and for a few, their numbers are actually improving. For example, the Jacob sheep, which was once an endangered species, is making a comeback. There were no Jacobs registered in the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1986 ALBC helped start a registry with 100 Jacobs; in the last several years, there have been over 500 new registrations annually. The Cotswolds have also seen a similar comeback, with over 500 new registrations per year.
As Don Bixby, former executive director of the ALBC, says, “It does seem as though the heritage breeds of sheep are doing better — in large part due to handspinners who appreciate wool diversity. Many heritage breeds of sheep have moved up in status on our conservation priority list, and some have been removed from this list altogether. Sheep are amenable to conservationists and accessible to a wide range of people since they are small and easy to work with. Many commercial breeds need full intervention, but you can select for self-sufficiency in breeding populations.”
The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy has established a conservation priority list for rare breeds of livestock in the United States. The categories are the following:
Critical. Fewer than 200 annual registrations in the United States and estimated global population of less than 2,000.
Threatened. Fewer than 1,000 annual registrations in the United States and estimated global population of less than 5,000.
Watch. Fewer than 2,500 annual registrations in the United States and estimated global population of less than 10,000. Also included are breeds that present genetic or numerical concerns or have a limited geographic distribution.
Recovering. Breeds that were once listed in another category and have exceeded Watch-category numbers but are still in need of monitoring.
Currently, there are about 60 breeds of domestic sheep in North America. Each has traits that make it an ideal choice for certain shepherds. Some are large, some small; some are prolific, whereas others produce particularly tasty meat; and some are docile, while others are wary of humans. The ideal breed for you will depend on the goals you have for your flock.
The Barbados Blackbelly is a dark, tropical hair sheep that came originally from Barbados in the West Indies. These sheep were developed from those brought to the island by African slave traders during the 1600s. Although the USDA imported some Barbados in 1904, they were used for crossbreeding, and their pure bloodlines were soon diluted. But several years ago some breeders began selecting again for the Barbados traits, and the Ministry of Agriculture in Barbados gave some purebred sheep to North Carolina State University for research. The American Blackbelly is a sheep derived by crossing the naturally polled Barbados with mouflon sheep, Dorsets, and Merinos in order to produce a large-horned, muscular sheep for hunting. Both breeds are registered by the Barbados Blackbelly Sheep Registry.
Some of the recent interest in Barbados sheep has centered on their ability to lamb almost twice a year. Not only are they prolific, but they’re also hardy, early breeders. Mature ewes have between 1.5 and 2.3 lambs per lambing on average. The record is eight lambs, born to a ewe on Barbados.
AMERICAN BLACKBELLY
Two other points make the Barbados an interesting alternative (especially for shepherds in the hot, humid Southeast): they exhibit great resistance to internal parasites and heat stress (in fact, university trials have confirmed that they carry only about 10 percent of the parasite burden of wool breeds in the Southeast) and they suffer a low incidence of heat stress.
The body color varies from dark brown to almost red to tan, with distinct black markings on the legs, belly, insides of the pointed ears, and on the chin and face. Face markings include black bars down the front of the face, as well as a line of black that goes across the top of the head.
There are three Leicester breeds: the Leicester Longwool (or English) (see page 70), the Border Leicester (see page 44), and the Bluefaced Leicester (below).
BLUEFACED LEICESTER
Developed in northern England during the early 1900s, Bluefaced Leicesters are quite prolific, with good maternal instincts. These sheep are a medium to large size and get their name from the dark blue skin on their heads, which shows through white face hair. Thanks to their fine, longwool fleece (56s–60s count), which is semilustrous, with a silky handle (the way the fiber feels in a spinner’s hand) and pencil locks, they have become extremely popular with the fiber community, and handspinners pay premiums for their fiber, which makes a strong yarn that takes dye well. The average fleece weighs between 2 and 4.5 pounds (0.9 and 2 kg) with a staple from 3 to 6 inches (7.6 to 15.2 cm).
Bluefaced Leicester ewes are good mothers, and have a 250 percent lambing rate. Lambs grow quickly and mature early. They are quite hardy and exhibit natural resistance to scrapie.
All Merino sheep hail from centuries-old Spanish sheep that were renowned for the quality of their fleece during the Middle Ages, and Merinos are still considered primarily wool sheep today. The Booroola Merino is a strain that started with a single prolific ewe at the Booroola Merino farm in Australia during the 1960s.
Booroolas are noted for being prolific and for their high-quality, fine wool that has a long staple. They have a high lambing rate because of a single gene (the FecB gene), which affects ovulation; ovulation in other prolific sheep is controlled by a large number of genes. The Booroola strain is also capable of breeding out of season.
J. Sloan, a Canadian breeder of Booroolas, notes, “Booroola rams may be crossed on most medium-sized, maternal breeds with a history of excellent milk production.” There are few Booroola breeders in North America, and no breed association exists at this time.
The Border Cheviot is one of three distinct types of Cheviot sheep raised in North America (see also Brecknock Hill, page 46, and North Country, page 74). The medium Border type was improved by selection from the original stock, rather than by crossbreeding, and is the predominant type of Cheviot in the United States.
Cheviots started as a mountain breed, native to the Cheviot Hills between Scotland and England. These sheep are extremely hardy and can withstand harsh winters. They graze well over hilly pasture at high altitude. Though they lack the herding instinct needed for open range, they do well in a small farm flock.
They are active and high-strung, alert in both appearance and behavior. They are good mothers despite their nervousness, with a high percentage of twins, and their newborn lambs are hardy. Because of their small head size, they experience few lambing difficulties. They also raise good meat lambs.
These sheep are short and blocky and have no wool on their faces or legs. They’re recognizable by their black nostrils and lips and their erect, sharp ears. They have a lightweight, medium-wool fleece that is easy to handspin.
The Border Leicester breed has a long and dignified history. Developed in 1767 by the Cully brothers of Northumberland, England, the Border Leicester was quite popular in England by the mid-1800s. This breed is thought to be a cross of the Leicester Longwool (see page 70) and the Teeswater (see page 92), though some folks believe that Cheviots were also crossed in.
Border Leicester ewes are prolific, good mothers and known for producing rapidly growing market lambs. They are medium sized and known for their docile disposition. With bare legs and an open face, they are easy to shear.
The Border Leicester is a white-wool breed, but there are beautiful colored Border Leicesters, with locks that grow from 8 to 12 inches (20 to 30 cm) after 12 months. Fleeces yield between 65 and 80 percent and weigh anywhere from 8 to 12 pounds (3.6 to 5.4 kg). The numeric count of the fiber is 36 to 48. (See chapter 11 for more information on interpreting counts.) Border Leicester wool dyes beautifully and has a mohairlike sheen.
BORDER LEICESTER
Also known as the American Miniature Cheviot sheep, the Brednock Hill Cheviot is a small sheep that more closely represents the traditional size of Border Cheviots, which have been bred for larger size over the last couple of centuries in North America. Some sources say that the breed is the same as the Brecknock Hill Cheviots in Wales, which were developed by breeding traditionally smaller Border Cheviots with native landraces (or very old strains of sheep), while other sources say the North American flock is derived from a handful of shepherds who used selective breeding to develop a smaller animal from the Border Cheviots within North America.
Whichever way they came to be, the breed is cute and quite small. At full size they stand less than 23 inches (58.4 cm) at the withers, and some are as small as 17 inches (43.2 cm). Mature ewes weigh between 45 and 85 pounds (20.4 and 38.6 kg); rams between 55 and 100 (25 and 45.4 kg). They are hardy and quite docile, and ewes are good mothers, so they are being raised and often marketed as pet sheep. But they also have a fleece that handspinners love, with medium-fine fiber with a staple length up to 7 inches (17.8 cm). The fiber is considered to be fairly similar to the wool of sheep during the Middle Ages, so it is also finding use in historical re-creations of garments and textiles, such as for costumes at living-history museums.
The British Milk Sheep is a fairly new breed, developed in the 1970s in the United Kingdom. It is a very recent addition to the North American scene, with the first imports (via embryos) to Canada in 1999. In spite of their rather recent history, their exact makeup is a bit of a mystery. Most sources believe that Friesian sheep were the dominant breed used in their development, but Bluefaced Leicester, Polled Dorset, Lleyn (a Welsh breed not found in North America), and possibly other composite animals were used to develop the British Milk.
The breed is prolific, with lambing rates regularly exceeding 220 percent, and the ewes have few lambing problems. Their milk is abundant and high in milk solids, protein, and butterfat. They have a heavy, lustrous fleece.
BRITISH MILK SHEEP
In the early 1970s, Dr. Glenn Spurlock of the University of California at Davis began crossing Tunis (see page 94) and Barbados sheep in order to establish a new breed with superior qualities of both wool and meat production. The result is the California Red sheep, which developed rapidly and is quite consistent in maintaining the desirable characteristics of the breeds from which it was crossed.
California Reds are medium-sized, dual-purpose sheep. Rams weigh from 200 to 250 pounds (90.7 to 113.4 kg) and ewes weigh from 130 to 160 pounds (59 to 72.5 kg) at maturity. The fleece yields 7 to 8 pounds (3.2 to 3.6 kg) annually. The texture of the wool is silky and contains reddish hair, which makes it desirable to spinners and weavers. It also makes good-quality felt.
Rams are active and aggressive, even in hot weather, and ewes are good milking mothers that tend to be free of lambing problems. Like the Barbados and Tunis, from which they are derived, California Reds breed out of season, and many breeders aim for three lamb crops every 2 years. Lambs are red at birth, but the wool lightens to an oatmeal color with age, though the legs and face retain a reddish tinge.
The California Variegated Mutant breed was developed by Glen Eidman in the early 1960s when one of his purebred Romeldale (see page 82) ewes gave birth to a multicolored ewe lamb with a badger-patterned face (dark stripes along the sides of the face and a lighter-colored center). Several years later a ram lamb was born with the same coloring. Eidman crossed these two half-siblings, and the same pattern came through. For the next 15 years, Eidman continued breeding for the trait, concentrating also on characteristics like spinability of the fleece, twinning, and ease of lambing.
These sheep are medium sized. The rams are aggressive and virile breeders and are reported to be able to breed larger numbers of ewes than other rams can. The breed is known for longevity and prolific lamb production. They breed out of season. Fleeces are long stapled and fine and average 8 pounds (3.6 kg) per animal per year. Wool colors run from white to gray to black, with some spotting, and unlike other colored breeds that lighten with age, these sheep get darker.
A breed registry has formed for the California Variegated Mutant, so the number of these sheep should begin to increase.
CALIFORNIA VARIEGATED MUTANT
Developed at the Agricultural Research Centre of Ottawa (ARCOTT) during the 1970s and 1980s, the Canadian Arcott is a composite breed derived primarily from Ile de France, Suffolk, and Leicester genetics. The breed is one of three types of Arcotts that were dispersed to Canadian shepherds in 1988, and they are still found in Canadian flocks today.
Candian Arcotts are large, well-muscled sheep, generally with a white or beige face and a small amount of wool on the forehead. These sheep have been selected for carcass quality and demonstrate better-than-average muscling with acceptable to ideal finish. They are very hardy and lambs show great survivability. Canadian Arcotts are extremely reliable and successful under a wide range of conditions.
The Charollais breed shares a heritage with the large white cattle known as Charolais: both come from Charolles County in the Burgundy region of France. Leicester Longwool sheep were bred to the native landraces of the region during the twentieth century, and the French government recognized the Charollais breed in 1974. The breed was imported to Canada in 1994, and is used there as a terminal sire breed.
Charollais are long, well-muscled sheep with pink-grey faces and legs, with fine to medium wool. Both purebred and crossbred Charollais lambs grade exceptionally well. They are well known for heavily muscled, lean carcasses between 40 and 66 pounds (18 and 30kg). The breed is rapidly increasing in popularity due its fast, lean growth; high meat yield; premium carcass; and easy lambing.
The Clun Forest sheep was developed in the Clun Valley in southwestern Shropshire, England, in the 1800s. Early breed selection was for hardy, fertile sheep that could thrive on grass and whatever they could forage. The first six Clun Forest ewes were imported into North America from Ireland in 1959, but the first large importation didn’t take place until the 1970s.
Clun Forest ewes are prolific and almost always have twins. With narrow, sleek heads and wide pelvic structures, they lamb very easily and without assistance. Even yearlings show strong mothering instincts; ewe lambs breed at 8 or 9 months old and lamb as yearlings. The ewe’s milk has a higher protein and fat content than that of other breeds, contributing to quick-growing
CHAROLLAIS
CLUN FOREST
lambs, and ewes are also capable of producing a high volume of milk. As a result, Cluns are garnering interest among sheep-dairy operators.
Clun Forest sheep are adaptable to all kinds of climates and all kinds of grazing conditions. Another quality that makes them valuable is their longevity and that they have good fleeces until they are 10 or 12 years of age. Their medium wool is 58s count. (The s has to do with spinning count and means the number of hanks, or 560 yards [511.8 m], that the wool can spin. See chapter 11 for more on spinning counts.)
The Columbia is the first breed to come out of U.S. government and university research. Developed by the USDA in 1912, it was intended as an improved, true breeding type for the western range. It is the result of a Lincoln (see page 72) ram and Rambouillet (see page 78) ewe cross, with interbreeding of the resulting lambs and their descendants without backcrossing to either parent stock. The object of the cross was to produce more pounds of wool and lamb under range conditions, but this breed has also adapted well to the lush grasses of small farms in other parts of the country. Heavy wool clips; hardy, fast-growing lambs; open faces; and ease of handling are characteristics for which the breed is known.
Columbias have medium wool in the 50s to 60s range that is predominantly about 56s. It has light shrinkage and makes excellent, all-white fleece for handspinning.
Coopworths were developed in the 1950s at Lincoln College in New Zealand by crossing Border Leicesters with Romneys (see page 82), and the breed has unusually strict registration requirements. Performance recording is mandatory, with emphasis placed on multiple births and high weaning weights. The breed is very docile, but this makes them more susceptible to predators, so they are best raised under farm conditions, rather than on range operations. They are able to adapt to a wide variety of climatic conditions.
Coopworths were first imported to North America in the 1970s and have proved to be excellent foragers on lush pastures. The wool is lustrous, very strong, soft, curly, and thick like carpet wool. It is well suited to felting.
COOPWORTH
Cormos are smaller than Columbias and Rambouillets (see page 78) but yield 70 to 73 percent clean-weight, fine fleece under range conditions and have a high-yielding carcass. The fleece is very uniform and therefore valuable to industry. Handspinners find the Cormo one of the most exciting of the fine-wool breeds.
Traditional pedigrees aren’t kept. Instead, the sheep are numbered and allowed into the registry based on performance. Computer management makes the Cormo the most strictly scientific genetic improvement scheme in sheep history. The criteria for selection are clean fleece weight, fiber diameter between 17 and 23 microns, fast body growth, and high fertility.
The white or naturally colored Corriedale is a Merino–Lincoln–Leicester cross that was developed in Australia and New Zealand during the late 1800s and first brought to Wyoming in 1914. The breed is now distributed worldwide, with its greatest population found in South America.
The fleece is dense and medium fine, 56s grade, and soft and has good length and light shrinkage. It falls somewhere between a medium wool and long wool and is a favorite of handspinners in many areas of the United States. The Corriedale’s face is clean of wool below the eyes and is naturally polled. It’s a large-framed breed that has been developed as a dual-purpose sheep: it has good wool and good meat for greater profits and is noted for a long productive life, which means a greater return on investment. Because of a strong herding instinct, it does well as a range animal.
CORRIEDALE
The Cotswold is a large sheep, known for its very long, coarse, lustrous wool that is 8 to 12 inches (20 to 30 cm) long and wavy; it hangs in pronounced ringlets. Thought to have been introduced to England by the Romans more than 2,000 years ago, today’s Cotswolds were developed between 1780 and 1820 through the introduction of Leicester Longwool (see page 70) genetics to the sheep of the Cotswold Hills in Gloucester. The first Cotswolds were imported to North America in the early 1800s, and the breed’s 1878 registry was also the first U.S. sheep registry.
The breed was popular early on for crossbreeding with western range sheep, but it fell out of favor as selection moved toward meat breeds. Today the breed finds favor with smaller farm flocks, where its docile personality makes handling easy.
The fleece weighs from 13 to 15 pounds (6.0 to 6.5 kg), and there is very little shrinkage. It is quite lustrous, with a count in the 40s range, and grows at the rate of about 1 inch (2.5 cm) per month. Because of this fast growth, many shepherds shear twice a year. One unique characteristic of the Cotswold is that the locks fall over its forehead in cords. The breed is white to silvery gray and sometimes has excessive wool on the thighs.
Development of the Debouillet was begun by Amos Dee Jones in New Mexico in the 1920s. The result of breeding Ohio Delaine Merino (see page 58) rams with Rambouillet (see page 78) ewes, successful crosses of these sheep show the length of staple and character of the Delaine fleece and the large body of the Rambouillet. By 1927 the ideal type was attained, and a line-breeding program began. The breed was registered in 1954, starting with 231 rams and 1,587 ewes.
Debouillets are open faced below the eyes and over the nose, have a good wool covering over the belly, and shear a heavy fleece of long-staple, fine wool. Rams can be horned or polled. Even under adverse conditions, ewes produce desirable market lambs of excellent weight.
Debouillet lambs that are eligible for registration by bloodline must be one year of age and in full fleece when examined by an association inspector. Wool must be 64s grade or finer, with 3-inch (7 cm) minimum staple and deep, close crimp.
DEBOUILLET
The Merino sheep, so famous for their fine wool, originated in Spain. They are descended from a strain of sheep developed during the reign of Claudius (AD 14–37). Spaniards crossed the Tarentine sheep of Rome with the Laodicean sheep of Asia Minor, which produced one of the world’s most popular sheep breeds; most modern wool breeds have some Merino in their background. Merinos were first imported to North America during the late 1700s.
Since the lambs are small and mature slowly, the main income is from the sale of fleece and breeding stock. The Merino fleece is heavy in oil and, like the Rambouillet (see page 78), loses much of its weight in washing.
Not too long ago the Merinos were classified into types A, B, and C, depending on the amount of wrinkling in their skin. Type A had excessive wrinkling and is now considered extinct, type B has fewer folds, and type C has the fewest folds. Delaines are a type C Merino, which were bred in North America starting in the nineteenth century and are the most common type of Merinos in North America today.
Delaines have good herding instincts and can travel far for feed and water, so they work well on open range. They are medium sized and hardy. They breed year-round and are excellent mothers, but twinning is not the norm.
The Dorper is a hair sheep that was bred in South Africa by crossing Blackhead Persian sheep with Dorset Horns (see page 60). Their solid-white bodies are usually accompanied by a solid-black head, giving them an unusual appearance, but there are also pure white strains, and strains with a solid-red head.
Whatever their color, Dorpers are stout, highly fertile animals that have a long breeding season, and they are quite docile. They are adaptable to a wide range of climates, from hot and dry to humid and cold. Although they put on wool in cold climates, they shed in warm weather and don’t require shearing, which can be a great advantage for shepherds who are focusing on meat production and don’t have the time or inclination to deal with shearing.
DORPER
Dorset sheep originated in England, and although their history is not well known, it is believed that they were developed more through selection than by crossbreeding. There are two types of Dorsets, Dorset Horns and Polled Dorsets. The first Polled Dorsets were developed at North Carolina State College, apparently from a mutant born without horns. They were first registered in 1956.
The Dorset has very little wool on the face, legs, and belly; its fleece is lightweight and good for handspinning. They have a large, coarse frame and white hooves and skin. The ewes are prolific and often have twins. They are good milkers, having even been kept in dairies at one time in England, and are good mothers. (A Shepherd’s Guide from 1749 described them as being “especially more careful of their young than any other.”) Ewes breed early, allowing for fall lambing, and it’s possible for them to lamb twice per year.
A German breed, East Friesians are raised primarily for milk. Thanks to high milk solids, they are particularly prized for cheese production. These sheep produce more milk than any of the other European breeds, and they are very prolific lambers. In southeastern France, this milk breed is one of three that are crossed for production of Roquefort cheese. The breed’s high milk production, accompanied by prolific lambing, makes it valuable for crossbreeding as well as for sheep dairying.
Although the East Friesian is a large sheep and the lambs have a good growth rate, in most circumstances it is not considered an especially good sheep for straight meat production because it has very high feed needs. It is also not adaptable to hot climates, performing poorly in these areas. In spite of the limitations of purebred stock, their crossbred offspring perform outstandingly well under a variety of conditions.
The East Friesian produces a heavy fleece. Wool is typically in the 48s to 50s range.
EAST FRIESIAN
Finnsheep, or the Finnish Landrace, were first brought to the United States from Finland in 1968. Since then, their numbers have grown rapidly. They are said to “lamb in litters” because they are known to have up to six lambs per lambing, with three or four being normal for the mature Finn ewe.
Finn ewes can breed at 6 or 7 months. Because they are so prolific, Finnsheep are being widely used for crossbreeding. The lambs that result from crossbreeding a Finn with a meat breed are indistinguishable from those of the meat breed, while the lambing percentage is greatly increased.
Finns are known to be good mothers and easy lambers, but they require exceptionally good care during gestation to meet the nutritional needs in order to support multiple lambs. When litters greater than three occur, the bonus lambs are either left with the dam and supplemented or taken away and hand raised.
Fleeces are generally very soft with a lustrous quality, appealing to hand-spinners. Although white is predominant in Finns, natural-colored flocks have also been developed that include black, gray, brown, and spotted patterning. The tails of Finns are naturally short and don’t require docking. The friendly disposition of Finnsheep makes them especially popular with small-flock raisers.
As the name implies, Gulf Coast Native sheep hail from the southern coast of the United States along the Gulf of Mexico. They developed from early Spanish sheep introduced in the 1500s in Florida and are one of the oldest breeds in the United States. Before World War II, hundreds of thousands of these sheep roamed free on unimproved pastures throughout the subtropical regions along the Gulf, but after the war, the southern sheep industry turned to commercial, high-input, improved breeds.
Through hundreds of years of natural selection for withstanding the hot and humid conditions under which parasites thrive, Gulf Coast Natives are one of the most resistant breeds to internal parasites. This trait is helping to stimulate renewed interest in these sheep. In fact, their tolerance to parasites is generating interest outside their traditional subtropical range, and they are now being raised as far north as Minnesota. This breed also tends to be resistant to foot troubles.
GULF COAST NATIVE
The Gulf Coast breed is small and has clean legs and an open face. Though usually white, sheep are also brown, black, or spotted. They grow slowly and have a low lambing percentage, but in subtropical conditions the percentage of lambs finished per ewe mated is higher than other breeds because of excellent lamb survivability. The lambs mature early, and the ewes can lamb out of season.
The Hampshire is one of the largest of the medium-wool meat sheep. While they don’t do well on rough or scanty pasture because of their size and weight, they do nicely on good pastures, and the lambs can usually be marketed directly from the grass of high-quality pasture.
Hampshires are another British breed, from Southdowns (see page 88) crossed with a Wiltshire Horn (see page 98)–Berkshire Knot cross. They were first imported in the early 1800s.
The ewes are good milkers and are fairly prolific, but they do not lamb easily, probably because of the large head and shoulders of the lambs and their heavy weight at birth. The lambs grow rapidly and are known for good carcass cutability.
The Hampshires have large heads and ears and are polled. The face and legs are a rich, dark chocolate brown. Their fleece is lightweight, and they have fairly short, medium wool.
Two hundred years ago Hog Island, a barrier island off the coast of Virginia near the mouth of the James River, became home to a flock of sheep that was established from locally available British breeds. These animals have since evolved into a unique breed of feral sheep.
Feral sheep are rare worldwide because sheep do not easily adapt to unmanaged habitats. Feral sheep are most often found on islands, where predators don’t exist. Under those conditions, natural selection yields a hardy sheep with excellent foraging ability (they are often able to utilize feeds that other sheep couldn’t hope to survive on) and reproductive efficiency.
Hog Island was purchased by The Nature Conservancy during the 1970s, and the entire flock of sheep was removed from the island to improve survival of native vegetation. The breed is now kept primarily at historic sites in Virginia, such as Gunston Hall Plantation and Mt. Vernon, to portray eighteenth-century sheep raising.
HOG ISLAND
Hog Island sheep have medium-weight wool, and mature animals weigh 125 to 200 pounds (56.7 to 90.7 kg). Most are white with spotted legs and faces, though about 10 percent are black.
Viking settlers brought sheep to Iceland, and few sheep have been imported since settlement ended there about 900 years ago. As a result, Icelandic sheep are one of the purest breeds in the world today. In Iceland these sheep account for about 25 percent of the island’s total agricultural output. Its first North American importation was into Ontario, Canada, in 1985.
Icelandic sheep are of northern European descent, have short tails, and are distantly related to Finnsheep, Romanovs, and Shetlands. But Icelandic sheep are the biggest of these short-tail types. These sheep have good conformation for meat production, and while they are raised for meat, milk, and wool in Iceland, they are well known internationally for their wool, which is mostly marketed as Lopi yarn. The fleece is dual coated, with an outer coat that can reach 15 inches (38 cm) and a shorter, softer inner coat, and comes in a wide range of colors.
The breed is well suited to small farms, as its herding instincts are poor. They are alert and aggressive, showing great determination in going after their feed. The lambs, though they are born small, are eager nursers and can reach finishing weight in 3 to 4 months if raised on good pasture. Both ewe and ram lambs mature early and begin breeding at about 8 months. The meat has a fine texture and a delicious flavor, the wool is sought after by hand-spinners, and the skins make beautiful rugs.
The Ile de France was developed beginning in 1832 under the supervision of a professor at a French veterinary college. He used Dishley Leicesters and French Rambouillets with the goal of improving meat production. When a breed association formed in 1933, all animals had to be tested for production traits prior to being registered.
Ile de France have been selected for two primary purposes: as a terminal sire to produce vigorous, hardy, fast-growing lambs that yield carcasses that grade well and demonstrate superior muscling of the loin and leg; and for crossbreeding with maternal breeds in commercial flocks. They add hardiness, longevity, feed conversion, out-of-season breeding ability and an excellent flocking instinct.
ILE DE FRANCE
The mottled fleece of Jacob sheep is light, with 4- to 7-inch staple (10 to 18 cm). Its medium-fine texture and high luster have great appeal for hand-spinners. Tanned pelts bring premium prices.
Native to the central Asiatic region of Russia, the Karakul, a fat-tailed sheep, is thought to be one of the oldest breeds in the world. It was introduced into North America in the early 1900s.
Karakuls are small, fine-boned sheep with long, droopy ears. They are quite hardy, adaptable to a wide range of climatic conditions, and known for their longevity. Their breeding season is fairly long and allows for out-of-season breeding. Single lambs are the most common, though we had one Karakul ewe that had triplets every year, which she raised without any assistance from us.
Most lambs are born black and lighten with age, though there are strains of blue and red as well. The lamb’s pelt, which is tightly curled, was traditionally prized for its lustrous “fur.” Although the fleece grades as carpet wool, it is long stapled and good for handspinning. It also has excellent felting quality. Karakul meat is less muttony tasting than that of some other sheep breeds, and the fat from its tail provides good tallow for soap or candle making.
KARAKUL
The Katahdin is a hair-sheep breed that originated in Maine. In 1957 Michael Piel, an amateur geneticist who enjoyed raising livestock, read an article in National Geographic about West African hair sheep. He eventually imported three African hair sheep from St. Croix and began experimenting with various crosses, trying to develop a hair breed with a good conformation for meat production, high fertility, and good flocking instincts. By the 1970s, Piel felt he had the sheep he was looking for and named the breed Katahdin, after Mt. Katahdin, the highest peak in Maine.
Katahdins are hardy, adaptable, and low maintenance. Docile and easy to handle, these medium-sized sheep produce good lamb crops with lean, meaty carcasses. Ewes have good mothering ability and lamb easily, and the breed is considered to be ideal for an extensive pasture-lambing system.
The Lacaune is a dairy breed from the south of France; its milk is used to make that region’s famous Roquefort cheese. The sheep were imported (via embryos) in 1996 for use in the growing sheep dairy sector.
The Lacaunes produce less milk than the East Friesians, but they have exceptional udder health. They have been selected for machine milking, so mastitis (an infectious inflammation of the udder) is very rare. The ewes are healthy and quite calm.
The Leicester Longwool (or English Leicester) was originally bred by Robert Bakewell in the 1700s for early maturity and improved mutton quality and quantity. Bakewell was a leader in the development of selective breeding practices for livestock and is said to have been influenced by the work of both Mendel and Darwin.
Leicester Longwools were imported into the United States early, with references made to the breed in some of George Washington’s correspondence. Although it was once very popular in England and in the Americas, by the 1980s the breed was almost extinct in both areas. Although still rare, these sheep have made a bit of a comeback in the United States, largely through the work of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Coach and Livestock Department. In the late 1980s, Colonial Williamsburg imported some pure-bred Leicester Longwools from Australia, where the breed’s numbers hadn’t dipped quite so low.
LACAUNE
LEICESTER LONGWOOL
The Leicester Longwool has a mop of wool over the crown of its head. The breed is hardy and adapts to a wide variety of environmental conditions. The animals have large frames, and the fleece is generally white. It falls in long, lustrous ringlets, with a 15-inch (38 cm) staple.
The Lincoln Longwools are from Lincolnshire, England. Although they are the largest of the sheep breeds, they mature slowly. Their long fleece is dense, strong, and heavy, and they have forehead tufts. The breed is fairly hardy and prolific, but lambs need protective penning for the first few days.
The Lincoln is not an active forager, so it is really best adapted to an abundance of good pasture and supplements. They don’t stand cold, rainy weather too well because their fleece parts down the middle of the back, allowing cold air to hit their backbone (a sensitive area on sheep). However, the fleece is resistant to the deterioration shown in the wool that parts along the backs of other breeds. This lustrous fleece is sought by handspinners for its long-wearing qualities. When spun alone, the wool makes an almost indestructible sock yarn; when blended with other wools, it makes a strong weaving warp (the threads strung through a loom to create the foundation for weaving) and has an attractive sheen.
The Montadale is an American breed that originated around 1932 in the St. Louis area. Montadale sheep are a cross between Cheviot rams and Columbia ewes. The small head eliminates many lambing problems; the ewes are prolific lambers and good mothers.
The fleece is usually snowy white, though there are black strains. The fleece is heavy, with little shrinkage, and the wool grades medium. The breed has a beautiful face and alert, Cheviot-style ears. These sheep are open faced with clean legs. They are hardy and adapt to various climates, and there are black strains.
Much like the Gulf Coast Native sheep, the Navajo-Churro breed developed from sheep imported by the Spanish more than 400 years ago. Connie Taylor, secretary of the breed association, writes, “The Navajo-Churro endured primitive, ocean transport and the rigors of trailing from Mexico to the Southwest. They survived the pressures of providing food and fiber to the early mining settlements of Mexico, California, Arizona, and New Mexico.”
MONTADALE
NAVAJO-CHURRO
Native Americans acquired flocks of sheep from the Spanish ranches and villages (through either raids or trading) in the early seventeenth century. Within 100 years, herding and weaving were the main enterprise of the Navajos. Their sheep became so important that the Navajo name for sheep is bee’iin’ á át’é, which means “that by which we live.”
During the late 1800s, the U.S. Army decimated flocks of Navajo sheep in an effort to subjugate the Navajos, and then in the 1900s, U.S. agencies slaughtered large numbers of the flock in an effort to control “overgrazing and erosion.” Only a few small flocks remained. But today conservationists and Navajo Native Americans are once again breeding the Navajo-Churros for their important characteristics, such as hardiness, longevity, and high lamb survivability on range.
The fleece is double coated — the inner coat has fine wool and the outer coat is long, coarse, and lustrous. It is the fleece of these sheep that gives the classic Rio Grande and Navajo weavings their strong, lustrous traits, and these fleeces are once again inspiring fiber artists and weavers.
The North Country Cheviot is a general-purpose breed that originated in northern Scotland and is well adapted to northern climates and hilly, rough terrain. They were first imported to North America in 1944. North Country Cheviots are larger than their kin, the Border Cheviots, and probably show more of the traits of the breed’s early ancestors in Scotland.
The animals are polled and have open faces and bare legs. They produce a medium-wool fleece with good staple length. In Scotland their wool, which is free from hair, or kempy fibers, is used to make the famous Scottish tweeds. Ewes are good milkers, easy lambers, and fairly prolific.
Oxfords are an English breed named after the county of Oxford. These sheep were bred primarily from Cotswold and Hampshire foundations, which makes them large and heavy. Breeders were successful in combining the hardiness, muscle, and wool quality of the Hampshire with the great size, rapid growth, and wool characteristics of the Cotswold. Oxfords were first recognized as a true breed in 1862 and were imported into the United States as early as 1864.
Oxfords have a good fleece weight and medium wool of reasonable length. Their faces and legs are usually light brown, but anything from light gray to dark brown is acceptable. A white spot on the end of the nose is common.
OXFORD
Because their faces are partly open, there is no tendency toward wool blindness.
These sheep are most valuable as a sire breed. Rams weigh up to 300 pounds (136.1 kg); they contribute size and muscle to the offspring. Because they are easily handled in small pastures, Oxfords are well suited to farm raising and thrive when given good feed. The ewes are docile, heavy milkers, and because the breed has a small head, lambs are born easily.
As a crossbreed of Lincoln ewes and Rambouillet (see page 78) rams, the original Panama stock has the reverse parentage of the Columbia, which are Lincoln rams crossed with Rambouillet ewes. Breeder James Laidlaw wanted to replace the small Merinos that were common in Idaho. His goal was to develop more-rugged sheep with finer wool and better herding instincts than those of Columbia sheep, and he felt that the ram had more influence on the offspring than the ewe, although this view is controversial.
Laidlaw made the first cross in 1912, starting with 50 rams and 1,600 ewes. With this large number of animals, he was able to avoid the inbreeding problems that often arise in the attempt to start a new breed. After 3 years, he switched from Rambouillet to Panama rams. After 5 years, Laidlaw sold the remaining Lincoln ewes.
The registry started in 1951 and required that all animals be direct descendants of the original Laidlaw flock, but it did not remain active, so today the breed is a bit of an enigma. The University of Idaho still maintains a small flock of foundation animals, but most others are classified as Panama-type, because no one really knows whether they are still purebred. The Panama-type animals that are still found around the region are good-sized, hardy, polled sheep that perform well under range conditions. Ewes are good mothers that produce plenty of milk. Their heavy fleece weighs 9 to 14 pounds (4.1 to 6.4 kg) and is medium to fine.
The Perendale is a cross of Cheviot rams on Romney (see page 82) ewes. Developed in New Zealand, they were first imported to the United States in 1977 and are growing in favor with shepherds.
Perendales have clean faces and legs and dense, usually white wool of a 4- to 5-inch (10 to 12 cm) staple. Perendale wool is prized by handspinners who dye their own wool, is easy to spin, and makes good garments.
PERENDALE
The breed is well suited to hilly areas. The animals are easy to care for and lamb unassisted, though they inherit a bit of nervousness from their Cheviot ancestry and need gentle handling.
The Polypay was developed in the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station in Idaho. Announced as a new breed in 1976, it started with initial crosses of Targhee–Dorset and Rambouillet–Finnsheep breeds. These crosses were then recrossed, resulting in a breed that is one-quarter of each foundation breed of sheep.
Polypays are a superior lamb-production breed. Not only are they outstanding in twice-a-year lambing operations, but their lambs have a quality carcass as well.
The Rambouillet and Targhee breeding is included to retain hardiness and flocking instincts. Dorset blood contributes to carcass quality, milking ability, and a long breeding season. The Finnsheep contributes early puberty, early postpartum fertility, and high lambing rate.
The fleece of the Polypay is medium to fine and weighs about 8 pounds (3.6 kg). Wool weight is higher in flocks that are bred less than twice each year.
The Rambouillet is the French version of the Merino. Louis XVI imported 359 Spanish Merinos for his estate at Rambouillet in 1786, and the Merinos were crossed with the resident sheep. The resultant Rambouillet sheep were first brought to the United States in 1840.
Rambouillets are very large and have strong bodies and little wrinkling, except perhaps some across the brisket. They are hardy and possess remarkable herding instincts, spreading out to graze during the day and gathering closely together to sleep at night, making them excellent for open range. They adapt well to a wide range of climates and feeds, making them equally suitable for farm flocks, and have been used for developing new breeds.
They are considered to be a dual-purpose breed, with a desirable carcass and good wool production. The ewes can be bred early to lamb in November and December, and the lambs give good yield in boneless, trimmed meat cuts. The fleece is less oily than that of the Merino, so it also shrinks less. The rams have horns, and both sexes have white feet and open faces. They show relatively strong resistance to internal parasites.
RAMBOUILLET
Like the Canadian Arcott, the Rideau was developed at the Agricultural Research Centre of Ottawa. Its bloodlines included Finnsheep, Suffolk, Shropshire, Dorset, and East Friesian, with just a sprinkling of Border Leicester, North Country Cheviot, Romeldale, and Corriedale.
The breed matures early, and ewes are highly fertile, with twins and triplets being the norm. In fact, quadruplets are more common than single lambs. Ewes, which can breed as early as 7 months, wean more pounds of lamb than any other breed analyzed in the Canadian Sheep Flock Improvement Program. They are very hardy in cold regions. Although found primarily in Canada, a few shepherds in the northern United States have started importing the breed.
Like the Finnsheep, Romanovs are a northern European “rat-tailed” breed. These sheep first arrived in North America in 1980 when Agriculture Canada imported 14 ewes and four rams from France.
It appears that the Romanov’s fertility, body size, growth, and carcass characteristics are similar to those of the Finnsheep. The lambs are born black, with a silky hair coat over their wool. As they mature, the hair is shed and replaced by double-coated wool that is just gaining interest with hand-spinners. The breed was traditionally raised for its fur (or pelts) in Russia.
One Romanov advantage is early sexual maturity, which occurs at 6 months of age. Ewe lambs first give birth when they are only 11 or 12 months old. They also have the ability to breed out of season; in Canada, they produce lambs every 8 months. Romanovs are still rare in North America, but I think their unique qualities will induce more shepherds to raise them in the coming years.
ROMANOV
An American breed that dates back to the 1920s, the Romeldale is a cross of Romney (see below) rams and Rambouillet ewes. They produce medium to fine wool that shrinks very little, making more pounds of clean wool than is normally produced from the fleeces of fine-wool breeds. The wool of the Romeldale is finding favor with handspinners. The purebred Romeldale lamb is very marketable, and the females can be saved as replacement ewes. Ewes are excellent mothers, prolific, and long lived. Twinning and ease of lambing are two traits for which the breed is known.
Romeldales are found primarily in California. Unfortunately, their popularity has not spread, partly because, unlike the California Variegated Mutant — a unique color variety of Romeldale — the white Romeldale has never had an active association and registry.
The Romney is an English breed, which is called the Romney Marsh in its native region, after the low, marshy area where they are thought to have originated. Romneys are said to be somewhat resistant to foot rot, liver flukes, and other problems that often plague sheep in damp pastures. The breed was first imported to North America in 1904.
This breed has a quiet temperament and does well on a good pasture. They are not suitable for hilly country or hot, dry climates. They have little herding instinct but can be managed easily in a farm flock.
Although they are a long-wool breed, the wool of Romney sheep is much finer and more lustrous than that of other long-wool sheep. Their fleece doesn’t have the tendency to part along the back, so they do well in rainy climates. Except for a tuft of wool on the forehead and short wool on the lower chin, the rest of the head is clean. Romneys, which come in both white and natural-colored strains, produce an excellent handspinning fleece. Their meat is of good quality and has a delicate taste.
ROMNEY
The Royal White is a hair sheep, developed in the 1990s by Bill Hoag, who at that time was a Utah Realtor. Hoag leased a piece of land to an area sheep rancher and became fascinated by his Rambouillet sheep. He started studying sheep and decided to develop a new breed. He became convinced that hair sheep made more sense for lamb production, because they reduced cost. He acquired a flock of St. Croix sheep and bred them to Dorper rams. His breed began gaining attention in the sheep industry, and today there have been more than 10,000 animals registered with the breed society.
Ewes typically have triplets and quadruplets and sometimes even larger litters. They breed throughout the year, produce lots of milk, and have high lamb survivability. They also have parasite and disease resistance.
Another island feral breed, Santa Cruz sheep hail from Santa Cruz Island, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of California. The Santa Cruz breed has lived on the island for about 200 years and has been feral for at least 70 years, though the sheep were removed in the 1980s in an effort to improve island vegetation for native species (see Sheep and Conservation Efforts, below).
Like other island sheep, Santa Cruzes are small. Most are white, but black, brown, and spotted sheep are also found in the breed. They have medium to fine fleece that is especially soft.
SANTA CRUZ
Another mountain sheep from Scotland, the Scottish Blackface is a hardy, quick-maturing meat animal. The breed is one of the most numerous in the British Isles and is raised where conditions are hard. Monastery records from the twelfth century refer to this breed.
Scottish Blackface sheep are adapted to cool, damp conditions, and they do well on sparse forage. The coat has outstanding water-shedding properties.
The ewes are excellent mothers. Although they are not prolific under “hill conditions,” they are fairly prolific on good pastures.
These sheep have an attractive and stylish lightweight fleece of long, coarse wool. In addition to the attractive coat, the Roman nose and unusual black-and-white face markings give these sheep a unique appearance. The mottled faces are preferred over the solid-color black face in England, where the markings are said to indicate greater resistance to disease. Both ewes and rams have horns.
An ancient breed raised on the Shetland Islands (located north of Scotland and west of Norway in the Atlantic Ocean), Shetland sheep are quite hardy. The rams have two horns, while the ewes are polled. Both sexes have short tails that don’t require docking. Their wool is fine, more durable than Merino wool, and less likely to pill. A great range of colors adds to its value, especially for handspinners; the many fleece colors include sparkling white, shades of gray, lustrous black, tan, and shades of a deep, dark chocolate brown. Many of the colors are referred to by their traditional names, such as sholmit, shaela, eesit, mooskit, mogit, and moorit. Shetland wool is used for traditional wedding shawls that can be pulled through the bride’s ring.
Shetlands were imported into Canada in the 1980s and into the United States later in the same decade. The value of these sheep to handspinners resulted in a huge expansion of the breed, both in North America and in Britain. Considered endangered only a short time ago, the breed has now been removed from conservation lists on both sides of the Atlantic.
SHETLAND
Shropshire sheep are one of the “down” breeds, developed in southern England in the low hills called downs. First known as a fixed breed in 1848, it was imported into the United States in 1855 and became a well-established, popular breed.
It is a medium-sized sheep that produces good meat lambs, but it needs abundant feed. Ewes typically have twins and triplets. They are long lived, often producing lambs well into their teens. The rams are often used as terminal sires in crossbred production.
Livestock historians believe the Soay is representative of the earliest domestic sheep. They are found on several islands off the coast of Scotland, but in the 1970s and 1990s, conservation breeders imported small numbers of animals to North America. They have maintained flocks of purebred Soay, and some have also upgraded a breed now known as American Soays through crosses with other breeds.
The Soays are hardy and intelligent, though they are more wary and wild than most domestic sheep. The ewes are excellent mothers.
The Southdown is an old English breed that was modernized and selected for meat production during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is traditionally a small- to medium-sized breed with a boxy build, though the North American flock includes some larger-sized animals as well as some very small animals. In fact, several types are found in North America today: the Standard Southdown is a medium-sized animal, raised for commercial production; the Babydoll is a smaller animal, often raised as a pet; and the Toy or Miniature Southdown is a very small sheep that doesn’t exceed 24 inches (61 cm) at the withers and is also aimed at the pet-sheep market.
Southdowns have a good disposition. Twins and triplets are common. They are known for their feed efficiency, particularly when raised on high-quality pastures. Their fleece is usually white, but there are some colored strains. The fiber is short (less than 3 inches [7.6 cm]) but soft and with a fine to medium diameter.
SOAY
SOUTHDOWN
The St. Croix is a hair breed, with a long breeding season, that developed in the hot island climate of the Virgin Islands. Like the Gulf Coast Native, years of selection in a tropical climate have provided the St. Croix with a strong tolerance for internal parasites and good heat tolerance. The breed will typically breed back within 40 days after lambing.
The St. Croix is a medium-sized breed that was first imported to North America in the 1960s by Michael Piel, the developer of the Katahdin breed. But a second importation by Utah State University in 1975 provided the foundation for the North American flock of St. Croix. The sheep are quite docile, and because they lack predators and have scanty forage on their native islands, they require good predator control. The ewes breed throughout the year and regularly produce twins and triplets. Sheep dairies are using them because they produce abundant milk.
The Suffolk is the most common breed in the United States, and the breed is very popular for kids participating in 4-H, Future Farmers of America, and other youth shows. It is a handsome sheep with black face, ears, and legs that all are free of wool.
The ewes are prolific and good milkers. Lambs grow rapidly; they have more edible meat and less fat than many other breeds.
Suffolks are active grazers and are able to rustle for feed on dry range. When raised on high-quality feeds, they have one of the fastest growth rates of any breed and are considered to have excellent feed-conversion characteristics.
Another English contribution, the Suffolks were developed by crossing Southdown sheep with old Norfolk sheep. This latter breed had a black face and horns, was hardy and prolific, and produced meat of superior texture, but its conformation was poor. The resulting breed combined the best characteristics of its parents and became popular for use both in purebred flocks and in crossbreeding.
SUFFOLK
The Targhee is a hardy American breed, developed by mating outstanding Rambouillet rams to either ewes of Corriedale and Lincoln Rambouillet stock or ewes of only Lincoln Rambouillet stock, followed by interbreeding the resulting lambs. This work was done in 1926 at the Sheep Experiment Station in Dubois, Idaho, to meet the demand for a breed of sheep that had thick muscles; was prolific; produced high-quality, apparel-type wool; and was adapted to both farm and range conditions. These sheep are named after the Targhee National Forest in Idaho, where the station flock grazes in summer.
An association was started in 1951, but its book closed in 1966, meaning that all Targhee today trace back to animals registered at that time. The breed’s numbers fell over the years, but the association has become more active in recent years, so the breed is seeing renewed interest with shepherds around the country.
Targhees are large-framed, dual-purpose sheep that produce good meat and heavy fleece (11 to 16 pounds [5 to 7 kg]) of good, medium wool.
A very old breed from the northeast of England, the Teeswater is a long-wool breed that is threatened in its home country. There are no purebred Teeswaters in North America, but some conservation breeders and fiber aficionados are using an “up-breeding program” to develop an American strain of the breed. In up-breeding, breeders use imported semen from purebred animals to artificially inseminate ewes of another breed. The crossbred offspring of this breeding are again artificially inseminated with purebred semen. Their offspring are artificially inseminated yet again, and again, and again. After eight to ten generations of such breeding, the animals are close to the true characteristics of the desired breed.
Teeswaters are hardy. Ewes are prolific and rarely require assistance, and the lambs grow quickly. Their fleece is long and lustrous in locks that are free of kemp and dark fibers.
TEESWATER
Texel sheep have been bred in Holland, Finland, and Denmark for more than 160 years. In 1985 the USDA Meat Animal Research Center in Nebraska was the first to import the breed, which resulted from crosses of native “polder sheep” (grazers on “polderland,” or lands reclaimed from the sea) with British breeds, such as Border Leicesters and Lincolns. Additional importations were made in the 1990s by individual breeders, greatly expanding the North American flock.
Texels are hardy animals that can adapt to many climates and conditions. They do very well as a foraging breed. They are lean, medium-sized sheep and have a high muscle-to-bone ratio. Rams are favored as terminal sires. These sheep lamb only once a year, but in farm flocks they have a high percentage of twins and triplets. Their lack of herding instinct makes them a poor choice for ranges. Texels have a white fleece of medium wool, with no wool on the face or legs, and a distinct black nose.
The Tunis is an American breed developed from the Tunisian Barbary sheep. The foundation stock was first imported into the United States in 1799, and the breed spread throughout the Southeast. A Tunis ram was used by George Washington to rebuild his flock, which had declined in number and vigor while he was serving as president.
Tunis are medium sized, hardy, and docile. The ewes are very good mothers and are known for breeding out of season; with proper management, they can be bred almost any month of the year. The lambs are a reddish color when they’re born and gradually lighten to oatmeal or almost white, though they retain an unusual color of reddish tan hair on their faces, their legs, and their long, pendulous ears.
As its African heritage would suggest, the Tunis does very well in warm climates, and the rams remain active in very hot summer weather. Although they are a superior breed for a hot climate, they are raised successfully almost anywhere.
TUNIS
The Welsh Mountain breeds are small, extremely hardy sheep that originated in the high mountain valleys of South Wales. The Black Welsh Mountain breed was introduced into the United States in 1972. There are also small numbers of Sennybridge Welsh Mountain sheep in North America, from unknown importations.
The ewes are known for easy lambing, high fertility, and good milk production (which means fast-growing lambs). They are very active and independent, making them somewhat hard to fence, and they have good feet and legs, meaning they have good longevity. Their meat is flavorful, and they have a high meat-to-bone ratio.
The Black Welsh Mountain sheep is known for its black fiber. Unlike other dark-colored sheep, the Black Welsh Mountain fleece doesn’t gray with age but remains black to dark, brownish black. The Senneybridge can have white, tan, or dark brown fiber. Although their fleece has little commercial value, handspinners appreciate Welsh Mountain fiber, which is fine and soft. The length typically runs from 3 to 4 inches (7.6 to 10.1 cm) long, and a fleece typically weighs 3 to 4 pounds (1.36 to 1.81 kg).
Even by long-wool-sheep standards, the Wensleydale has a gorgeous fleece. Thanks to their long (up to 12 inches [30.5 cm]) yet medium-fine fiber, they have a dreadlocked, Rastafarian thing going on, with wispy bangs hanging around their dark bluish black face. But these Bob Marley sheep don’t hail from Jamaica; they belong to a British breed developed from a now extinct longwool breed of Yorkshire bred with a Dishley Leicester ram named Blue Cap in recognition of the facial coloring that has passed down through the Wensleydale breed. Breeders imported semen to the United States in 1999 and are using an up-breeding program with Lincolns, Cotswolds, and Leicester Longwools to develop a population in North America.
Wensleydale sheep produce the heaviest fleece of the North American breeds — up to 20 pounds! Ewes typically have twins and triplets and produce sufficient milk for triplets if they are on high-quality feed.
WENSLEYDALE
The Wiltshire Horn is an ancient British breed of hair sheep, once known as the Western. Unlike some breeds of hair sheep, the Wiltshire Horn grows wool as well as hair. It sheds its wool each spring. The breed is considered endangered globally and is still uncommon on this side of the Atlantic. However, it has a brighter future now than in the recent past, as conservation breeders around the world have taken to raising them and British and Australian breed associations have become active in promoting them.
Wiltshire Horn sheep are large: rams weigh up to 300 pounds (136.1 kg). Both sexes are horned, with impressive, curling horns being the norm. The breed is hardy, doing well on marginal pastures.
WILTSHIRE HORN
