Sheep Breeds Handbook
By
Alisha Martin
Merino Sheep
Origin:
The origin of the Merino sheep dates all the way back to Turkey and Central Spain for its
prized wool during the Middle Ages. Today, the merino sheep is still valued very highly for its
market wool and has spread to many wool farms around the world; including Australia, New
Zealand, and Sweden.
Use:
The sheep’s wool is used in high-end athletic suites in vary types of sports. The wool is
used in athletic suites because it’s good at adapting body temperature, absorbs sweat away from
the skin, remains warm when it gets wet during rainy events for exercise courses, has
antibacterial fibers, and trapping body heat inside of the smaller fibers within the wool.
Color:
The Merino sheep commonly comes in white, but black Merino sheep are rare. The wool
of the two sheep are usually blended together to help produce different colors of yarn.
Wool type:
The wool of the Merino sheep is labeled as one of the finest and softest types of wool in
the world. The wool never stops growing and to keep the sheep from suffering from blindness,
mobility problems, and stress, the sheep is shaved once a year. The basic merino sheep’s wool
comes in different ranges of sizes; including large (24.5 um), medium (22.9 um), fine (19.5 um),
superfine (18.5 um), and ultrafine (15 um). Different types of merino sheep produce their own
style of wool, but it depends on where the sheep is grown and raised for the market value of the
wool.
Suffolk Sheep
Origin:
The Suffolk sheep has been bred in English by breeding Southdown rams with Norfolk
Horned ewes. The sheep has spread to the rest of the world and they are a better result of their
parent origin genes.
Use:
The Suffolk sheep is primary bred for meat proposes. Their wool is also produced for
clothing lines and students in the national FFA and 4-H programs get a chance to raise these
sheep to learn responsibility. Ewes and lambs are showed for students to show in lamb marketing
and ewes breeding.
Color:
The Suffolk sheep has a white coat with a black head, black legs, large frame, and a
muscular body. Most can be seen with a yellowish-white wool coat, but white is the most
common.
Wool type:
Suffolk sheep have a medium dense, wool coat with a fiber diameter of 33microns and a
spinning count of up to 58.
Finnish Sheep
Origin:
This breed of ship was brought from Finland to America in 1966, but is believed to be
several decades older than that. Most of them were bought by Canadian, private breeders and
have spread down to Australia where they’re mostly found today. Finnish sheep are able to
produce multiple lambs at a time, the highest being nine live lambs. They can breed all year
around and they’re the perfect sheep food source for many holiday occasions.
Use:
The Finnish Sheep is used mainly for its soft wool, but it also produces a light, delicately
flavored meat. Due to the large number of lambs ewes can have at a time, there’s a year around
supply of lamb for consuming customers.
Color:
The most common color Finnish sheep come in is white, but they also come in spotted
black-and-white coats. There are increasing numbers of them being born with black wool, and
less common colors are dull gray, brown, and fawn.
Wool type:
The wool of the Suffolk sheep is very light, weighing only at a grand total of six pounds.
Hand spinners make good comments about the wool being able to blend with other fibers easily
and having long staples of up to 6 inches.
Dorset Sheep
Origin:
It’s believed that the Dorset sheep came into existence when Spain soldiers, wanting to
produce a sheep that could meet their needs as they fought against the British to conquer the
land, bred the Merino sheep with the Horned Sheep of Wales. They spread down to the Wales,
Dorset, Somerset, and Devon. They were first brought to America in 1860 on England ships for
trading by the Hudson Bay Shipping Company.
Use:
The ewes of the Dorset sheep are produced within two lambing seasons; in May for
holiday seasons and bred afterwards in March or April for warmer seasons. This can result in
four to five lambs per year for each ewe, making the Dorset sheep profitable for lambing.
Color:
The Dorset sheep has close fleeced white wool with short legs, broad back, and a solid
build. Males and females used to have horns in the past, but now males are more likely to have
them instead of females.
Wool type:
The wool of the Dorset sheep is very strong and purely white with spacious dark fibers.
The weight of the fleece is scaled up to nine pounds and each strand of wool reaches up to four
inches long. The wool is primary shown in contests for students in FFA/4-H, and for older
breeders.
Hampshire Sheep
Origin:
This breed of sheep was bred in 1829 by a farmer named John Twynam, a sheep farmer
that lived in the Hampshire Downs. He bred Southdowns with the Old Hampshire breed, the
Wiltshire Horn, and the Berkshire Nott to produce this breed of sheep.
Use:
The Hampshire sheep’s meat is used for mutton and lamb because they mature faster than
other sheep breeds do and their wool is shaved off for clothing. With the course quality of the
wool, the sheep grows a heavy amount of it and can produce up to seven pounds of wool.
Color:
The sheep comes in white wool with black or dark brown legs. They also have a dark
brown or black muzzle and their ears are also black. They have a black rim around their eyes to
protect them from the sunlight.
Wool type:
The fleece staple length is 2 inches (5 cm) to 3.5 inches (9 cm) with a yield of 50% to
62%.[3]. The wool’s quality ranges in around medium and has longer, coarser strands.
Columbia Sheep
Origin:
The Columbia sheep was one of the first breeds bred in the United States of America.
Bred with the help of university research, this breed was designed to stand the hot climates of the
western reigns of the U.S.A. It’s one of the largest breeds of the sheep family.
Use:
This large breed of sheep is often used in cross breeding for western flocks. It’s also used
for experimentation in most parts of the states, and is a food source on the market for lambs.
Color:
The wool of the Columbia sheep comes in white with blackish spots splattered all over its
ears. Small amount of colors are also stained on the sheep’s nose, including white.
Wool type:
Dense, long staple wool with uniform fiber quality from shoulder to thigh; also carries
with uniformity to underline with heavy yield of clean wool.
Rambouillet Sheep
Origin:
The second name for the sheep is the French Merino because it was bred with the blood
of Merino sheep in 1786 by Louis XVI of France after he bought 300 heads of sheep from his
cousin, King Charles the Third of Spain. They were bred with English sheep to produce a breed
that had a larger size and longer wool length.
Use:
The sheep’s wool quality is used for clothing like its cousin, the Merino sheep, and its
meat in lamb and mutton is sold for its good characteristics. Its wool is used for making scarves
and worsted fabric for crafters because it shrinks less than normal Merino wool.
Color:
The Rambouillet sheep comes in ‘natural’ colors such as white with wooly-covered legs,
wooly heads, and white hooves.
Wool type:
The fine, dense wool of the Rambouillet sheep has a staple length of three inches and or
more; they also have a high spinning count of up to 70’s ranges.
Southdown Sheep
Origin:
This small breed of sheep was first bred 200 years ago by John Ellman near Lewes, East
Sussex. It was imported to Jonas Webb in Cambridgeshire to increase the breed's size and later
used to breed the Canterbury Lamb. It's rather popular in the United States for its small size and
some people keep them as pets.
Use:
The Southdown sheep is used for both meat and its wool, but most people breed the
sheep for its meat. It's mainly used for breeding with its good genetics and people like to keep
them to eat weeds because when they're kept in vineyards, they're too short to eat the grapes on
the vines. Some people also like to harvest the sheep's milk.
Color:
Southdown sheep surprisingly come in a wide range of colors and deep shades of them.
They come in the classic white, black, brown, tan, and have markings on their face, legs, and
nose. The sheep shouldn't have spotted areas over their wool, but are able to have brindle
markings over their legs and face.
Wool type:
For mature ewes, when their wool is ready to be sheared, it can weigh a total of eight
pounds with a yield of up to 55%. The fleece is medium thickness with a fiber diameter of up to
29.0 microns, and the staple range is also up to 2.5 inches long.
Cheviot Sheep
Origin:
The original Cheviot sheep comes from the rolling hills of Cheviot; bordered between
England and Scotland. They were introduced to Australia in 1938, and proved to be hardy in the
harsh, cold winters of Southern Australia; they’re also able to withstand the hot, blistering heat
during the summer.
Use:
The Cheviot sheep is a dual use sheep with its wool and meat being valuable. Their
compacted wool makes them easy to take care of during sheering season and they suffer from
fewer lambing problems.
Color:
This breed of sheep is white-faced with black muzzles and black feet. They have alert,
pricked ears with no wool on their legs or faces.
Wool type:
The wool of the Cheviot sheep is long with the fleece being quite dense. It feels springy
when touched and its staple sizes range up to 56’s quality worth.
Barbados Blackbelly sheep
Origin:
Some people suspect the Barbados Blackbelly sheep has some African origin in it, there
is most evidence showing the sheep was bred and produced in the Caribbean. It was brought into
the U.S. by USDA to Bethesda in Maryland.
Use:
This interesting breed is mainly raised for their mild-flavored meat and breed all year
round. The Barbados sheep are also popular for herd dog trainers for teaching new recruits, and
used in crossbreeding operations for their good genetics.
Color:
The Barbados Blackbelly sheep range in color from light tan to a dark mahogany red,
with black stripes on the face and black legs, belly, inguinal region, chin, and chest.
Wool type:
They do not produce any wool on their bodies, but instead have course hair. If they are
raised in cooler climates, then they develop a wool undercoat that sheds off of the sheep in the
spring.