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Cotswold sheep
| Place of Origin | England |
| Origin | Cotswold sheep are a breed of domestic sheep originating in the Cotswold hills of the southern midlands of England. It is a dual-use breed providing both meat and wool. As of 2009, this long-wooled breed is relatively rare, and is categorized as "minority" by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust of the U.K. |
| Purpose | Meat, Fiber |
| Characteristics | Cotswold sheep are usually calm and friendly. They mostly have white faces. Occasionally faces are mottled with some light gray or tan hairs. Small black spots are permissible on the "points" (non-wooly portions of legs, ears, and face), but the wool itself should be white. Hairs or “kemp” should be absent in the wool. Cotswold hooves should be black, but are sometimes streaked with undesirable light or translucent colour. Foot rot is very uncommon in this breed. Cotswold rams occasionally have small scurs (highly discouraged) but no Cotswold should ever have full horns. Cotswold sheep do not have the tight-flocking instinct of western range sheep, preferring to spread out and graze enclosed pastures more uniformly. Some strains of the breed are not as prone to internal parasites as others, provided their grazing forages are not excessively short. Raising The Cotswold is today considered a fairly slow growing sheep, because too much grain often kills it through Polioencephalomalacia (PEM), Pulpy Kidney, and Gravel or Urolithiasis (in rams). However, the Cotswold is quite unique in its ability to thrive where other luster longwool breeds might starve to death. The breed has a very mild-flavored meat. Mutton of Cotswold sheep tends to be far less gamy-flavored than even young lamb of many other breeds. It is loved and sought after, even by confirmed "lamb haters." Cotswold lambs are very hardy once dried off after birth. They have small heads at birth, if the ewes are not overfed during gestation, and therefore are more easily born than some breeds. Cotswold ewes usually have a "narrow flank," once thought of as weakness, until it was observed that this characteristic assists in directing parturient lambs towards a "normal" birth presentation. Most Cotswold ewes produce quite a lot of milk. This can be a problem if overfed and they have only a single lamb by their side, due to "pulpy kidney" disease, unless preventive vaccinations are administered. But it raises at least the possibility that despite their long wool, Cotswold sheep might be worth experimenting with in the dairy. Cotswold sheep live a respectably long time; it's not uncommon to see Cotswold ewes giving twins each year until well after 10 years old. Wool Today, Cotswold wool is especially luxurious when hand-combed using wool combs to make a true worsted roving. In true worsted wool there is little or no "itch," because all the tips of the fibers (as they grew on the sheep) point in one direction and the end sheared from the sheep's skin points in the other direction. This produces a knit very like mohair. In fact Cotswold wool has often been called "poor man's mohair." Cotswold wool is exceedingly strong, added by knitters to sock heels and toes to give extra strength to socks, and to elbows in hand-knitted sweaters. When worn in the woodlands, one doesn't leave bits of one's sweater in the brush. To the contrary: The brush is often torn from its stalk by the stout-fibered wool. The wool attains 8 to 12 inches of growth in a year, and if not shorn promptly in early spring may become matted. It has a Bradford (spinning) count of 36s to 44s, most commonly around 40s. Generally, the tighter the curls of the fleece, the slenderer is the wool. The curly locks are often sold as "Santa Claus Beard" material. Because the wool is so long and parts on the sheep’s spine, cold rains can cause health problems, though low temperatures and heavy snows are not problems to them. Where the wool parts along the backbone, it is possible for flies to bite the skin of the sheep; cattle or ox warble flies have been known to cause sterility in rams when they occur near the sheep’s head. |
| Other Considerations | United States By 1832, this breed was first introduced in the United States by Christopher Dunn of near Albany, New York. Importation records of Cotswold only date back to that era. While Christopher Dunn imported only one Cotswold ram to cross on his English Leicester ewes, the resulting crosses were so impressive that they prompted William Henry Sotham (bankrolled by the Hon. Erastus Corning, also of Albany) to make extensive importations of Cotswold sheep from the flock of William Hewer of Northleach, Gloucestershire, England. Another early contributor to American flocks was the Charles Barton Flock, of Fyfield, North Leach, England, whose owner had family records of Cotswold pedigrees going back to at least 1640. Similar to other longwool breeds, the Cotswold was often used for crossbreeding in early times. By 1914 over 760,000 had been recorded in the U.S. and Canada by the American Cotswold Record Assn. The breed was seen as a way of adding staple length to other breeds while not retreating from the size of the carcass or thickness of wool. The main reason for its early popularity over other luster longwools in the U.S. was because it did not require "high feeding," (in other words, large amounts of grain) in order to make good growth. According to Sheep! Magazine editor Nathan Griffith's book on the breed, Sheep Success: A Better Ewe & Big Bucks Too, the largest recorded representative of the Cotswold breed in America was Broadfield's Pride, owned by Charles Mattocks during the 1870s. This sheep was born in 1870 on the farm of William Lane of Gloucestershire, England, and attained the enormous weight of 445 lbs. Several of the yearling lambs that he sired attained weights of 280 to 300 lbs. by one year of age. Black Cotswold In 1989, a separate breed was recognized in the USA, the Black Cotswold but not in the UK. In that year a new breed association was formed---the Black Cotswold Society---to assist growers in propagating the Black Cotswold breed. The Black Cotswold breed of sheep can be any colour, including white if it's related to black sheep again the Black Cotswold is not recognized or bred in the UK. In over 130 years of registering Cotswold sheep, no sheep registered with the American Cotswold Record Association has descended from coloured ancestors. |
