Cotswold sheep

Cotswold sheep are a breed of domestic sheep originating in the Cotswold hills of the southern midlands of England. It is a dual-use breed providing both meat and wool. As of 2009, this long-woolled breed is relatively rare, and is categorized as "minority" by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust of the U.K.

Cotswold sheep are usually calm and friendly. They mostly have white faces. Occasionally faces are mottled with some light gray or tan hairs. Small black spots are permissible on the "points" (non-woolly portions of legs, ears, and face), but the wool itself should be white. Hairs or “kemp” should be absent in the wool.

Cotswold hooves should be black, but are sometimes streaked with undesirable light or translucent colour. Foot rot is very uncommon in this breed. Cotswold rams occasionally have small scurs (highly discouraged) but no Cotswold should ever have full horns.

Cotswold sheep do not have the tight-flocking instinct of western range sheep, preferring to spread out and graze enclosed pastures more uniformly. Some strains of the breed are not as prone to internal parasites as others, provided their grazing is not excessively short.

By 1831, this breed was first introduced in the United States by Christopher Dunn of near Albany, New York. Importation records of Cotswold only date back to that era.

While Christopher Dunn imported only one Cotswold ram to cross on his English Leicester ewes, the resulting crosses were so impressive that they prompted William Henry Sotham (bankrolled by the Hon. Erastus Corning, also of Albany) to make extensive importations of Cotswold sheep from the flock of William Hewer of Northleach, Gloucestershire, England.

Another early contributor to American flocks was the Charles Barton Flock, of Fyfield, Northleach, England, whose owner had family records of Cotswold pedigrees going back to at least 1640.

Similar to other longwool breeds, the Cotswold was often used for crossbreeding in early times. By 1914 over 760,000 had been recorded in the U.S. and Canada by the American Cotswold Record Assn. The breed was seen as a way of adding staple length to other breeds while not reducing the size of the carcass or thickness of wool.

The main reason for its early popularity over other lustre longwools in the U.S. was because it did not require "high feeding," (in other words, large amounts of grain) in order to make good growth.

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Wikipedia