- Location
- Ceredigion, wales
Any Welsh mountains in Mexico? You could sneak some over the border before the wall goes up 
"white" black welsh mountain sheep on the other side of the pond
- Thread starter heliman500
- Start date
- Location
- Western Oregon
We've spent the last 12 years turning a Coopworth flock into Wiltshire Horn and Wiltshire Polls. Kind of started an Easy Care project a couple years ago. Since I didnt have a few thousand hill sheep to put Wiltie rams over I LAI'd some of my best high percentage Wiltie ewes with NZ Cheviot semen. It's a work in progress but I enjoy wading around in the gene pool. Making any money on your wool?
Glad to hear Martin is lucid. He's only a few miles from us and we'll be going over for our pre-trip briefing when we finish this worming/weaning thing. Dan Macon does kind of a cool blog that I enjoy in that foothills area.
Jon
- Location
- Western Oregon
heliman500
New Member
@dogjon Your development sounds really interesting Jon. I know the Wiltshire do really well on dry land, would be good for down here. No wool production yet but it will definitely be an avenue we explore. I found the blog, flying mule I believe, thats not far at all so I may have to give him a shout. Thanks for all the great information.
OogieM
Member
Here is a detailed article on how the colors work in the North American Black Welsh Mountain Sheep population It was published in the Black Welsh Mountain newsletter in 2012
As several of you know we have had a few lambs born into purebred registered Black Welsh Mountain sheep flocks that are off color. Most of the lambs have been a chocolate brown or morrit color but there have been at least 3 white lambs born. This article describes the research I have done on these off color sheep, and how the registry will be handling them. I know it’s long but there I a lot of data to cover. I presume readers have a basic understanding of genetics and gene expression.
Black Welsh Mountain sheep are one segment of the larger group of Welsh Mountain sheep. To look at why we may be seeing these odd colored lambs now we need to look at the history of the Welsh Mountain breeds.
In “A History of Sheep Breeds in Britain” by M.L. Ryder 1964 he describes the documentation that exists dating from Roman times to medieval times about sheep in the British Isles. The first sheep to arrive were brown Soay types. Next came white faced horned in rams only and lastly black faced horned. Within this structure the Welsh Mountain sheep are in the same general grouping as the Shetland, Herdwick, Cheviot and Radnor, the white faced, horned mountain sheep. We know from manuscripts dating to the 1400’s that the black color variety was being selected and bred specifically to provide black wool, primarily for church use. Black is a very difficult color to dye with natural dyestuffs and black sheep were important to provide the black wool used for church garments and vestments for some sects.
The concept of breed is very modern, not really becoming known until the late 1800s. Up until then it is likely that the majority of Welsh Mountain sheep were bred in large flocks of mixed colors with only limited attempts to keep the colors and patterns separate.
It is during this time that the many different Welsh Mountain types were developed. In Wales nearly every valley or subset of land has it’s own base of Welsh Mountain sheep, Although they are now all collected together in the major registries for pedigree sheep there are still varieties known and purchased separately even within the larger White Welsh mountain breed. Modern shepherds may buy Talybont, Nelson, South, Glamorgan, Penderyn, LLandovery, Bryncir, Tregaron and white face Welsh ewes just to mention the ones I have seen or heard about. All these sheep may, if from pedigree flocks may be registered as White Welsh Mountain or South Welsh Mountain sheep yet they posess different characteristics and traits and are bought and sold as varieties within the larger breed structure.
Within the color types there are a number of different ones. Badgerface Welsh come in 2 color variations, torddu, an off white, grey or tan body with black badgerface markings, and torwen a black or dark brown body with lighter badgerface markings. The breed society for Badgerface Welsh Mountain sheep was formed in 1976 and their history indicates that badgerface markings are known in White welsh flocks even now.
The Balwen Welsh Mountain is a pattern on solid colored sheep that originated in the Tywi valley in Wales. Balwen Welsh Moutntain sheep are black , dark brown or grey with white blaze faces, white tips to their tails and white feet. The Balwen Society was formed in 1985.
The Black Welsh Mountain sheep society in the UK is older as the blacks had a longer history of being separated from the other Welsh mountain breeds. It was formed in 1920 and was primarily formed to improve the meat production of Black Welsh Mountain sheep.
With this history it’s clear that the genes for other colors have in the past been found in the Welsh Mountain sheep and that other colors still exist in the modern Welsh Mountain sheep breeds.
Although the pedigree and registry records of Black Welsh Mountain Sheep in North America are as accurate as I can possibly make them there is always the possibility that these off color lambs are the result of accidental crossbreeding with other breeds of sheep. In some cases the off color lambs were born on farms that contained one or more other breeds of sheep at the same time. Rams can wander and fences aren’t perfect so it is reasonable to assume that there is the possibility of crossbreeding in any farm that has more than one breed of sheep present. The breeds of sheep that were in the flocks where potential crossbreeding could have occurred were Shetland, Southdown and Navajo Churro.
One way to look at this is to see if the genotypes of the sheep involved are more similar to other Black Welsh or include genes from these other breeds of sheep. Through our research as a cooperating flock for the USDA NAGP program we have provided a number of semen and blood samples from our flock of registered Black Welsh Mountain sheep. These samples were analyzed in the context of a study of the overall genetic diversity within the US sheep industry by NAGP staff. Some of the sheep whose blood was sampled are the direct descendants of sheep who have produced chocolate or white colored lambs. Samples from the recently imported semen were also included in this testing. The USDA research did not look at the Black Welsh separately but instead looked at the breed as a whole and what other breeds they were close to. The average number of alleles in the Black Welsh breed was 3.75. This was the lowest numbers of alleles present representing very little genetic diversity within the breed. The analysis also compared the relatedness of the breeds. The closest breed to the Black Welsh Mountain genetically was Hog Island sheep. However even this relationship was not very close. Southdown sheep are diametrically opposite the Black Welsh data and Navajo Churro were also very far apart. No Shetland sheep were tested. However from Ryder’s work the Shetland breeds are very far apart genetically from the Welsh Mountain breeds. There is no genetic evidence that the Black Welsh Mountain samples we provided contained any genetic component from other breeds. Now this is not perfect, not all Black Welsh have been tested. We do not have any information regarding Shetland sheep so we cannot rule out a Shetland component. The sampling and procedures may not see tiny differences and there may be other factors affecting the results but I have a high degree of confidence that the lambs that were purported to be purebred Black Welsh but were of some other color are actually in fact Welsh Mountain sheep.
Next we need to get a basic background in sheep color genetics to understand why we may be seeing these sheep now in the North American population.
The color of any particular lamb is controlled by the genetic makeup of that lambs. Sheep color is complex with patterns and shades but this short primer will explain the genetic basis behind both white and chocolate lambs being born in Black Welsh Mountain sheep flocks.
Since sheep have been selected for many thousands of years to be white the genetics of coat color expression in sheep is a bit complex. For our purposes we really only care about 3 loci, the Agouti site, the Black//Brown site and the Extension site. I will ignore the various spotting genes that exist as they are unlikely to be in Welsh Mountain sheep although the pattern of Balwen Welsh mountain may be either a spotting pattern or a specific dilution similar to how Siamese cats end up with points and bay horses have black points. For each of those three loci I will discuss the gene, the common alleles found at that site and the effect on sheep coat color. Every sheep will have 2 alleles at each locus. Which specific ones they have are what determines their coat color.
The first gene we will take a look at is the Black/Brown locus. This gene contains 2 alleles, BB and Bb. The gene determines whether the pigment eumelanin will be expressed as black or brown. The first B describes the locus and the second letter is the particular allele. B is black and b is brown. Black is dominant to brown.
The second major site involved in sheep coat color is the Agouti locus. Alleles of this gene are Awt, Agt, Ag, Ab, At and Aa This gene determines which fibers will be colored and which will be white, in symmetrical patterns over the body. The first letter A designates the agouti locus. The second parts are the specific alleles found at that locus. Wt is white, gt is mouflon pattern, g is progressive greying, b is badgerface, t is wild type, the torwen of Badgerface Welsh Mountain sheep and finally a is solid colored.
The last site we are concerned with is the Extension locus. This gene contains two alleles, Ed and E+. The extension locus extends or modifies the expression of agouti gene. E+ is the recessive and allows for full expression of the agouti gene. Eb is dominant and will mask the effects of the agouti gene.
If you are familiar with other animals you will note that there is no W gene (sometimes called C) that creates a white or albino animal. White sheep are not really albinos they nearly always have pigment in their eyelids. In some species homozygous white is a lethal and that may hold true for sheep as well. I am also ignoring the D or dilution gene that is seen in horses to give dun and buckskin colors. It’s it not known if the D gene exists in sheep at all.
In simple form the first criteria is whether a sheep has black or brown pigment. In both cases it’s eumelanin but how the pigment is expressed is what determines the color. B produces black pigment and b produces brown. Obviously all Black Welsh Mountain sheep must have at least one copy of the Black allele. However, because Black is dominant to brown we cannot know for certain whether some Black Welsh carry brown or not.
The Agouti gene is what controls the expression of the pigment. Awt is a white sheep. It is considered epistatic to the color genes because it effectively hides the expression of the color by masking it with solid white. Nearly all commercial white sheep are Awt/Awt genotypes but since a few can carry other alleles at that loci that is how you can get black sheep out of white parents. Agouti also controls the pattern of pigment as described above.
E moderates the expression of the agouti gene and is the key to the off color sheep in the Black Welsh Mountain population.
Black Welsh Mountain sheep contain a high percentage of the dominant masking allele at the E locus. When you breed a Black Welsh Mountain sheep to a white sheep you will nearly always get a black sheep. This is because the lamb will inherit a copy of the extension locus that will mask the agouti locus and also a copy of the black pigment allele at the B locus. In a typical mating of a standard white sheep to a typical Black Welsh you have the following genotypes of the parents. I use the ? To denote alleles we cannot determine from looking at the sheep directly.
Awt/A? B?/B? E+/E+ This white sheep has at least one copy of the mask colors gene at the agouti locus. Because the color is masked we do not know if it carries brown or black at the B locus. And finally because the agouti is being expresses we know that it is homozygous recessive at the E locus.
A?/A? BB/B? Ed/E? This Black Welsh carries at least one copy of the dominant allele at the E locus that will hide the status of the agouti locus. We know it also carries at least one copy of black at the B locus to show the black color. It is likely that nearly all Black Welsh carry two copies of the black allele at the B locus. It’s also probable that most Black Welsh carry two copies of the dominant allele at the E locus to hide the effects of the agouti locus. It’s impossible to tell the genotype at agouti for any sheep with the dominant at the extension locus. It’s clear from this that the black coat in dominant black sheep can hide a variety of other genotypes.
When you mate these 2 sheep you can get several options for coat color of the lambs depending on what the hidden alleles are.
To see the results you need to set up a trihybrid Punnett square listing all the possible combinations of the alleles in each parent and run a test mating. There are 64 different genetic combinations with a triple cross. In our example above we can’t tell what some of the alleles are so we have insufficient data to determine the exact result of the mating. There are 2 possible gametes from the white parent and 4 from the black parent. The white sheep can provide AwtB?E+ and A?B?E+. The black sheep can provide A?BBEd, A?BBE?, A?B?Ed and A?B?E?. This smaller Punnet square produces 8 possible genotypes in the lambs who could have the following coat colors.
AwtA? BBB? EdE+ This lamb will be black. The Dominant Ed hides the white at agouti and there is black pigment available.
AwtA? BBB? E+E? This lamb could be black or white. If E? is Ed then the lamb will be black. If E? Is E+ then the lamb will be white.
AwtA? B?B? E+Ed This lamb could be black or brown. If the B?B? Form both parents is BbBb then you will have a brown lamb.
AwtA? B?B? E?E+ This lamb could be black, brown or white. White must have E+ at the E? gene. Ed at that gene plus BB at one of the B loci gives black but if both B loci are Bb and there is an Ed then the lamb will be brown.
A?A? BBB? E+Ed This lamb will be black.
A?A? BBB? E+E? This lamb is most interesting. If the E? Is E+ then the color of this lamb will depend on the genotype at the agouti locus. It could be mouflon, grey, badgerface, wild type or white.
A?A? B?B? EdE+ This lamb will be either black or brown. It depends on the alleles at the B locus.
A?A? B?B? E+E? This lamb is also very interesting. If the E? Is E+ then the color of this lamb will depend on the genotype at the agouti locus. It could be mouflon, grey, badgerface, wild type or white. If this lamb is Ed then it will depend on the color at the B locus either brown or black.
I realize this is complex but with that background let’s see what the genotype of a brown sheep needs to be.
First off we need to hide the expression of the agouti gene and let the color genes at B come through. So the brown sheep much be homozygous for EdEd. Second the brown sheep must not have black at the B locus or it would be black. So the brown sheep must be BbBb. Because the agouti allele is masked by the extension gene we don’t really know or care what the real genotype is at the A locus.
If you mate 2 such brown sheep you can effectively ignore the agouti locus making it a dihybrid Punnett square. This is very simple. There is only one type of gamete a brown sheep can produce in this example, BbEd. So all matings of 2 brown sheep should produce brown lambs.
After much consultation with geneticists and also talking to UK breeders who have produced off color lambs in their flocks this is what I believe is happening in the North American population now.
Due to the small gene pool of Black Welsh Mountain sheep in North America we are experiencing a high degree of inbreeding. At least some of the Black Welsh in North America carry the brown pigment allele at the B locus. Nearly all Black Welsh have the dominant Ed at the extension locus thereby masking the effects of the agouti locus. Over the course of breeding eventually these brown alleles match up and we suddenly have brown or chocolate Welsh Mountain sheep. If this is correct then mating two chocolate brown welsh to each other should result in all brown lambs. Gretchen Griffith has performed this experiment and to date no black lambs have been produced from the mating of two brown sheep.
So how do we explain the white sheep that have shown up in Black Welsh Mountain Flocks?
For a sheep to be white we need the agouti locus to contain at least one Awt allele and we need the Extension locus to be homozygous E+. It is known that Abbotstone Urwin, one of the rams whose semen was recently imported did sire a white lamb in a purebred Black Welsh Mountain flock on a farm that had no other sheep present. This happened after we had already imported and used the frozen semen. So we know that Urwin had to be the following genotype Awt/A? BBB? EdE+. This may be the source of the white at agouti.
In addition based on when lambs were born that were white there is at least one other source of the Awt and E+ alleles in North America.
Details of the existing off colored sheep are presented below.
The first known chocolate welsh mountain sheep produced in North America was a ewe we bred. She was born a dark liver chocolate color and was out of pure black parents. Brownie was born in 2000 and at the time my initial research led me to believe she was a freak mutation to brown. She was never registered. We kept her in our flock until her death in 2006. She was bred to Black Welsh Mountain rams and never produced another chocolate brown lamb. Brownie was severely inbred with an inbreeding coefficient of over .45. She effectively had a single male ancestor and only a couple of female ones. She was the product of several years of breeding sire to daughter and so on. This severe form of inbreeding is known to increase the chances that any recessive alleles will pair up and as we have seen a chocolate sheep is a homozygous recessive for brown and also homozygous for the dominant Ed at the extension locus.
The next known chocolate sheep were produced at Gretchen Griffith’s farm in Wisconsin in 2008. A ram was born initially black and registered as a Black Welsh Mountain sheep. As he aged he appeared to fade to a more brown color. Then in 2009 a brown ewe was born part of a triplet set out of this ram’s mother. The other 2 lambs in the litter were solid black. This ewe was bred back to her half brother, the ram born in 2008. The lambs born in 2011 from this cross were all solid chocolate brown. Again an evaluation of the pedigrees of these sheep indicates they are more inbred than the average of the Black Welsh Mountain population but not as severely as Brownie. These sheep were not registered but after discussing with Gretchen I agreed to undertake doing more research on them.
A brown lamb was born in Canada in 2011 to Val Fiddler’s flock. The pedigree of this ram shows common ancestors with both Brownie and the Griffith sheep.
In 2011 Several brown lambs were born to Stanley Ward’s flock in California. Subsequently those sheep were purchased by Gretchen Griffith.
The pedigrees of all these sheep are very similar.
There was a single white lamb produced out of a cross between a Black Welsh and a white sheep in 2008.
Then in Canada two white lambs were produced out of Black Welsh parents in 2011 at Becky Bemus’ flock. These white lambs have brown points and look almost exactly like current south Welsh Mountain sheep in the UK. I am still evaluating the pedigrees of these sheep.
Given this history the issue now is what to do with these sheep.
They cannot be registered as Black Welsh Mountain sheep, they are not black and do not meed the breed standard. However both Moorit and White are valuable wool colors and these sheep are good sheep with much to offer the fiber artist.
It turns out it is relatively easy to add a separate class of sheep to the registry software database. So as of now I have the chocolate sheep registered in a separate section, the C- appendix. I am similarly registering the white sheep in a separate section, the W- appendix. The data are linked in the existing system so we can track the pedigrees from the parent Black Welsh Mountain source. However since these are not Black Welsh Mountain sheep they are not part of the American Black Welsh MountainsSheep Association. I will produce registration papers in two newly formed registries. The Chocolate Welsh Mountain Sheep Association and the White Welsh Mountain Sheep Association.
I feel the situation is similar to the formation of the red and black Angus registries and that we don’t want to necessarily throw out these sheep entirely although they need to remain separate from the Black Welsh Mountain.
In many other species the less favored colors were initially weeded out and then eventually developed into their own separate registry. I feel that we can allow the breeding of Chocolate and White Welsh Mountain sheep alongside the Black Welsh Mountain ones without any ill effects on the Blacks. Starting a separate registry for them now will be easier to do than trying to re-create pedigrees at some time in the future.
If any breeder produces off colored Welsh Mountain sheep I would appreciate hearing about them. I know that Gretchen Griffith is interested in purchasing any brown lambs that anyone produces and I believe that Becky Bemus and Val Fiddler are also interested in off colored Welsh in Canada. I personally would be interested in any white lambs that might get produced.
Works Cited
Blackburn, H.D., Paiva, S.R, Wildeus, S, Getz W.,Waldron, W., Stobart, R., Bixby, D., Purdy, P.H., Welsh, C., Spiller,S., and Brown, M. Genetic Structure and diversity among sheep breeds in the Unites States: Identification of the major gene pools. J ANIM SCI 2011, 89:2336-2348 doi: 10.2527/jas.2010-3354 originally published online March 7 2011.
Ryder, M.L. The History of Sheep Breeds in Britain. British Agricultural History Society 1964. Print and online at www.bahs.org.uk.
Ryder, M.L. The History of Sheep Breeds in Britain Part 2. British Agricultural History Society 1964. Print and online at www.bahs.org.uk.
OogieM
Member
It is currently not legal to export live sheep from the UK to the US. Nor can we export from Canada. Semen is allowed but the testing procedures are causing problems as rams being collected fail their post collection testing and then the semen must be destroyed.
We did import Black Welsh semen from the UK from 3 different rams to add to the population in North America in the late 1990's and again in early 2000s.
OogieM
Member
There are no Welsh Mountain sheep of any color variety in Australia or New Zealand as far as I know and I've been asking and searching for over 20 years..
OogieM
Member
Give me a call and I can tell you the tale of my attempts to import semen over the last 7 years. I even bought and owned a ram in teh UK ready for collection before the latest snafu.
However, once we do finally get it, which is likely in the next 10 years, we have a very inexpensive non-surgicl AI procedure that in Black Welsh works as well as the laproscopic one at a fraction of the cost. less than $15 + semen costs vs $750 plus semen.
We've been participating in research with the USDA for 13 years to develop the procedure and have published the findings this year.
OogieM
Member
There was a recent DNA study done that traces the Black Welsh to older Viking sheep more closely than existing White Welsh Mountain breeds. We've also participated in a DNA study comparing breed of sheep int eh US and the BWMS are totally unrelated to any other North American sheep for which we have DNA at the national gene bank at NAGP. A quick search for Dr. Phil Purdy and Dr. Harvey Blackburn should get you to that study her ein teh US while Dr. Sarah Beynon in the UK did the study that traced them to Viking sheep in 2015.
OogieM
Member
I posted a very long detailed explanation of color and the genetics behind it in North American Black Welsh Mountain sheep but it's currently waiting for moderation. If anyone wants the PDF of the newsletter or a copy of the article I can e-mail it. Send a message to me at sales @ desertweyr.com and I'll send it to you.
heliman500
New Member
@OogieM Oogie, I have only just noticed and read your great response on this topic. I can't thank you enough. Prior to your response appearing on this thread, I had done some further research to try and gain a better understanding of the genetics, however there was still much to be answered. Your input has really helped clarify many of my questions. Since first posting my question I did source a white patterned Welsh Ram lamb from a farm in Iowa. He is now with me in California. I will email you over some pictures. Thanks again, Adam
OogieM
Member
I know of one lamb born in North America into a flock of purebred Black Welsh Mountain sheep on a farm with no other sheep present that had the markings of a Balwen Welsh Mountain sheep.
Spotting is yet another whole kettle of worms and I haven't yet satisfied myself of what is happening genetically with this lamb. He was neutered and is a pet wether. I'd love to see the pedigree of the sheep you found and compare it as that might give me some information on the spotting gene in North American BWMS. The Balwens in the UK have the youngest registry of all the Welsh Mountain breeds and were formed from a rather highly inbred flock in a single valley. However the genes for spotting can and probably do exist in the larger Welsh sheep populations in very small numbers.
NZDan
Member
- Location
- Broomfield, New Zealand
How did that Wiltshire ram of mine do for you in the end?
NZDan
Member
- Location
- Broomfield, New Zealand
I"d be very keen to see these findings when they are published.
- Location
- Western Oregon
Sorry for the slow response Dan. We are just back from a 2 week trip to Ireland and Wales and I Had trouble getting on this board during that time. The Whatawhata ram did very well for us in 2008. Lots of grandchildren on the place, Still doing well for us. Got 3 ram lambs and 2 ewe lambs out of that semen this year. Sent a buyer your way for any that was still available as I wasnt willing to sell him the few straws we have left, I'll be expecting a commission if it works out.
NZDan
Member
- Location
- Broomfield, New Zealand
Great to hear. yes there is still some semen left that qualifies for US and OZ. I'll look forward to hearing from him.