New Zealand agricultural history. No 12. Importing exotic sheep breeds

 Selection of sheep in Scandinavia

 Where the sheep came from

By Dr Clive Dalton

Selection of sheep in Scandinavia

Dr Leyden Baker

Dr Leyden Baker from MAF Ruakura Genetics was assigned responsibility to travel to Denmark and Finland to select the sheep for the 1984 importation, accompanied by MAF veterinarian Dr Stuart MacDiarmid.  Their first task was to find the sheep (both ewes and rams) for purchase or lease, and then before organising their assembly at central locations in each country ready for mating and the collection. to  check veterinary details and organise the collection of embryos (undertaken by Dr Robin Tervit – see other blogs).

Leyden had good contacts in Scandinavia as he had done post-Doctoral research in Norway in 1976 and again in 1983, and traveled extensively to animal breeding institutes in Denmark Sweden and Finland.  

 When in Norway in 1983, Leyden was very surprised to get a phone call from Ruakura Director Ken Jury to say that off the record at that stage, it was starting to look as if the importation ‘sheep show’ was on the road again, and would he stay a few more weeks (salary provided) to have a nosey around to see what sheep there were in Denmark, Sweden and Finland of the breeds New Zealand wanted – mainly Texels, Oxford Downs and Finnish Landrace.  Norway didn’t qualify as they didn’t have any of these breeds at this time.

Having Leyden in Scandinavia at that time was an enormous bit of good fortune for the NZ government and MAFTech, as it wasn’t hard to find out what was going on in the sheep business because of his contacts with genetics mates who all knew each other, and were involved in a lot of cooperative work. 

Leyden said the Finn and Texel flocks were small, the place was crawling with vets with about one for every ten farms, and the farmers were great hosts just like Kiwis being very willing to cooperate to sell sheep to New Zealand.   

There was no official recording scheme like we had in New Zealand and the records farmers kept were mainly pedigrees.  But they knew every sheep and how it had performed if you asked them.  Denmark had a central ram progeny test station where some useful data could be obtained.  It was decided that there was nothing to be gained in trying to access these breeds in Sweden, and in addition facilities for embryo transfer work were limited.

So after Leyden came back on New Zealand in 1983 to carry on his cattle and sheep breeding work at Ruakura genetics section, when the sheep importation became a real deal, it made sense for Director Ken Jury (pictured left) to get Leyden to go back to Scandinavia and get down to the serious business with Stuart MacDiarmid and Dr Robin Tervit of finding the sheep, getting them to central locations to do all the reproductive wizardry.

Leyden tells the tale of going to one lady breeder of Finn sheep in Finland and the sheep were not around as it was summer and they were in the paddock.  With one call the whole mob came racing over as they’d been brought up with a feed bucket spending five months indoors every year during winter.  But the big laugh was when Leyden asked about a particular ewe to inspect her.  All the breeder did was call  the sheep’s name and out she trotted from the mob to be examined!  Every sheep in the flock answered to its name!

Leyden also remembers going to one Finn breeder to buy three rams, and after the negotiations, they said they’d be back to collect them as they only had a car. No problem said the breeder who put each ram in a sack tied at the neck before putting it in the car boot! 

Deal done!  But on the way home Leyden and driver stopped in a forest to check the rams, and on opening the boot, one ram that had got out of its sack jumped out and headed for home.  It took hours to catch him Leyden said.

Leyend remembers Roger Marshall's assistance

Roger  Marshall went to Europe representing NZ sheep breeders and was  with Eric Claussen and I during the selection of the Texels and Oxford Downs in Denmark. As Roger's report showed he went to Finland before I did and inspected some of the sheep there and sent me a report on this trip.

Where the sheep came from?

Here’s a summary of the actual flocks and numbers

Breed	Country	Flock source	No. Flocks	Ewes mated	Rams mated	Donor ewes	No embryos
Oxford	Denmark	Industry	17	46	14	21	64
Texel	Denmark	Industry	18	47	11	31	136
Texel	Finland	Peksala	1	23	5	5	95
Finn	Finland	Industry	12	29	9	23	126
Finn	Finland	Kuuma	1	18	8	16	127

After being tested on each farm for maedi visna, Chlamydia and brucella ovis, the Danish sheep were assembled in a barn near Copenhagan and the Finns in a barn near Jokioinen to carry out all the treatments needed to finally end up with frozen embryos fit for transport to New Zealand. All ewes were purchased by the NZ Government except the Kuuma Finns which were leased.