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A Comparison of Rambouillet and Corriedale Sheep under Southwest Texas Range Conditions^*

Texas Agricultural Experiment Station

Abstract

From the early days of the Texas range sheep industry until the present time, Merinos and Rambouillets have been used in preference to other breeds largely because of their adaptability to the peculiar conditions existent in the Southwest. These conditions unquestionably are somewhat representative and similar to those under which the fmewool breeds were developed. A high percentage of sheep of the United States and Australia carry varying amounts of Merino or Rambouillet blood in their foundations, due to their adaptability to these conditions.

During the past twenty-five years, the Texas range sheep industry has undergone some rather drastic changes. Sixty years ago, West Texas ranchmen were engaged in sheep raising primarily from the wool production standpoint, while today the industry is conducted from both the wool and lamb standpoints.

Texas finewool lambs have been rather severely criticised in some quarters as being undesirable from the standpoint of the feeder. It has been charged that they carry too many skinfolds or wrinkles, that they are undesirable in conformation, and that they mature more slowly than the so-called mutton breeds, within which category most of the popular British breeds fall. Undoubtedly, twenty-five or thirty years ago, some of this criticism was justified as is true in occasional instances today. However, in recent years Texas sheep of finewool breeding have undergone a phenomenal improvement from the mutton standpoint.

^* In Cooperation with Bureau of Animal Industry, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.