Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
maturing, higher carcase weights and superior lambing
percentages.
True hill breeds include the North Country Cheviot,
South Country Cheviot, Scottish Blackface, Swaledale,
Welsh Mountain, Exmoor Horn, Herdwick, Rough Fell,
Derbyshire Gritstone and Lonk. Hill flocks provide store
stock for fattening on lowland farms along with cast ewes
which are retained for a year or two for further breeding.
The famous Halfbred, which is the product of the Border
Leicester ram and the Cheviot ewe, is one of the foremost
utility sheep in Britain. Although the flesh of the Border
Leicester carries an excessive amount of fat, its prolificacy
and milk yield potential when blended with the hardiness
of the Cheviot make the resulting cross an excellent ani-
mal, the dams bred to Down rams being very popular for
fat lamb production in lowland areas. Another example
of this close association between hill and lowland breeds
is the use of the Border Leicester ram on Scottish Blackface
ewes, the cross being known as the Greyface. Another
Halfbred, the Welsh Halfbred, results from the crossing
of the Border Leicester with Welsh Mountain ewes. The
Mule is a cross-bred ewe which has grown in popularity
in the United Kingdom; it now makes up 20% of the UK
ewe flock. The term Mule covers a number of Blue-
faced × hill breed ewe crosses. The most common of these
are the Blue-faced Leicester × Scottish Blackface cross and
the Blue-faced Leicester × (Welsh) Hardy Speckled Face.
Reported prolificacy levels are higher in Mules than
Greyfaces. Where certain hill sheep, for example, Scottish
Blackface ewes, are grazed on lowland pastures, the good
feeding can result in up to 200% lamb crops.
Lowland breeds are represented by the short-woolled
downland types (the Suffolk, Dorset Horn and Dorset
Down, Southdown, Oxford Down, Ryeland and
Shropshire) and the long-woolled breeds of Leicester
(Lincoln Longwool, Kent or Romney Marsh, Wensleydale
and the Blue-faced or Hexham Leicester). The three
most common terminal sires used in the industry at pre-
sent are Suffolk, Texel and Charolais.
The Dorset Horn, a white-faced short-woolled sheep,
has a much-extended mating season and can produce
three crops of lambs in 2 years. In this way, it resem-
bles the Merino. Breeds like these along with Finnish
Landrace (high prolificacy), East Friesland (good milk-
ing potential) and the Île-de-France (excellent carcase
quality) could feature in cross-breeding programmes. It
is possible that many of the present British breeds may
disappear with the development of new hybrids: it is cer-
tain that some 50 breeds are unnecessary for successful
sheep production. Indeed, this has already taken place
with the appearance of the Colbred sheep, named after
Oscar Colborn, a Cotswold farmer who crossed Cluns,
Dorset Horns, Suffolks and East Frieslands in order to
little over the centuries in most countries. In the main,
this can be classed as an extensive grazing system, the
most natural for the three main species of meat animals:
cattle, sheep and pigs. This system probably explains
why sheep have the fewest lesions and condemnations
at post-mortem compared with cattle and pigs, at least
under UK conditions.
Various breeds are adapted to living in areas of high
altitude where wind, rainfall, low temperatures and snow
are common. The hill ewe lives a very hazardous life
exposed to these adverse elements, and with low food
intake, especially during pregnancy, it is little wonder
that up to one-third of body weight can be lost and that
neonatal mortality is high. Indeed, of all the farm
animals, the relative mortality rate is highest in sheep.
Other breeds can be found in desert or semi-desert
regions where high temperatures or fluctuating high and
low temperatures predominate, with arid conditions and
sparse vegetation. With some breeds, such as those kept
under lowland conditions in Britain, stocking rates can
be as high as 20 ewes and their lambs per hectare; under
hill and other extensive systems, the rate may be as low
as one sheep to 20 hectares.
The quality of forage consumed by sheep varies from
good grass under semi-intensive husbandry to low-quality
(high-cellulose) plants, such as thorn scrub, rushes and
heather, where the stock are relatively few in number.
The ability of sheep to eat plants of little use to man and
to survive in places which cannot easily be cultivated is
very much in their favour. On the other hand, except for
specialised breeds like the Finnish Landrace and Russian
Romanov, which can produce over three lambs per ewe a
year, low reproductive rates, difficulties with husbandry
(e.g. fencing and labour) and the disposition towards car-
cases of fairly high fat content are definite drawbacks. It
has been shown that with housing of ewes and subjecting
them to artificial photoperiods and hormone treatment,
they can produce a lamb crop every 8 months and an
average of 2.2 lambs per ewe yearly. Unless fecundity can
be improved by suitable breeding methods and leaner
carcases ensured, it is possible that in many hill areas
sheep may be replaced by goats or deer.
In addition to meat, sheep produce wool and, in some
countries, milk, which is used in the making of cheese.
In the United Kingdom, there are some 50 breeds
of sheep classified by habitat and type of wool. They
are kept mainly for meat production, with wool as an
important secondary product. Two major systems of
sheep farming exist: hill sheep farming, by far the larger
of the two, where the sheep are hardy and thrifty, small
in size, long of wool, late in maturity and low in fecun-
dity; and lowland sheep farming, in which short-woolled
breeds predominate, possessing characteristics of early
