Breeding Rare Breed Sheep

There are many rare breed sheep in the UK, such as Boreray, Soay, Jacobs and Grey Face Dartmoor. To keep these breeds from going extinct we need to keep the bloodline pure whilst preventing in-breeding (where 2 sheep that are closely related, e.g. a father and daughter, breed). In-breeding commonly causes birth defects.

In order to ensure the bloodline is pure without being in-bred, farmers must record the breeding of their sheep so that they can track which ram breeds with which ewe, and which lambs they have.  Every sheep has an ear tag with its identification number, and the identification number of the breeder.  The farmers can use these records to keep track of their breeding stock.  Once a ram has been used several times, a farmer may sell it on and buy a new, unrelated ram to replace it.

The Boreray are the rarest native sheep in the UK, with only about 300 sheep.  It must be very hard to find an unrelated ram in such a small gene pool.

A Grey Face Dartmoor Ewe at Spring Grove