The first sheep arrived in New Zealand with Captain James Cook in 1773. Although they coped quite well, being English breeds such as the Romney, Cheviot and Southdown, they weren’t ideally suited to their new home.
Kiwis have long been at the cutting edge of agricultural research and development, and it wasn’t long before farmers began experimenting with the cross-breeding of sheep in an attempt to exploit their particular traits, be it meat yield, wool quality or physical hardiness.
Following are two examples of sheep breeds developed here in New Zealand; the selective breeding of animals in an effort to bring you a cosier cardigan or a tastier lamb casserole.
The Drysdale
Dr Francis Dry was working as a scientist at Massey University during the 1930s and 40s when he carried out a series of experiments on the Romney breed of sheep. Some Romneys, he noticed, produced an abnormally long, coarse straight fleece – ideal for the manufacture of carpet. By identifying sheep which carried this ‘hairy’ gene and through careful breeding, Dr Dry was able to build up a flock of this new breed which he named the Drysdale. Today, there are in excess of 200,000 Drysdale sheep on New Zealand farms and they remain a favourite with carpet manufacturers who are happy to pay a premium for their fleeces.
The Perendale
The Perendale breed was developed by Professor Geoffrey Peren, also of Massey University, during the 1950s. By crossing the Cheviot with the Romney he produced a sheep that combined the desirable qualities of both breeds, one that could be farmed for both its meat as well as its wool. Perendales are exceptionally hardy sheep that require little in the way of care; they can cope with poor feed, are happy on steep hill country and for these reasons are often used to break in new farmland. They are also easy sheep to muster and make excellent mothers, all these attributes perhaps explaining why there are now over 5,000,000 Perendales on the farms of New Zealand.