[namethatsheep]

I  visited Kyrgyzstan earlier this year and spotted a family of northern short-tailed sheep, looking very similar to Hebs, in a local zoo. The sheep were clearly completely different to local fat-tailed flocks or Romanovs and merinos that had been used for improving the national flock. There had been influxes of Mennonites to the country and am I left wondering whether these sheep are part of a residual flock, hence their local novelty. Of course there could be someone who knows differently.

[SallyintNorth]

Oh poor sheep! In a dust bowl in a zoo.   

Very interesting, namethatsheep, thanks for posting

[Coximus]

http://faculty.washington.edu/dwaugh/CA/animals/animals.html

Just over the border in china they have similar sheep.

Perhaps a rememnant of more primitive breeds - the vikings travelled extensivly in russia on the river systems and we know they got well into what is now Kazakstan so its possible that Both Hebrideans and native Krygz sheep could have a common ancestor, and without selective breeding, a 1000 years is not along time so they would remain simialr

[Fleecewife]

Those Vikings appear to have populated a whole load of places with wee primitive sheep    That type of sheep was found in Britain, as shown by archaeological finds, way back before Vikings, before Romans.  They are though thought to have reached Britain several millennia ago, along with human colonisation, by the 'northern route' which could well have included Krgyzstan etc.

He is quite Heblike, although definitely not a show winner  .  Yes poor lad stuck in a zoo - no wonder he looks stir crazy in the first pic.

One person who will almost certainly know the answer is David Kinsman, who wrote 'The Black Sheep of Windermere', which is about the history of Primitive sheep in Britain.  I'll pm you his email address - he loves questions.

[kanisha]

Never could quite understand the predilection for attributing the spread of primitive sheep to the vikings. The popular theory ( since confirmed by genetic testing )  is of a spread across from the mediterranean and up into northern europe . A second and concurrent migration across  into the russian steppess and down into northern europe including the baltic states from the top has been confirmed on genetic testing. There are a number of studies which collate this information very nicely. 

[Coximus]

I suppose the nords get the credit as they  had a trading network so extensive that it wasnt really surpased until the 19th century, so they spread everything they came in contact with. If sheep where in UK when they go here, the short tailed breeds would turn up wherever their were other travelling vikings! Anything of value was traded.

I was under the impression what you describe kanisha only applied to the long tailed sheep, with northern shorttailed ones coming across the north

[Kimbo]

You may be interested in a fascinating book Ive just read about Britain's pastoral history. Its called Counting Sheep, by Philip Walling. I thoroughly enjoyed it

[kanisha]

I was under the impression what you describe kanisha only applied to the long tailed sheep, with northern shorttailed ones coming across the north

"A series of waves of development  have been proposed with the ancestors of the domestic sheep considered to have been in several species and subspecies of Mouflon. Poplin Ryder and Lauvergne each had their own theories for the waves and centre of development. The study by Kantenan et al  (2006)  used mitochondrial DNA testing to produce a distribution map and demonstration of population expansion with the mediterranean mouflon as an  early domesticated ancestor of european sheep. ( There is an undetermined ancestor of the mediterranean mouflon if it is considered a feral domesticate) but that there was a second lineage with a concurrent development  of domestication following  a migratory route through Russia  into the nordic countries.

A study by Palmarini et al (2009 ) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3145132/ used retrovirus integrations  to be able to demonstrate with greater accuracy  the migratory development of sheep and in doing so confirmed the wave theory and primitive factor.

The wave theory suggests that primitives ( short tailed breeds of sheep)  were in the first migratory wave. "

Commenting on this study Insciences organisation wrote  " Interestingly the orkney sheep ( north ronaldsay)  are more closely  related to nordic breeds in scandinavia while soay are linked to Mouflon, providing intriguing insights into ancient migration routes" 2009.

 The study  also appears to demonstrate that Ryders earlier classification of european short tails into several groups placing the Ouessant sheep in a small group of south western short-tails may have more relevance,   rather than grouping them altogether as north european short tails.

Loosely paraphrased from a study on  Ouessant sheep by myself 2011. 

[namethatsheep]

You may be interested in a fascinating book Ive just read about Britain's pastoral history. Its called Counting Sheep, by Philip Walling. I thoroughly enjoyed it

Great book and now out in paperback. Another good read is Much ado about Mutton.

[Fleecewife]

You may be interested in a fascinating book Ive just read about Britain's pastoral history. Its called Counting Sheep, by Philip Walling. I thoroughly enjoyed it

Great book and now out in paperback. Another good read is Much ado about Mutton.

Ah - I was looking for this post but didn't know it was in this thread.  I bought the book on Kindle, and mostly I'm enjoying it, but there are enough errors to spoil my enjoyment a bit.  The main one I've come across so far is that he says Soay sheep are long-tailed.... .  Unless he's talking about convergent evolution, I really don't know what that's about.  Maybe he'll come back to it and all will be revealed.  He also says that primitives routinely have multiple births, with triplets common and quads not rare.  Has anyone found this?  We get about 2/3rds twins, 1/3rd singles, with triplets rare and quads unheard of in Hebs.
He mentions it because he says many lambs born to North Ronaldsays on the island are destroyed at birth because they have so many but can only rear one.  Has anyone who keeps Ronnies found them prone to so many lambs?
I love the explanation about the name Shepherd's Bush 

[Coximus]

strange as the consensus has always been one of the reasons for the rise in southern breeds was that they were typically capable of rearing more lambs and more prolific, with Most of these breeds such as the Heb / Dunface etc adapted to conditions of very low fertility/food quality and theirfore high reproductive fertility would be counter productive, simply causing lots of casualties and a waste of resources, nature would cull those genetics in just a few winters.

Could the guy be winging it or taking from the finn-sheep, which is known to be very prolififc IF it gets enough nutrition!