Easy care
The Easy Care , sometimes also written Easycare in the literature , is a modern British breed of sheep that is kept solely for its meat performance. It was developed as a breed in the 1960s. A breed association for this breed has existed since 2003.
Traits and breeding history
The development of sheep breeds is often influenced by the prices that can be obtained from the animals' wool. The Easy Care was developed in the 1960s when wool prices were so low that they did not cover the cost of sheep shearing.
The origin of the breed goes back to the British sheep farmer Iolo Owen from Anglesey . Owen started with hybrid sheep called Nelson Welsh Mountain, which were bred from the Welsh Mountains and Cheviot . They have been crossed with the Wiltshire Horn several times . This is a short wool breed and the only British breed that naturally loses its wool and does not need to be sheared. Wiltshire Horns are therefore very insensitive to ectoparasites and only rarely suffer from myiasis . In the Wiltshire Horns, however, both sexes usually have horns, which can be impressively large, especially in the male animals. Owen chose this breed of buck that did not have horns because he could assume that this quality would be inherited. Wiltshire Horns are also considered a very hardy breed. They lamb very easily and are considered good ewes. The lambs grow quickly under normal grazing conditions and do not need any additional feed to be quickly marketable.
Easy Cares are a breed of sheep raised purely for performance. Their characteristics include the property of losing their wool in spring. They are also very robust sheep that can weigh up to 60 kilograms when fully grown. The breed association discourages breed shows out of concern that a breed standard will then develop that places an emphasis on irrelevant aspects of appearance.
See also
The Beltex is a breed comparable to the Easy Care, bred for meat performance, which was developed in Belgium in the 1970s and of which the Texel sheep is one of the original breeds .
literature
- Philip Walling: Counting Sheep - A Celebration of the Pastoral Heritage of Britain . Profile Books, London 2014, ISBN 978-1-84765-803-6 .
Web links
Single receipts
- ↑ Website of the British breeding association ( Memento of the original from August 4, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed June 14, 2015
- ^ A b Philip Walling: Counting Sheep , p. 234.
- ^ A b Philip Walling: Counting Sheep , p. 235.
- ↑ Website of the British breeding association ( Memento of the original from August 4, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed June 14, 2015
- ^ Philip Walling: Counting Sheep , p. 233.
