[Jacob-list] RE: Link on ALBC's Web Page for Jacob Sheep

[gordon johnston]

Hi All
 That 2 horned ram is quite bull-like isn't he ?  I don't think the scrotum
would pass here either, nor would the colour on the legs, which must be
plain white in Britain.  As for his size, believe me, there are even
chunkier chaps seen at shows, legs well out at the corners, like a good
solid table !  But the desire to make the Jacob a commercial sheep is doomed
to failure because the big producer cannot cope with the horns.  Would you
believe that it has been suggested, by a judge(!), that Jacob horns should
be bred out, to make the breed more acceptable commercially !  Next he will
want us to shorten the neck, make the ears bigger, concentrate the colour on
the face and legs - and hey presto, you've got a Suffolk !

When the question of whether or not Dorset blood was introduced into the
breed at some point in the past is raised, there is usually a rapid change
of subject, but it is generally acknowledged that it did take place.  In
order for the Jacob to still look Jacob-like (ie to maintain the phenotype)
, that introduced blood has had to be well diluted, to at least 1/16th or
1/32nd, while trying to maintain the desired introduced attribute of
increased size.  One persistant trait from the Dorset is the pink nose (
which is unnacceptable of course).  The addition of Dorset blood would seem
to have happened on a small scale but the pink noses do turn up throughout
the British flock. The increased size has probably resulted more from
selective breeding where bigger is better.  There is a small number of
breeders who do the rounds of all the shows (remembering that Britain is
very small so one person can take their sheep all around the country) and
those same few provide the pool of judges. They all think the bigger the
Jacob the better so they have influenced the size of the breed
disproportionately, over the last 35 years. And they seem to be growing
still.  The Hebridean Sheep Society has taken note and larger sheep are
discouraged, but we note with alarm the growing tendency to show Soay sheep
here, which could so easily start the bigger is better trend in that breed
too.  We do feel that showing is the culprit - yes, it provides a showcase
for the breed, and we all want our breeds to be seen and kept by others ,
but the bigger the sheep, the more of an impression it makes on the judge,
so  everyone buys their breeding stock from the winner and the following
year everyone else brings their biggest sheep to the show.......
Not everyone wants to follow this trend, and there is a large number of
exJSS members over here, like us, who have either given up keeping the breed
because of the direction their development is taking them, or who continue
to keep Jacobs of the old type - their difficulty is that they cannot sell
breeding stock - when the old primitive (and scorned) type of Jacob turns up
at official sales  they are sold off in batches at the end of the sale along
with the crossbreds, and make very poor prices. So the pressure to conform
is a financial one.

A couple of other points from that link :- para 2) 'the fleece is properly
described as white with black spots'.  Surely that should read 'black with
white spots' ?
Para 4) origins : the claim is made that the 4 horns come from British 4
horned breeds.  Where is the evidence for that? Was there ever any contact
before the 1870s when Hebrideans went down to the English parklands? Surely
it is more likely that the Jacobs and Navajo Churro which both appear to
have originated in Iberia or Africa, got their 4 horns from the same source.
Jacobs and British primitives such as the Hebridean are fundamentally
different in that the sheep which came to Britain via the northern route are
Northern Shorttails, whereas Jacobs , which came via the southern route, are
longtailed.
Juliet (for Gordon who is sensibly sleeping) in Scotland