There
are many different sheep breeds. Breed selection is based upon
personal preference, regional marketing opportunities, and sheep
production goals. The most important traits for commercial production
in the northeastern United States are aseasonality and prolificacy.
Wool color, fineness and staple length are important to many producers.
Some producers utilize milking breeds for specialty cheese production.
Growth and carcass traits to a given market weight are most closely
related to degree of maturity (weight in relation to mature weight).
Sheep with large potential mature size gain more muscle and less
fat to a given weight than sheep with small potential mature size.
Therefore, larger mature size sheep are more efficient, gain faster,
and produce leaner carcasses. A disadvantage of large mature size
sheep is the higher cost of maintaining a breeding flock. Sheep
producers can take advantage of breed differences in mature size
by using a terminal sire program. Moderate-size, aseasonal-breeding,
prolific ewes are bred to rams of large mature size breeds to produce
market, or terminal, lambs.
The commercial flock at Cornell is composed of Finnsheep x Dorset
ewes bred to Suffolk rams. We have combined the aseasonality of
our selected Dorset ewes with the prolificacy of Finnsheep in our
crossbred ewes and have taken advantage of heterosis for increased
fertility, milk production, and growth. Many other breeds could
be used in such a system.
Most of the sheep breeds of the world are documented at the Oklahoma
State Sheep Breeds Site.
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