New Zealand agricultural history. No 4. Importing exotic sheep breeds

First MAF importation

Selecting sheep for importation

Organising the sheep before transport to New Zealand

Summary of events

By Dr Clive Dalton

 Summary of events

• Importation date: 1972.
•  Breeds: Finnish Landrace, East Friesian, Oldenburg (German White Headed Mutton) and Oxford Down.
•  Where located: Animals selected and purchased (or leased) in UK and Ireland, and mated on their farms of origin.
• Mode of import:  Purebred pregnant ewes and some rams from UK to maximum quarantine station on Somes Island in Wellington.
• Multiplication. Imported purebred rams joined with purebred ewes to produce purebred offspring for second lamb crop.
• Imported purebred ewes then moved to further maximum quarantine on Mana Island, 10 km north of Wellington with balance slaughtered on Somes.  
•  Romney and Coopworth ewes were taken to Mana to be mated to purebred sires to produce crossbred progeny, each generation increasing the proportion of exotic genes. 
• Work on Mana continued for 4 years.  
•  In June 1976, sheep from the expanding flock on Mana were transferred to the Lands and Survey ‘Crater’ block near Rotorua.
• Routine histopathological monitoring of sheep brains on Mana found Scrapie in one East Friesian ewe in 1974.  Decision made to slaughter all East Friesians, but retain their progeny along with other breeds but extending quarantine another 5 years.
•   In 1978 continual brain monitoring on Mana sheep confirmed more cases of Scrapie. 
•  Slaughter of 1900 sheep on Mana and 5192 at Crater ordered in 1978.
• Release date:  None.  

 

Selecting sheep for importation
 

Dr Neil Clarke

Selecting individual sheep as a representative of a breed is never an easy task, as differences within breeds are always greater than differences between breeds. Sadly this is a much-ignored fact in animal breeding.

The task of selecting sheep for the 1972 importation fell to Dr Neil Clarke from the Ruakura Genetics Section. His first job was to find suitable flocks in UK and Ireland that would have sheep for sale, and this Neil said took hours of work from New Zealand by letter and phone calls through our night. The Internet was not firing in the 1970s.

Then when that was sorted, Neil spent over a month in UK and Ireland, along with a Kiwi veterinarian who was the offsider for the NZ Veterinary Liaison Officer resident in the NZ High Commission in London. The vet assigned to Neil had to help inspect flocks that had sheep available with the required performance data, structural soundness, and health clearances to meet NZ standards. 

Neil said it was a full-on job with much evening homework sorting out the day’s data, writing reports and keeping in constant touch with colleagues and bureaucrats back in New Zealand. This was all during the UK night of course.

Neil said that he could have well done without his vet mate in the evenings when he had work to do, as the Kiwi vet was clearly relishing the chance to get out of London on to farms, and sample local hospitality at NZ government expense.   After the northern hemisphere sun went down well before 5pm and it was rising in NZ, it was time for Neil to start his night shift!

Organising the sheep before transport to New Zealand

Neil Clarke remembers this as a massive job although he had left for New Zealand before it started.  The ewes had to be assembled at one location in Ireland and at the Farmers' Weekly farm in UK, to be treated with the required hormones to get them all into a similar breeding cycle to be mated to lamb within a limited spread in NZ.   

This involved a massive input involving hormone treatment protocols, and he reckons that without the enormous assistance from Dr Seamus Hanrahan of the Irish Dept of Agriculture who was a master at getting top results, the show could never have got on the road to meet all the deadlines.

Then there was the genetics to sort out to avoid close matings, and ensure the genetic base of each breed was as wide as possible to maximise breeding potential for their future in New Zealand.

New Zealand agricultural history. No 6. Importing exotic sheep breeds

Finding sheep in UK and Ireland
Purebred ewes on Somes 

By Dr Clive Dalton

Finding sheep in UK and Ireland

Without going back to the official MAF Research files (if anyone would know where to look), this is what Dr Neil Clarke, previously in  Ruakura genetics remembers about the flocks he located that had sheep for purchase, and which agreed to have the required health tests done for importation to New Zealand. Most of the flocks were small so in many of them Neil said the choice was very limited.

• Finnish Landrace (UK):  Cobb; Cadzow; Animal Breeding Research Organisation (ABRO)' Farmer's Weekly farm (100 ewes).
• Finnish Landrace (Ireland): Department of Agriculture (200 ewe flock).
• East Friesian (UK).  1 flock. (Mummery breeder)
• Oldenburg – White Headed Mutton (UK).  1 flock.
• Oxford Down (UK): ABRO Cold Norton flock. 
• Oxford Down (Ireland): 1 flock.  
 

 

 Texels were high on the NZ shopping list when researching prospects from NZ, but from the flocks Neil visited when he got to UK, the chance of getting a decent sample of the breed was extremely low as the sheep were so poor.  So with much overnight communication back to NZ, he persuaded colleagues and bureaucrats to be allowed to purchase some Oldenburg White Headed Mutton sheep from one flock in UK as a form of compensation.

Also, his father the late Ted Clarke, former Director at the Whatawhata Hill Country Research Station and then Director of MAF’s Sheep and Wool Advisory Service before he retired, always thought the Oldenburg had potential for New Zealand, because it was very similar to the NZ Romney.

Neil remembers arriving at the single source flock in the west of Ireland to inspect Oxford Downs, and the farmer was busy gathering up hay around the paddock left by the baler - on to a donkey cart!  The donkey was delighted to stop work while his boss went to call the sheep.

Purebred ewes on Somes

Somes Island 2014.  Some old sheep pens still there. 
 Photo Jim Hammonds

Somes Island in Wellington harbour is about 3km from Petone and was set up as a maximum quarantine facility for cattle importations, so it didn’t need much alteration (smaller pens and wooden grating) to cope with sheep. 

 Livestock officers from MAF’s Animal Health Division’s Wellington region did the stock work on Somes, and were joined by MAF Research technical officers Tim Harvey from MAF Tokanui research farm near Te Awamutu, and Bruce Trust. 

The challenge was to get the 104 imported purebred ewes to lamb safely, and then rear their lambs successfully on their main diet of concentrate feed as there was very little outside pasture on Somes.  It was by no means a natural life for a sheep in New Zealand!

2014 photo of inside animal house on Somes Island, showing the cattle pens which had to be adapted for sheep.  
Photo Jim Hammonds

 After their first very successful lambing, the purebreds were mated again with their own breed rams that came with them, to produce a second lamb crop. So only purebreds were kept and multiplied on Somes and everything went well with the dedicated care of the staff involved.  In fact things went too well and got ahead of themselves.

Tim Harvey

Tim Harvey has many memories of Somes.  He said that the three Oxford Down rams were especially memorable as they were too big to fit into the weigh crate so they couldn’t be weighed. And one East Friesian ewe was named ‘Big Bertha’ for the same reason.   

She also had an udder like a cow so one of LOs made her a bra to prevent injuries. Sadly her out-of-control udder led to her forced demise which was such a shame after the old girl had come from the other side of the world to do what sheep are meant to do!