Developments in Sheep

by DAMON A. SPENCER

THE PIONEER phase of our sheep industry has passed. There are no more free grazing lands. Most sheep now graze on owned or leased pastures or ranges or national forests. Stock and equipment and operating expenses are so high that any wasteful method means failure; success comes only through the best scientific practices.

For much of the newer science in sheep raising we now look to a comprehensive program of research and improvement like the one in progress at Dubois, Idaho. Near that community, in the heart of the sheep country, President Wilson in 1915 withdrew from settlement 28,160 acres of sagebrush land for use by the Department for experiments in breeding and grazing sheep. President Harding withdrew 16,650 acres of high summer-grazing lands in Montana, about 40 miles northeast of Dubois, in 1922 for a similar purpose. Other smaller areas and parts of the nearby Targhee and Salmon National Forests are also used in the work. In 1937 the agricultural experiment stations of the 11 Western States and Texas and the Department organized the Western Sheep Breeding Laboratory. Its headquarters and primary facilities are on the lands of the United States Sheep Experiment Station near Dubois. Julius E. Nordby, of the Department, directs activities of the station and laboratory. Rambouillet sheep are used in the work of the laboratory; the flocks at the station include Columbian, Targhees, and Corriedales.

One of the earliest and most important accomplishments at Dubois was the development of the Columbia breed, which some sheepmen consider the perfect sheep. It was an answer to the growing demand for mutton and lamb at a time when the costs of sheep production were rising, a situation that created a need for animals efficient in producing both meat and wool. Cross-breeding was employed in various ways, including the mating of fine-wool ewes of the Merino and Rambouillet breeds to coarse long-wool mutton rams of the Lincoln, Leicester, Cotswold, and Romney breeds to get rapid-growing market lambs and whitefaced ewe stock.

In 1912 the Department started experiments in cross-breeding range sheep at Laramie, Wyo. Lincoln X Rambouillet crossbreds were selected as the most promising for sheep and wool production in the Rocky Mountain region. Both ewes and rams of this cross were mated, and thereafter their descendants were also mated without backcrossing to either parent stock. Sheep resulting from this cross-breeding were the foundation of the Columbia breed, which is now liked in both range and farming areas.

Other useful new breeds developed during the same period include the Panama and the Romeldale. The Panama was founded by James Laid-law, of Muldoon, Idaho, through cross-breeding Lincoln ewes and Rambouillet rams; the Romeldale was originated by A. T. Spencer, of Gerber, Calif., through his cross-breeding of Rambouillet ewes with Romney rams. Both breeds were established by mating the crossbred ewes and rams and their descendants without backcrossing to either parent stock.

Later, at Dubois, the Department began the development of a fixed strain to satisfy the need for animals suited to ranges intermediate in their production of forage. Excellent ewes resulting from the crossing of Lincoln X Rambouillet ewes and Corriedale rams and inbreeding of their descendants, also some selected Lincoln X Rambouillet ewes, were mated with choice Rambouillet rams. The offspring resulting from that breeding and their descendants were then inbred to form the Targhee strain, named after the Targhee National Forest. The Targhees produce good wool that grades uniformly as Half-Blood. They are relatively plump and are good producers of lambs under range conditions.