The Fat-Tailed Sheep on the First Fleet; Australia's First Sheep

11 points by Y_Y 2 weeks ago|5 comments

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rikroots 2 weeks ago

Interesting article - of all parts of the lamb/mutton to eat, tail was not a cut I'd heard of before.

If we're talking sheep, then I have to put out a shout for my local breed - the Romney Marsh sheep (the sheep that conquered the world!) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romney_sheep

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pelagicAustral 2 days ago

They clip the tails when lamb marking, don't they... I don't think I've ever seen an adult sheep with its tail other than pet sheep, and you can see why they would want to cut the tail, since the wool get all messy...

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kaikai 21 hours ago

Not all sheep breeds have long tails. Primitive breeds like Icelandics have naturally short tails with minimal wool, so they don’t need to be docked.

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Aboutplants 24 hours ago

It’s honestly a little weird to see lambs with tails because they are typically docked so early after they are born. The tails are long and legit look like a 5th leg on some of them.

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AdmiralAsshat 21 hours ago

The fat tailed sheep have been domesticated for several thousand years, possibly originating in Mesopotamia. They are still cultivated in Turkey and other parts of the Middle East, IIRC.

I was always curious how long it takes that type of mutation to become a distinct strain (e.g. how many generations from the first sheep herder that saw a sheep with a fat tail and decided, either consciously or otherwise, to breed it and continue to select offspring with fat tails until it no longer required selective propagation to persist).