Wiltshire Horn

A Wiltshire Horn ewe and her triplets

The Wiltshire Horn is a breed of domestic sheep originally from Wiltshire in southern England raised for meat.^[1] The breed is unusual amongst native British breeds, for it has the unusual feature of moulting its short wool and hair coat naturally in spring, alleviating the need for shearing.^[2] They are good mothers and have high fertility. The fact that they do not require shearing or crutching and do not suffer readily from flystrike is making them increasingly attractive to the commercial sheep sector, particularly as even pure-bred lambs can reach slaughter weight in as little as 16 weeks.

History

The Wiltshire Horn was until the 18th century one of southern England's predominant sheep breeds. For hundreds of years, it served a clear function on the thin chalk soils of the Wiltshire Downs, requiring little shelter from the elements and providing dung and urine to fertilise the wheat-growing land. At the same time, it provided an easily managed source of quality meat, but the rising price of wool and a general move away from horned sheep saw the breed suffer a dramatic decline throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

It was nearly extinct at the start of the 1900s. In 1923, in an attempt to save the breed, the Wiltshire Horn Breed Society was formed. In the early 1980s, there were 45 registered flocks in the UK,^[3] but the 2009 edition of the Wiltshire Horn Sheep Society's flock book recognises almost 300 flocks.

The Wiltshire Horn is one of the foundation breeds for Katahdin, Wiltipoll and Easycare breeds.^[3]

Until the 20th century, the breed was chiefly traded at local events such as the Westbury Sheep Fair.

Characteristics

Males and females both have horns. Ram horns will grow one full spiral each year until maturity. Both sexes are white with occasion black spots on the undercoat. This is a hair breed, growing a thick, coarse coat in the winter and shedding in the summer. Rams weigh about 250 pounds (110 kg) and ewes 150 pounds (68 kg).^[3]

Farming

No longer a rare breed, the Wiltshire Horn is proving its worth to three particular groups of producers:

The smaller-scale producer seeking added value with quality, naturally reared, full-flavoured meat.
The large commercial operator can tap into Wiltshire Horn genetics and create wool-shedding hybrids, so freeing themselves from the expense and hassle of annual shearing;
The smallholder and hobbyist who values the breed for its meat, its easy-to-handle conformation and its low-input, no-shear attributes.

References

↑ "Wiltshire Horn". Sheep Breeds V-Z. Sheep101.info. Retrieved 2009-05-07.
↑ "Wiltshire Horn Sheep Breed". RaisingSheep.net. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
1 2 3 "Wiltshire Horn". Breeds of Livestock. Oklahoma State University, Dept. of Animal Science. Retrieved 2009-05-07.

External links

Livestock breeds of the British Isles

Cattle

Beef cattle	Angus Beef Shorthorn Belted Galloway Blue Grey Devon Dexter English Longhorn Galloway Hereford Highland Luing Shorthorn South Devon Sussex Welsh Black

Dairy cattle	Ayrshire Guernsey Jersey Milking Shorthorn

Dual purpose	British White Gloucester Pembroke Red Poll Shetland Whitebred Shorthorn

Primitive	Chillingham wild cattle Vaynol White Park cattle

Sheep

Extant	Beulah Speckled Face Bluefaced Leicester Border Leicester British Milk Cheviot Clun Forest Cotswold Dalesbred Derbyshire Gritstone Devon Closewool Devon Longwoolled Dorset Down English Leicester Exmoor Horn Galway Greyface Dartmoor Hampshire Herdwick Hill Radnor Kerry Hill Lincoln Llanwenog Lleyn Lonk Norfolk Horn Oxford Down Portland Romney Rough Fell Ryeland Scottish Blackface Shetland Shropshire Southdown sheep Suffolk Swaledale Teeswater Welsh Mountain Wensleydale Whitefaced Woodland Wiltshire Horn

Primitive	Boreray Castlemilk Moorit Hebridean Jacob Manx Loaghtan North Ronaldsay Soay

Extinct	Scottish Dunface

Pigs

Extant	Berkshire British Landrace British Lop British Saddleback Essex Gloucestershire Old Spots Hampshire Large Black Large White Middle White Oxford Sandy and Black Tamworth Welsh Wessex Saddleback

Extinct	Cumberland Grice Lincolnshire Curly-coated Small Black Small White Yorkshire Blue and White

Goats

Anglo-Nubian Bilberry British Alpine Golden Guernsey Irish

Poultry

Chickens	Cornish Derbyshire Redcap Dorking Ixworth Marsh Daisy Modern Game Modern Langshan Norfolk Grey Old English Game Old English Pheasant Fowl Orpington Rosecomb Scots Dumpy Scots Grey Sebright Sussex

Ducks	Abacot Ranger Aylesbury Orpington Khaki Campbell Magpie Shetland Welsh Harlequin

Geese	Brecon Buff Shetland

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/20/2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.