Santa Cruz Island is located off the southwestern coast of Ventura, California, United States. It is the largest island in California and largest of the eight islands in the Channel Islands archipelago and Channel Islands National Park. Forming part of the northern group of the Channel Islands, Santa Cruz is 22 miles (35 km) long and 2 to 6 miles wide with an area of 61,764.6 acres (249.952 km2).
Sheep farming or sheep husbandry is the raising and breeding of domestic sheep. It is a branch of animal husbandry. Sheep are raised principally for their meat, milk, and fiber (wool). They also yield sheepskin and parchment.
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 Texel is a breed of domestic sheep originally from the island of Texel in the Netherlands. A heavily muscled sheep, it produces a lean meat carcass and will pass on this quality to crossbred progeny. The wool is around 32 micrometres and is mostly used for hosiery yarns and knitting wools. It is presently a popular lean meat sheep across Europe, as well as Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
The Rambouillet is a breed of sheep in the genus Ovis. It is also known as the Rambouillet Merino or the French Merino. The development of the Rambouillet breed started in 1786, when Louis XVI purchased over 300 Spanish Merinos from his cousin Charles III of Spain. The flock was subsequently developed on an experimental royal farm, the Bergerie royale built during the reign of Louis XVI, at his request, on his domain of Rambouillet, 50 km southwest of Paris, which Louis XVI had purchased in December 1783 from his cousin Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, Duke of Penthièvre. The flock was raised exclusively at the Bergerie, with no sheep being sold for several years, well into the 19th century.
The Dorset Horn is an endangered British breed of domestic sheep. It is documented from the seventeenth century, and is highly prolific, sometimes producing two lambing seasons per year. Among British sheep, it is the only breed capable of breeding throughout the winter.
The San Clemente Island goat is a type of domestic goat derived from feral goats isolated on San Clemente Island, one of the Channel Islands of California.
The Livestock Conservancy, formerly known as the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (ALBC) and prior to that, the American Minor Breeds Conservancy, is a nonprofit organization focused on preserving and promoting rare breeds, also known as "heritage breeds" of livestock. Founded in 1977, through the efforts of livestock breed enthusiasts concerned about the disappearance of many of the US's heritage livestock breeds, the Conservancy was the pioneer livestock preservation organization in the United States, and remains a leading organization in that field. It has initiated programs that have saved multiple breeds from extinction, and works closely with similar organizations in other countries, including Rare Breeds Canada. With 3,000 members, a staff of nine and a 19-member board of directors, the organization has an operating budget of almost half a million dollars.
The Shetland is a small, wool-producing breed of sheep originating in the Shetland Isles, Scotland, but is now also kept in many other parts of the world. It is part of the Northern European short-tailed sheep group, and it is closely related to the extinct Scottish Dunface. Shetlands are classified as a landrace or "unimproved" breed. This breed is kept for its very fine wool, for meat, and for conservation grazing.
Hog Island sheep are a breed of sheep descended from animals first brought to Virginia's Hog Island in the 18th century. During the 1930s and 1940s, storm conditions forced the island's residents to evacuate, leaving some sheep behind. These sheep adapted to the environment free of human intervention, becoming feral.
Sheep or domestic sheep are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term sheep can apply to other species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated sheep. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Numbering a little over one billion, domestic sheep are also the most numerous species of sheep. An adult female is referred to as a ewe, an intact male as a ram, occasionally a tup, a castrated male as a wether, and a young sheep as a lamb.
The South African Meat Merino or SAMM is a wool and meat sheep originating in South Africa, but now found throughout the world.
The Boreray, also known as the Boreray Blackface or Hebridean Blackface, is a breed of sheep originating on the St Kilda archipelago off the west coast of Scotland and surviving as a feral animal on one of the islands, Boreray. The breed was once reared for meat and wool, but is now used mainly for conservation grazing. The Boreray is one of the Northern European short-tailed sheep group of breeds.
The Devon Closewool is a British breed of domestic sheep. It is distributed almost exclusively on Exmoor in North Devon, in south-west England. It is raised primarily for meat.
North Country Cheviot is a common breed of sheep raised mainly for meat production. Originated from Scotland.
The history of the domestic sheep goes back to between 11,000 and 9,000 BC, and the domestication of the wild mouflon in ancient Mesopotamia. Sheep are among the first animals to have been domesticated by humans. These sheep were primarily raised for meat, milk, and skins. Woolly sheep began to be developed around 6000 BC. They were then imported to Africa and Europe via trading.
The Polled Dorset is an American breed of domestic sheep. It is a polled (hornless) variant of the British Dorset Horn. It was developed at the North Carolina State University Small Ruminant Unit in the 1950s after a genetic mutation led to the birth of a polled ram. After some years of breeding work, a true-breeding polled strain was established.
The Leccese or Moscia Leccese is a breed of domestic sheep indigenous to the Salento peninsula, in Puglia, southern Italy. Its name derives from that of Lecce, the principal city of the peninsula. Like the Pinzirita and the Altamurana, it belongs to the Zackel sheep group. It is a hardy and frugal breed, usually kept in semi-feral herds, capable of surviving year-round on pasture alone. The wool is normally white and the skin flesh-coloured with darker mottlings. In a small proportion of animals the wool is entirely black, and the skin is also black; these black-skinned sheep are resistant to the effects of the poisonous Hypericum crispum, common in the Salento, which in the white-woolled, pale-skinned sheep causes photosensitivity and thus dermatitis.
