When humans allow sheep to inbreed with their close relatives, otherwise recessive or "hidden" genes will become apparent.

The "Spider Lamb Syndrome" is a genetic recessive disorder affecting the bones and cartiledge of sheep.

The name derives from the limbs of the sheep being long, thin and "spider like."

This genetic disorder is associated with the inbreeding of the black face Suffolk and Hampshire breeds.

Many times, a single "superior" ram is chosen to breed all of the ewes in a flock.

This breeding arrangement makes every lamb in the flock a "half sibiling" so that if these lambs then breed with each other, the next generation will have a Coeffient of Inbreeding of 12.5%.

Repeatedly breeding the same male to its own offspring raises the Coeffient of Inbreeding to create these genetic diseases.

The following definition is from Wikipedia:

"The coefficient of inbreeding (COI) is a number measuring how inbred an individual is.

Specifically, it is the probability that two sections of genetic code at any place on the chromosome in an individual are identical by descent from a common ancestor of the two parents.

A higher COI will make the traits of the offspring more predictable, but also increases the risk of health issues.

In dog breeding, it is recommended to keep the COI less than 5%; however, in some breeds this may not be possible without outcrossing."

In my opinion, a Coefficient of Inbreeding higher than 5% is never a good idea, even if some sheep breeders call it "linebreeding."

Inbreeding and "linebreeding" are the same thing, with one slight difference, namely:

When inbreeding produces an improvement to an observable trait it is called "linebreeding", and when inbreeding results in an obvious genetic defect, it is called "inbreeding."

What is not considered by those that inbreed or linebreed is the negative impact on traits that may not be immediately observable, such as instincts and behaviors.

To consolidate their power, the Habsburg Royal family practiced inbreeding, or "consanguineous marriages" between close relatives.

This produced deformities, like the famous "Habsburg Jaw", and destroyed their gene pool. The family was known for mental illness.

The Hapsburgs had health impairments due to inbreeding which included epilepsy, insanity and early death. A study of 3,000 Hapsburg family members over 16 generations by the University of Santiago de Compostela suggests inbreeding may have played a role in their extinction.

George III was the King of England during the American Revolution, and was a product of inbreeding. He was bi-polar and would talk non-stop until foam came out his mouth. His doctors would treat him using straitjackets and ice baths.

Charles III is the current King of England. He is inbred as his parents (Elizabeth and Philip) share common ancestors. His personal life speaks volumes.

To hold onto their fortune, the members of the Rothchild Banking Family routinely marry their cousins.

Jacob Rothchild justified this by stating that "Love should begin at home."

The Rothchilds are the richest family in the world, yet they have made very few "positive" contributions to the world.

I believe that "misbreeding" and inbreeding is destroying the survival traits of modern "industrialized" sheep. Here is a list:

• Modern Sheep cannot repel parasites without dewormers, yet sheep existed for thousands of years alongside parasites before chemical wormers were invented in the 1950's.

• Modern Sheep routinely get hoof rot, and need new types of medications and vaccinations for various diseases to survive. Many have lost their natural defences to disease.

• The hooves of Modern Sheep have to be trimmed by man, something that was not done when sheep lived in the wild.

• Some Modern Sheep have been bred where they cannot lamb without human assistance, or else the lamb will be caught in the birth canal and both the ewe and lamb will die. So a human has to sit up all night and monitor which of the Modern Sheep ewes need help lambing, and help pull the lambs out.

• Modern Sheep now need a lambing pen to "bond" with their lamb, or else the ewes will walk away and forget they ever gave birth and their lamb will die.

• Modern Sheep do not lick their lambs enough to keep them warm when they are born in winter, and the lambs end up freezing to death on the ground when born in winter. Modern Sheep require shelter to lamb in winter, which is their natural time to lamb.

• Many Modern Sheep have lost their natural flocking instincts and would be killed by predators if not kept in a pen.

• Modern Sheep require grain to grow big and fast, even if grass fed lamb tastes better but grows slower.

• Man has selectively bred sheep based on how fast they grow and how big they are, and not on how they taste or how healthy they are for human consumption.

The way Modern Sheep are raised is cruel, inhumane, and it produces a sub standard product. But Modern Sheep Farming produces a lot of meat product quickly that "looks good" and makes money, and that is why nearly every farm does it.

And most people in the USA do not like eating lamb because it has a "greasy" taste - part of which is a result of feeding the lamb pellets to grow as fast as possible.

This has to stop. Smaller carcase, grass fed and humanely raised sheep without chemicals are superior in taste and are easier to raise, and create a better product.

And they are just better for us. We have to stop industrializing our sheep.

 

The National Sheep Improvement Program (NSIP) provides software to help sheep farmers improve their flocks through selective breeding.

The NSIP software records the weight of the lambs when they are born and when they are periodically weighed. This helps the farmer to find which lambs grow faster than others.

From this information the software creates an "Estimated Breeding Value" (EBV) so that faster growing lambs with higher EBV's can be bred to other faster growing lambs. The goal is to create a "Super Sheep" that will outperform all others by growing faster, most likely on full grain/pellet diet.

While this is well-meaning and could be beneficial, I believe that the way the NSIP is being used is causing sheep industrialization.

Using the NSIP system will breed measureably larger size commercial animals at the expense of traits that cannot be measured, like the ease of lambing, flocking, mothering instincts, etc.

While you can use the NSIP software to keep records from testing for fecal egg counts as an indication of parasite resistance, this is not the same as the sheep's actual parasite resistance or resilience, as some parasite resistant/resilient sheep will occasionally produce a high fecal egg count but still be healthy.

A better way to "naturally" test for parasite problems is to never chemically deworm your sheep, and let Nature cull the sick ones and their sick genetics out of your flock.

If you look at the NSIP list, you will find that there are very few St. Croix breeders while the Dorper and Katahdin sheep breeds are very, very popular.

The Dorpers and Katahdin breeds are popular "only because they are bigger" which makes them more marketable. Their popularity is not based on how they taste or how efficient they are, or if they are chemical free, it is all based on how they look.

Katahdins have half the parasite resistance of a St. Croix, and you still have to deworm them and periodically test them. Dorpers have almost no parasite resistance and require constant deworming and testing in Tennessee. You can't ramp up production of Katahdin and Dorpers without increasing your labor costs.

For some reason, the effort and the chemicals used in keeping these animals alive, and the taste of the meat they produce has nothing to do with their popularity. They are popular because they are bigger, even if they bring the same price per pound as the St. Croix.

I believe the Dorper and Katahdin Sheep Breeds are being industrialized to produce a larger carcase size and are losing performance in other areas, while the St. Croix breed is still pristine.

I believe in not giving chemicals, vaccinations, or medications to the St. Croix Sheep Breed and letting Nature cull out the inferior animals.

The only help I think we should give the St. Croix breed is to trim out the "least valuable" sheep from the bottom of the gene pool, while keeping as much of the superior and diverse genetic material as possible.

That the St. Croix are not yet "industrialized for size" is one the reasons why I am raising St. Croix instead of Katahdin, just like I raised Bresse chickens instead of Rhode Island Reds.

And it will take longer to see improvements in the St. Croix by "culling the bottom" of what Nature produces than to "bottleneck the top" with humans selectively breeding "superior" rams.

But it is much easier to cull the obviously inferior sheep at the bottom than to select the "perfect specimen" ram or ewes at the top for breeding.

And "culling the inferior" without "using a single superior" with the sheep living in a natural environment keeps the pressure of Natural Selection intact, so that only those sheep that have all of their instincts and traits (mothering, lambing, parasite resistance, etc.) will survive without human assistance.

So, if you want to find a grass fed sheep breed that is not "industrialized" through selection for how large they grow on grain, then look at the List of Breeders by Sheep Breed on the NSIP and avoid any breed that has become popular.

A good sheep breed does not need a huge carcase through human assistance to be successful.

"Bigger Does Not Always Taste Better."

Conclusion

Commercial sheep breeding needs to return to Natural Breeding:

1. Use an equal number of males and females when breeding.

2. Introduce natural pressures, such as the ability to thrive on grass only or overcome intestinal parasites, to determine which sheep should breed.

3. Avoid all human assistance, as this encourages the unfit to prosper in an unnatural environment.

4. Just as Nature does, cull the sheep that are skinny, and breed the ones that are fat.

5. Select sheep breeds based on taste and efficiency, not on carcase size when fed pellets.

6. Just like the smaller quail eggs are considered a delicacy and superior to chicken eggs, educate the public to understand that smaller carcase sheep may be healthier and taste better.