Bleu you Maine
The Bleu du Maine , also known as the blue-headed meat sheep , is a breed of meat sheep originally from France. It is named after the color of the head: like the legs, it is slate to pigeon blue, while the mucous membranes are black. Both sexes are polled.
Bleu du Maines are mainly held in France and Germany.
features
The Bleu du Maine is a large breed of sheep with a white wool. The head is not woolly. The legs are also without wool from the front knee and from the ankle joint. The characteristics of this breed include the narrow, high set and erect ears.
The bucks reach a height at the withers between 85 and 90 centimeters and weigh between 110 and 130 kilograms. With a height at the withers between 80 and 85 centimeters, the sheep are slightly smaller than the bucks and reach a weight of 80 to 90 kilograms. The annual amount of wool is between 4 and 6 kilograms with a pile length of eight to ten centimeters.
Compared to the Texel sheep bred in the Netherlands , which is also one of the meat sheep breeds, was bred from similar English meat sheep breeds and, like the Bleu du Maine, is suitable for paddock sheep , the Bleu du Maine is precocious and has a larger number of with the same seasonal reproduction Lambs. Both breeds are comparable in terms of meat quality and weight gain.
history
The breed originated in western France in the Maine et Loire , Mayenne and Sarthe departments . There in the period between 1855 and 1880 a now extinct marsh breed, the Choletais sheep, were crossed with English meat breeds. These include Leicester Longwool sheep, which were originally selected for their meat performance by the British cattle breeder Robert Bakewell , and Wensleydale sheep. The first breeding company was founded in France in 1927, and a herdbook has been in existence since 1938. Targeted breeding of this breed has been practiced in Germany since the 1970s. In 1994 almost 5000 Bleu du Maines were kept in Germany, compared to 200100 of the similar Texel sheep.
literature
- Hans Hinrich Sambraus: Color Atlas of Farm Animal Breeds: 250 breeds in words and pictures . Eugen Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3800132192 .
Web links
Single receipts
- ↑ a b c d Oklahoma State University, Department of Animal Science zum Bleu du Maine , accessed May 26, 2015
- ↑ a b c Hans Hinrich Sambraus: Color Atlas of farm animal breeds: 250 breeds in words and pictures . Eugen Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3800132192 . P. 133
- ↑ Hans Hinrich Sambraus: Color Atlas of farm animal breeds: 250 breeds in words and pictures . Eugen Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3800132192 . P. 103