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The Romanov breed of sheep has been around for 200 years. She was bred in the Yaroslavl province by selecting the best representatives of the local northern short-tailed sheep.
Short-tailed sheep are very different from the southern counterparts that ousted them. First of all, these are animals that are ideally adapted to frost in the northern parts of the European continent. Northern sheep have a high-quality warm coat, which they are able to shed when molting on their own. But northern sheep are significantly inferior to southern breeds in size and productivity, which is why they were ousted from the livestock sector.
Short-tailed sheep are still preserved in some places, but they no longer play any role in industrial animal husbandry and are preserved in a semi-wild state as a reserve gene pool.
Romanov sheep, named after the place of their initial distribution - Romanovo-Borisoglebsk district, fully inherited frost resistance and medium size from their northern ancestors.
Romanov breed standard
The Romanov sheep has a well-developed strong skeleton and a dry constitution. The head is small, hook-nosed, dry, black in color. The ears are erect.
The body is barrel-shaped, the ribs are round. The top line is straight without any obvious emphasis on the withers. The back is straight and wide. The tail is short, inherited from ancestors. In rams, the tail length reaches 13 cm.
Legs are straight, wide apart, with smooth hair. Sheep of the Romanov breed can be both hornless and horned.
The sizes of sheep, as well as those of their ancestors, are small. Sheep of the Romanov breed usually weigh 65 - 75 kg. Some specimens can reach up to 100. Ewes do not exceed 90 kg with an average weight of 45 - 55 kg. Sexual dimorphism in the breed is well expressed.
The selection of the Romanov breed of sheep continues to this day. The current standard assumes a height at the withers of no more than 70 cm. The desired type of Romanov breed assumes a strong skeleton, a strong constitution, a deep and wide chest, well-developed muscles and a complete absence of horns.
Sheep should be larger than ewes, with a well-defined hunchback. The skeleton of a ram is more powerful than that of an ewe.
The coat color of Romanov sheep is bluish. Such an effect is provided by black awn and white fluff, which outgrows the outer cover. The head and legs of the Romanov sheep are black.
The photo shows purebred sheep with black heads and legs or with small white markings on the head.
Lambs from Romanov women are born black and only over time, when the undercoat grows, they change their color to bluish.
The Romanov breed of sheep gives the best sheepskins for fur products, while the meat characteristics of the breed are not very high and are more suitable for amateur sheep breeding. Sheepskins from 6 - 8 months old lambs are especially appreciated.
Coarse-haired sheep are usually sheared once a year, but Romanovs wool is sheared three times a year: March, June and October. Due to its coarse fineness, wool is used only in felting production, which is why it makes little sense to produce it.
From the Romanov sheep, they cut from 1.4 to 3.5 kg of wool per year, while other coarse-wooled breeds can produce up to 4 kg of wool per year. The Romanovskys are bred today not for wool, but for sheepskin and meat.Wool is a by-product of ewes and breeders.
Content of the Romanov breed
For a private owner, the maintenance of Romanov sheep does not present great difficulties precisely because of the origin of the breed. Bred in Russia and having short-tailed sheep well adapted to the cold in their ancestors, Romanovka calmly withstand cold temperatures down to -30 ° C. Unlike southern, more productive breeds, Romanovka do not need insulated buildings for wintering. Even in winter, they spend a significant part of their time outdoors in a corral, entering shelter only in very severe cold.
For wintering Romanov sheep, an ordinary barn without insulation and deep bedding on the floor is enough. You just need to make sure that there are no cracks in the walls of the building.
Breeding Romanov sheep at home
Romanovs are distinguished by their prolificacy and the ability to bring lambs at least 2 times a year. The usual number of lambs per lambing is 3 - 4 heads. There are often 5 lambs. 7 cubs were recorded as a record.
Ewes carry lambs for 5 months. There are 12 months in a year. Even if the ewes come into the hunt and inseminate right after the lambs are born, it will take them 5 months to carry out the next litter. Thus, it will take at least 10 months to get two lambing from one uterus. 3 lambing can be obtained only if the first one happened in the first - second month of the new year. But the ewes carried these lambs last year.
Romanovs lambs quite easily if there are no complications in the position of the fruits. With such a multiplicity, lambs are born small. But the sheep will be able to adhere without problems only if the lambs are not entangled in a ball inside the sheep. This happens when there are several lambs. If this happens, you will have to call a veterinarian or an experienced sheep breeder to figure out who owns which legs and heads.
On the one hand, the prolificacy of the Romanov sheep is a plus for the owner, allowing you to get 300 - 400% of the increase per flock, but on the other hand, the ewes have only two nipples. Strong lambs push the weaker ones away from the udder of the ewes, often preventing weak individuals from even drinking colostrum. At the same time, without receiving colostrum, the lamb will not have protection against infections, and its own immunity will not begin to develop. The sheep breeder is forced to manually milk the ewes and suck the colostrum from the teat to the lambs.
When breeding this breed, sheep breeders are forced to practice artificial feeding of lambs using milk replacers. If all the lambs are left under the uterus, then all milk replacers are fed. If someone is separated for manual feeding, then milk replacer is given only to lambs taken from the ewes.
If they do not die, they will develop very poorly, lag behind in growth and the costs for them will be greater than the returns in the future.
This is where the catch lies. Even the most expensive whole milk replacer for lambs is based on skimmed cow's milk. It is very different in composition from sheep's and can cause diarrhea in the lamb. Milk fats in milk replacer are replaced with vegetable ones. Cheap milk replacer does not contain animal proteins and fats at all, they are replaced by plant analogues. The chances that a lamb will die eating cheap milk replacer is much higher than if it was fed an expensive substitute.
Diarrhea and abdominal pain in newborn lambs - the main scourge of sheep breeders - are most often caused by precisely inappropriate food for a lamb with an undeveloped gastrointestinal tract. Cow's milk is given to lambs only from the 10th day of life, 100-200 g per day. Provided that it is possible to give them sheep, using cow's milk as a top dressing.
In the video, lambs of a different breed are manually fed, but the essence does not change. Even with the correct head and body position, the lamb eats very greedily. This greed can cause milk to spill into the underdeveloped rumen, causing tympanic symptoms and diarrhea as a result of decay and fermentation in the rumen. The mother of lambs suck at a much slower rate.
But no goat's milk or milk replacer can replace real sheep's milk for a lamb, so the second option for feeding lambs from a multiple ewes is milk from another sheep that lambed with a small number of lambs or brought stillborn babies.
Little lambs' diets at different times of the year
A general rule of thumb for lambing at any time of the year is that the ewes must be separated from the rest of the flock so that they can easily cuddle and other sheep do not trample the newborn lamb. And it will be easier to control the lambing process this way.
After lambing, when the lamb is on its feet and can run, the sheep can be placed in the flock. But if there is room, it is better to keep the ewes and their young separately from the bulk of the sheep. In this case, the queens are kept 2 - 3 heads in one pen.
Until the month of the month, the lambs suck the queens and do not need other food, although they are interested in what was given to the mother. After a month, lambs begin to accustom themselves to adult feed.
Lamb of winter lambing begins to give tender hay of better quality. First, they give soft meadow hay, then, increasing the amount of fiber, clover or alfalfa, harvested before the beginning of flowering. Then they move to the leaves from the branches.
The "spring" lambs, together with the queens, are driven to the best pastures. At the same time, mineral supplements and vitamins are added to the diet of babies, since young spring grass is still not enough for the normal development of young animals.
In the summer, newly born lambs graze with the queens. Grain feed is gradually added to their diet.
In the photo, lambs in the summer with a queen bee in the pasture. Sheep milk is clearly not enough for such a quantity of pups, and feeding with compound feed is vital for them.
Conclusion
Actually sheep breeding Romanov breed can be a very profitable business in Russia, provided that private household plots are aimed not only at breeding and obtaining offspring, but also at dressing sheepskins and sewing fur products from them. And it doesn't have to be clothes. Sheepskins are now actively used in other areas. For example, as a saddle pad in equestrian sports.
Wool sheared from Romanov sheep will also find application, since today it is quite difficult to find natural felt, it was replaced by an artificial analogue, in fact, very inferior to natural.
But in order to sell finished products, and not cheap raw materials, you need to either create a joint business with professionals working with fur, or learn how to process skins yourself.
But for keeping in a family as a small help, the Romanov sheep is quite suitable, due to its unpretentiousness and multiplicity. After slaughtering lambs at 3 months, you can get several tens of kilograms of first-class meat for yourself.
