IS A DEMAND FOR SEVERAL TYPES OF Columbias

BY DICK GERBER AS WRITTEN IN 1988

(We share this article as a nod to Dick’s insightful and constant determination to emphasize the relevance of Columbia sheep in the wool and lamb industry.)

The Columbia of the future needs to be “better, not bigger” and “wider, not taller.” This past summer while watching a sheep show, a father and his son were standing behind me. The son asked his father, “How do they judge sheep?” The father’s reply made the hair bristle on the back of my neck when he said, “It’s easy, all you do is pick the “tallest to the smallest.”

For the past six or seven years the judges have placed an enormous amount of emphasis on the longer, taller kind of sheep. I like long-bodied sheep, but I personally think we have them as tall as we need them. The cattle industry has found that the extra big, exotic, coarse animals had numerous reproduction problems and we don’t want any part of this. The trends have been that the taller we breed the sheep, the more we have lost on the leg score, muscling, and body capacity. The taller trend will not change if judges select this kind and if people are willing to pay a premium for this trait.

Gradually, shepherds are going to be more concerned with breeding sheep that are better, not bigger; and wider, not taller. If you evaluate the productive flocks and efficient individuals, you will find wide ewes that have the capacity to carry large twins and have wide back leg placements and well-defined udders with milking capacities. A wider pelvis makes lambing easier, and these ewes not only produce well but have the tendency to be easy keepers. Ewes are normally bred for the capacity to hold large amounts of roughage and to reproduce. The next time you are in the spring pasture with the ewes and lambs, just notice which type of ewe has the fattest and best-doing lambs. Perhaps a smaller ewe does have a higher butterfat content such as dairy cows, but I do not have any data on this. Perhaps we need to adjust our eyesight a little bit to learn to like this kind of ewe.

In the Columbia business, there is a demand for several types of Columbias. This is mainly due to the many different environments in this big nation. I really feel that it takes a special kind of sheep person to be successful in raising good Columbias. Some people like to raise and show just meat breeds because all they do is shear them, wash them, and show them. Some people like wool breeds and that is all they concentrate on. But with Columbias, a true dual-purpose breed, a geneticist can have a “field day!” Look at our scorecard. There are so many qualifications and disqualifications (all intended to make a better breed) that it is tremendously interesting and exciting to the dedicated livestock breeder to breed good Columbias. You try and breed for better quality wool and maybe you can get some scurs on your rams or wrinkles. You breed to eliminate the scurs and wrin- kles, and you may end up with too coarse of a fleece. You try and change the grade of wool too fast, and you may have belly wool problems. You try and refine certain show characteristics, and you may lose some of your production. Most anyone can breed for meat qualifications, but when it comes to breeding for dual purpose, it becomes a real science. I commend the breeders for the good fleeces and quality of animals they are producing. Not only quality but the total poundage of quality wool and lamb.

Genetics has always been interesting to me as I remember when I was a boy, we used to raise various breeds of rabbits. I had one brown Belgian Hare doe that when bred to a certain New Zealand White buck would always have offspring in her litter that was white with blue eyes. To get the blue eyes on a white rabbit was very unusual and these always sold for a premium. It was exciting to breed this kind of animal.

It is important to keep our breed as uniform as possible, but in this big world, if we want to expand, we must consider the many different environmental conditions which do affect the types of sheep that meet the demands of a given area. Sometimes we must define and improve upon the good characteristics that we now have. Sometimes we must change and make minor adjustments to keep competitive. The worst thing a person can do to a breeding program is to make constant changes to meet the whims of a show judge that will be judging their show next year. You must maintain the breeding characteristics of the type of animal that you can sell in your area, meeting the expectations for improvement to the commercial breeders’ flock. This is very important.

Due to higher wool prices in recent years for the finer wool, we are receiving calls where to buy rams with the finer half-blood wool. There are some people now keeping back ewes with finer wool characteristics to meet these demands. However, a lot of people are getting fooled on the grades of wool. To make sure you know exactly what you have, it is important to have the fleeces micron tested. On the other hand, we have had some calls from Kansas and Oklahoma and a few from Indiana and Iowa wanting to know where to buy Columbias that can produce show wethers. The first thing they state is that they do not want any of these long-legged, long-necked, narrow-bodied freaks. They want a meaty animal with muscling and natural fleshing ability. They want an animal that is cleaner, leaner, and more efficient than ever before. The Columbia is the prime example of today’s modern lamb that meets the needs of the entire sheep industry. The carcass is highly merchandisable and profitable for the packer.

Another very important factor that people are realizing is the importance of milk production. If someone would take the time and effort to select within their breeding program ewes with good conformation, breed characteristics, uniform fleeces, and from this group select and keep back only the very best ones based on mild production, they would eventually have a “gold- mine.” This is a very important trait that people are looking for. It is so important on those sixty-day weights for a good start in your lambing program. Someone willing to work on this project and promote it will have quite a successful future ahead of them.

The bottom line that I want to emphasize, and highly recommend is to raise the kind of Columbia that will do good in your area and that will fit in with the needs of the commercial sheep industry. I have tremendous faith in the ingenuity, creativity, and persistence of the Columbia breeders to breed the sheep of the future that will continue to have the genetics to improve upon the commercial and purebred sheep industry of the nation. This can be done with the Columbia breed which makes it the “Most Useful Breed of Sheep in the World.”