Hi all- does anyone breed top-quality true breeding dark Mouflon, normal-horned soays? I would like to purchase a starter flock.
Many thanks,
On St Kilda and particularly Soay, there is a variety of types.
For colours, dark phase and light phase mouflon pattern predominate, but self colour blacks, dark browns and light browns make up a small percentage of the flock, for example self black makes up 5% of the total). White lambs are occasionally born, but tend to be nabbed by gulls and bonxies so don't survive.
For horns, polled individuals ie no horns, make up 40%, while two full-sized horns are borne by less than 60% of the native flock, and scurs (scrubby little horns) by a minority (there are no multi-horned Soay currently, although it is probable that this trait was present before the type became isolated on St Kilda, because multi-horned skull fragments have been found on many ancient archaeological sites which implies that multi-horned sheep were once widespread). The scurs fulfil a survival niche for the breed. In years of plenty, the tups with large horns fight for the right to run and mate with a group of ewes - their harem as with deer, and the biggest horner tends to win. Scurred males lurk around the periphery of the flock and seize the chance of mating when the dominant male isn't looking, and this provides enough scur genes to keep the trait going. However, every few years there's a catastrophic crash in sheep numbers caused by food shortages and possibly also worm burden. In these years, the big-horned males, who invest a lot in the growth and maintenance of their horns, die off, leaving the scurred individuals, which need slightly less food input, to pass on their genes to the whole ewe flock. I suspect that polled ewes are successful for the same reason, but occur in much greater numbers than scurred tups.
When Prof Jewel brought the first flock to London for research purposes in the 60s, he arbitrarily preferred the dark phase, mouflon pattern type with large horns, so those are what he brought and this is the type which predominates. However, the genes for other colours and horn types are still present. A number of breeders are doing their best to re-establish the island percentages to the mainland flock in an attempt to preserve the full range of Soay genes.
So there is no such thing as "true breeding dark Mouflon, normal-horned soays".
For quality stock you need to go for registered animals and the best person to ask for breeders near you is the secretary of the Soay Sheep Society
Julie.Suffolk@bt.com 
Topic: Dark Mouflon, normal-horned soays? (Read 5436 times)
