[Jacob-list] post from yahoo list

[Katherine Williamson]

I belong to the Jacob Yahoo list, which doesn't have many posts, so Sharon
asked me to post this to OUR list and see if anyone could help her. Sharon
is responding to a question asking if there is such a thing as a "brown"
Jacob.  Not sun-bleached.
She is trying to subscribe to this list also.  Until she is approved, you
may need to copy her on your responses.  Thanks!

Kathey

Good evening Ladies
I seldom seem to see any posts to this Jacob list, so your questions brings
another spin on the questions to my mind.

First let me introduce myself, my name is Sharon Lehrke (Sovreign Farms,
FL), and I have been a Jacob owner for almost 9 years. I also have Katahdins

ewes which we have always kept for meat. Our Jacobs have always been the
brains of the flock helping to keep the hornless breed safe, help in
guarding the baby lambs and we use as lovely ornaments and pasture mowing.
In
short the few we've had have always been regarded as treasures here, spayed
and the grandmothers to the entire flock. Recently I have decided to breed
Jacobs as we simply love their brains and personalities, as well as how
hardy they are compared to our Katahdins. Also our interest in fleece is
becoming more important.

I usually just watch this list with interest hoping for insight, it never
seems to come. This has to be the quietest list I've ever seen. Now my
interest in your question comes as perhaps an insight to how these dilute
colors genes do seem to relate and affect genes for other issues. Let me
simply
elaborate a bit of genetics on the dilutes of black vs. chocolate,
blue/lilac and mottle ie freckling....as I have been breeding with these
colors
for nearly 38 years with my show beagles. Here are some rules we use in
breeding these colors in our Beagles, and I'll elaborate a bit on why before
I
get to my questions, so please be patient.

Blue/lilac Colors is a dilute of black, best bred to black. In our case
we always breed a blue/lilac to a black because if you breed dilute to
dilute you start losing nose & eye pigment, very unsightly. Continuing to
breed
dilute to dilute for another generation or more and you start to see the
following.

1. Lighter and lighter pigment in nose and eye, and a casted coat, usually
getting lighter and lighter( ie: good color runs from deep slate and all
the way down to poor color of brownish sable which gets more and more
silvery sable as you go ,meaning shades of brown, running all the way to
fawn
with a blue caste). So technically to answer your question, it would be
possible to create a brown sheep from this gene, although I am sure it would
not
be pretty.
2. The more dilutes bred generation to generation you start to see more
than pigment breakdown....ie: poor coat texture all the way to alopecia
(shorter and shorter coats, anything from what we call a seal coat (similar
to
a Doberman) and as time goes on our worst offending breeders have gotten
near hairlessness and horrible skin problems to go with it).

3. Lack of bone mass has also been a problem for some reason, and I have to
wonder if in sheep this could also affect horns.

Chocolate/Khaki/ Red/Fawn/Sable- ditto are also a dilute of black. Now
they do not seem to have the pigment breakdown of the blues, but they too
can
have some issues of light eyes and noses going pink . But they tend to
retain more of the black heritage as we may lose eye or nose pigment and the

dog appear lemony color, but that usually is as bad as it ever gets.

Basically what I am saying is that to produce quality blue/lilac we breed
as follows for optimum results.

To get blues/lilacs I prefer to breed a carrier black to a carrier black to
get my blue/lilacs.

If I have a blue/lilac I breed her always to black. Never would we ever
breed blue/lilac to blue/lilac, or even to anything in the brown family as
we would get muddy brown looking blue/lilacs, and bad eye & nose pigment.

Now before anyone gets hostile on this, the same color genes for lilac
sheep, appear in many species, cats, dogs, rabbits, horses, goats,
etc......all
can have these same problems according to geneticists.

Mottling/Freckling - In the last 6-7 years we have found that in the home
country of our beagles (England) the colors are more intense and they have
fewer color inherited problems because England has allowed the mottling
gene in their lines as a failsafe, while American breeders all but excised
it
from the gene pool to the Beagles detriment. Upon discovering this in a
trip to England, we promptly imported a mottled stud dog to infuse our
blue/lilacs and even our chocolates & reds deeper richer pigment and more
intense
color as well as more eye and nose pigment. It has been very successful.
So if for instance I had unstable pigment or horn structure in a lilac I
think I would try to find a freckled sheep with as much black skin as
possible
and see if I could fix the problem. Often the animals carrying the
mottled/freckled gene will be blessed with a lot of black skin pigment,
which is
what geneticists seem to think makes the big correction. In other words we
were told to actually search for animals with deep skin pigment to solve
problems.

Now before you mention it, yes I realize that freckling in the fleece is
not desirable according to the standard, but as in the Beagle 75 years of
breeding they make the discovery that the problems could be solved in one
breeding. What if you are disgarding some critical gene to keeping lilacs
healthy as an example?

So what I want to know is has anyone seen any of these trends in Jacobs?

Has anyone attempted using a freckled fleeced Jacob to a Lilac missing
pigment or horn structure to try to fix the problem? .

My point to this is that by sharing information by breeders we all learn
something, how to breed for better results in our babies. My preference has
always been quality not quantity, so I try to make every breeding count.

Sharon Lehrke
Sovreign Farms
FL
_sovreignfarms at aol.com <_sovreignfarms%40aol.com>_ (mailto:
sovreignfarms at aol.com <sovreignfarms%40aol.com>)
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