Texel

The Dutch herd book opened in 1909, and the breed became its home country's default: about 70 percent of the Netherlands' meat sheep are Texels.

Britain began building its own Texel in Scotland from 1970, opening a herd book in 1972, and the American flock followed the 1985 arrival.

They are white faced with no wool on the head or legs, and the fleece is a useful medium wool rather than an afterthought: around 32 microns, eight to twelve pounds a fleece.

Rams average about 210 pounds and ewes 165, at roughly 28 and 27 inches at the withers. Both sexes are polled, and the frame is heavy and muscular, with some animals showing the extreme muscular hypertrophy the breed is known for.

The Texel Sheep Breeders Society describes the breed as docile and curious, easy to handle in everyday flock management and well suited to youth livestock projects.

The ewes are dependable mothers by the society's account, with lamb crops commonly around 150 percent in natural breeding, and it recommends the breed for pasture lambing.

A terminal sire, chiefly; the lean carcass ratio is the whole sales pitch, and it shows up in the first cross.

The wool goes into knitting yarns and hosiery, and Texel milk has gone into cheese on the island.

The trade is at birth. Texel lambs are wide through the shoulders, which raises lambing difficulty, and the breed is slower growing early on than a Suffolk cross. They also mature later, so they finish at an older age.

Otherwise requirements are ordinary for a lowland meat sheep, and the fleece is shorn annually like any wool breed.

The Texel Sheep Breeders Society is the US registry. If you are buying a ram for crossbreeding, ask about birth weights and lambing records in his get, not just his own muscling.

Plan the finish date honestly: later maturity means feeding longer than a Suffolk-cross calendar, and the payoff comes at the rail, not on the calendar.

Recent sale prices on HoofnHorn, where there are any, are further down this page.