The Romney, formerly called the Romney Marsh sheep but generally referred to by the local farmers as the Kent, is a breed of sheep originating in England. The Romney is a "long-wool" breed recognized in England by 1800. Exported to other continents, the Romney is an economically important sheep breed, especially to the sheep-meat and wool export trades of New Zealand.
The breed evolved from medieval longwool types of which the Romney and Leicester breeds are early examples. [1] The sheep recognized by 1800 as "Romney Marsh" or "Kent" were improved in body type and fleece quality through crossings with Bakewell's English Leicester. [2] [3]
The first confirmed export of Romneys from England was a shipment of 20 from Stone, Kent, that went on the Cornwall to New Zealand in 1853. With these and a further 30 ewes sent in 1856, Alfred Ludlum established New Zealand's first Romney Marsh stud in 1860 at Newry, in the Hutt Valley, and Ludlam's brother-in-law, Augustus Onslow Manby Gibbes, also bred them around this time in Australia at his famous sheep property, Yarralumla.
In 1855, 60,000 Merinos had been in New Zealand, but the Romney Marsh sheep thrived more quickly, supplanting the Merino over most of the country. The New Zealand Romney Marsh Association was formed in 1904. Alfred Matthews was the first president; the stud he founded, Waiorongamai, is still going. [4]
In 1965, three-quarters of the New Zealand national flock was Romney. [5]
In the mid-1990s, Romneys comprised 58% of the New Zealand sheep flock (estimated in 2000 at 45 million), with Coopworths (originally Border Leicester on Romney crosses) and Perendales (originally Cheviot on Romney crosses) making up another 16.6%, Merinos 7%, and Corriedales 5.5% of the national flock. [6]
The New Zealand export lamb trade started in 1882 with a shipment aboard the Dunedin of 4,900 frozen carcasses to London's Smithfield Market. This was by far the biggest meat cargo ever carried over such a distance to that time. February 15, the departure date, is still celebrated as New Zealand Lamb Day. After 1932, the technology for shipping chilled fresh meat by sea (and later by air) further enhanced the export trade.
The breeding of Romneys is not limited to England and New Zealand. The breed has also been established in Patagonia, Australia, Portugal, Brazil, Canada, and Southern California. [7]
For many years, England was the primary source of export Romneys. Between 1900 and 1955, 18,000 rams and 9,000 ewes went from England to 43 countries. [8] New Zealand itself began exporting after the sensational win of Ernest Short's Parorangi ram at the Argentine International Exhibition in 1906. Health requirements in recent decades have made New Zealand and Australia almost the only breeding ground for exported Romney seed stock, with Brazil, Uruguay, the Falklands, the U.S., and England, itself, some of the recipient countries.
The Romney is not the ideal breed for every situation. Henry Fell, in Intensive Sheep Management posits that the Romney is, "A breed which ha[s] all the virtues save one, that of prolificacy [...] will thrive happily at extraordinary densities and seems to enjoy it." [9] A number of large Romney flocks in New Zealand have in the last several decades achieved better than 1.7 lambs for every ewe exposed to the ram, showing much better prolificacy than Fell had observed in England. [10] Some leaders are going yet higher, still with good survivability. [11]
Almost every detailed description of the Romney cites relative resistance to foot rot, an attribute rarely mentioned in descriptions of other breeds. A 1918 American text noted that "It is said that foot rot and liver fluke seldom affect Romney Marsh sheep". [12] A later book is more circumspect: "Romneys are said to be somewhat resistant to foot rot, liver flukes and other problems that often plague sheep in damp pastures." [13]
The Romney is in general an open-faced breed with long wool that grows over the legs in full. Romney breed standards are not identical across all countries, but have much in common. The oldest Romney breed society, that of England (founded 1895), adopted the following standard in 1991:
The Official Description of the typical Romney sheep is as follows: Head wide, level between ears, with no horns nor dark hair on the poll. Eyes should be large, bright and prominent and the mouth sound. Face in ewes full, and in rams broad and masculine in appearance. Nose and hooves should be black. Neck well set in at the shoulders, strong and not too long. Shoulders well put in and level with the back. Chest wide and deep. Back straight and long, with a wide and deep loin. Rump wide, long and well-turned. Tail set almost even with the chine. Thighs well let down and developed. The face should be white, and the skin of a clean pink colour. Ribs should be well sprung. Legs well set, with good bone and sound feet. Sheep should stand well on their pasterns. The fleece should be of white colour, even texture and a good decided staple from top of head to end of tail and free from kemp. [8]
A Romney may have either a colored or white fleece.
Today's Romney sheep varies among and also within continents, especially as to body size. The breed can still be characterized in that respect as being in the larger half of the spectrum represented say by Cheviot (smaller end) to Lincoln (larger end). An English description of size speaks of "big sheep"—ewes, to 85 kg (187 lb), rams to 110 kg (240 lb), while the American breed standard calls for ewes at breeding age to be "140 lbs or more" and rams "200 lbs or more." [8]
The registering bodies for most sheep breeds continue to struggle with the question of what size is just right and with other finer details. These questions have no transnational or even national answers. Relevant issues include economics, ecology, and the exigencies (in some countries) of the show ring.
Romneys produce a heavy fleece. A healthy mature ram can yield at shearing upwards of 10 kg (22 lb) per year, while flock averages in NZ for breeding ewes are typically above 5 kg (11 lb). The increased fleece weight of a long-wooled sheep comes from the longer fiber length produced. A finer-wooled sheep (e.g. Merino, Rambouillet) actually has far more wool follicles than the long-wooled sheep, but each supports a slower-growing fiber that is, therefore, shorter at periodic shearing. The "clean yield" (net weight after thorough washing) is typically high for Romneys, 75–80%; this is a higher yield than is got for most fine-wooled sheep.
Perhaps the most important dimension of wool, which above all else determines its best use, is average fiber diameter (AFD). Romneys are strong-wooled sheep, with an AFD higher than many sheep breeds. High AFD indicates best use in carpeting and other rugged uses; lowest AFD wools (from Merinos, for example) are ideal for fine suit fabrics and luxury wear. AFD must be measured with instruments. The time-honored "Bradford system", which uses the eyes and hands of experienced humans, has some correlation to measured AFD, but can be biased. The American Romney Breeders Association declares the Romney fleece should be [Bradford system] "44s to 50s." Transformed arbitrarily into microns [14] by the United States Department of Agriculture this range would correspond to 29.30 to 36.19 microns. In New Zealand the standard says "44s to 52s" but gives a different AFD range: 33 to 37 microns. No international agreement exists on converting Bradford counts into AFD in microns.
The Romney's fleece is ideal for hand-spinning, and is often recommended to beginners. In the United States, where no commercial end-use for domestic strong wools exists, the most desired outlet for Romney wool is to hand-spinners. Only a small fraction of the thousands of Romney fleeces shorn in the US each year, however, go to this "niche-market" use.
Romney wool in NZ goes mostly into that country's vast shipments of wool for the rug and carpet factories of the European Union, Asia, the US, Australia, and NZ itself. An increasing amount recently has been going to China. New Zealand is the world's largest producer and exporter of "strong crossbred" wool (a term for wool with average fiber diameter >35.4 microns). In 2002–2003, the country exported about 138,000 tonnes of wool "clean basis", about half of which was of AFD >35.4 microns, the Romney domain. [15] "Clean basis" refers to the net weight anticipated after thorough washing (see "clean yield" above); much wool moved internationally is shipped before washing as the natural oils in the fleece make it travel better. In the same year, total wool exports returned nearly NZ$ one billion, about 3% of total merchandise exports revenues for the country. [16]
In North America and England, natural-colored Romneys (whose fleeces are not white, but black, gray, silver, variegated) have come to be valued for what they bring to hand-spinners and weavers who like the palette of natural colors. Traditionally, natural-colored (or "black") sheep were detested, as even a small amount of black fiber on an otherwise white sheep can ruin hundreds of pounds of textile.
Since 1972, natural-colored Romneys have been registered with the American Romney Breeders' Association (founded 1911), which has developed a special breed standard for them. [17] In New Zealand natural colored Romneys can be registered in the Romney section of the Black and Natural-colored Sheep Breeders Association, but are still eyed with suspicion by many breeders of white Romneys.
The sheer number of Romney ewes and lambs in New Zealand make the breed not only the biggest input by tonnage to overseas and domestic wool trade, but also the major part of the country's export frozen lamb trade, as purebreds and first-generation crosses.[ citation needed ] New Zealand is the world's largest exporter of frozen and chilled lamb. In 2008, NZ sheep-meat exports (mostly of lamb) brought in more than half of the country's NZ$4.5 billion meat export revenues. [16]
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have some properties similar to animal wool.
The Merino is a breed or group of breeds of domestic sheep, characterised by very fine soft wool. It was established in Spain near the end of the Middle Ages, and was for several centuries kept as a strict Spanish monopoly; exports of the breed were not allowed, and those who tried risked capital punishment. During the eighteenth century, flocks were sent to the courts of a number of European countries, including France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Prussia, Saxony and Sweden.
The Coopworth is a modern New Zealand breed of sheep. It was developed by researchers at Lincoln College in the Canterbury region of the South Island between about 1956 and 1968, the result of cross-breeding of New Zealand Romney ewes and Border Leicester rams. It has become the second-most numerous sheep breed in New Zealand, and has been exported to Australia, some European countries, and the United States.
The Perendale is a breed of sheep developed in New Zealand by Massey Agricultural College for use in steep hill situations. The breed is named after Sir Geoffrey Peren, and it achieves its aims by being the offspring of Romney ewes and Cheviot rams with sturdy legs. It is raised primarily for meat.
Polwarth is a breed of sheep that was developed in Victoria (Australia) during 1880. They were of one-quarter Lincoln and three-quarters Merino bloodlines. They are large, predominantly polled sheep with long, soft, quite fine wool and produce good meat carcasses. They were developed in an attempt to extend the grazing territory of sheep because the Merino was found lacking in hardiness in this respect. A dual-purpose breed with a major emphasis on wool production. Richard Dennis, of Tarndwarncoort in south west Victoria, bred the Polwarth, first known as Dennis Comebacks. Descendants of Richards Dennis continue to grow Polwarth wool at Tarndwarncoort, maintaining the original bloodlines in a flock referred to as the "Blue Dots".
The Border Leicester is a British breed of sheep. It is a polled, long-wool sheep and is considered a dual-purpose breed as it is reared both for meat and for wool. The sheep are large but docile. They have been exported to other sheep-producing regions, including Australia and the United States.
The Jacob is a British breed of domestic sheep. It combines two characteristics unusual in sheep: it is piebald—dark-coloured with areas of white wool—and it is often polycerate or multi-horned. It most commonly has four horns. The origin of the breed is not known; broken-coloured polycerate sheep were present in England by the middle of the seventeenth century, and were widespread a century later. A breed society was formed in 1969, and a flock book was published from 1972.
The Finnish Landrace, Finn or Finnsheep is a breed of domestic sheep native to Finland. It is one of several Northern European short-tailed sheep breeds, but is notable for its high incidence of multiple births – it is common for a ewe to have three, four, or even five lambs at once.
The Texel is a Dutch breed of domestic sheep originally from the island of Texel. It is a heavy and muscular sheep, and produces a lean meat carcass. It is polled, clean-faced and clean-legged, with white face and wool. The fibre diameter of the wool averages about 32 μ, with a staple length of 8–15 cm; it is used mainly for knitting and hosiery wools.
The Corriedale is a New Zealand breed of sheep. It was bred from about 1882 in the South Island by James Little, who cross-bred Merino and Lincoln Longwool sheep. The breed was officially recognised in 1911. It has been exported to Australia and to many countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and North and South America. In 2021 it was reported from twenty-five countries, and the total population was estimated at just over 5 million.
Bond sheep are an Australian sheep breed that was developed around 1909 near Lockhart, New South Wales by Thomas Bond when he mated Saxon-Peppin Merino ewes to stud Lincoln rams for primarily wool production. The resulting progeny was selected on the basis that they would be more suited to the Riverina environment. Initially these sheep were known as ‘the Commercial Corriedale’.
The raising of domestic sheep has occurred in nearly every inhabited part of the earth, and the variations in cultures and languages which have kept sheep has produced a vast lexicon of unique terminology used to describe sheep husbandry.
The Poll Dorset, a short-wool, meat-producing sheep, was developed in Australia between 1937 and 1954 with the aim of breeding a true Dorset type sheep without horns. The poll gene was introduced into Dorset Horn flocks from two other polled breeds and following a strict back-mating programme achieved close to 100% of Dorset Horn blood. Its main distinguishing features are its hornless appearance, long, lean square body set on short legs, pink skin and 'spongy' short-stapled wool. The Poll Dorset produces a fleece of white, dense downs type wool of 30 microns fibre diameter and it has a white wool-free face. The breed was developed at a property called Valmore in Whitemore, Tasmania, a noted centre for pedigree livestock stud farms. The Poll Dorset resulted from the introduction of Corriedale and Ryeland blood into the Dorset Horn.
The Clun Forest is a breed of domestic sheep originating from the area surrounding the Clun Forest in Shropshire, England. Similar to many of the British breeds of upland sheep, Clun Forest are hardy, adaptable, good foragers, and are long–lived. With sleek heads and wide pelvic structures, Clun Forest ewes lamb easily. The breed has a short to medium–length wool and dark brown faces. They are a multi–purpose animal, kept for meat, wool, and milk. Like other dark faced sheep, Clun produce quality lamb and mutton. However, in contrast to more common meat breeds such as Suffolks, their wool is free of undesirable black fibres and kemp, and is suitable for handspinning. The breed's alert and stylish appearance, together with its reputation for hardiness and fecundity have made it popular with hobby farmers and large commercial flock owners alike. The Official Clun Sheep Breeders Society Show & Sale for males and females is held annually in early September at Ludlow livestock market by McCartneys.
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The New Zealand Romney is a New Zealand breed of sheep. It derives from British Romney Marsh stock imported to New Zealand in the nineteenth century, and was established as a separate breed in 1904. It is the most numerous sheep breed in New Zealand.