Texel (sheep)

The Texel sheep or Texelaar originates from the Dutch island of Texel. Middle of the 19th century, the English breeds Lincoln, Leicester and Wensleydaleschaf were bred to obtain a better yield of wool and meat. Today's Texel sheep is a great meat sheep. Characteristic are his non- tentional and ungehörnter head with flat, but not too broad forehead.

Ewes can a weight of 70 to 80 kg at reach a shoulder height of about 68 cm. Bucks reach a weight of 90 kg and a shoulder height of 70 cm. The wool advent is about 4 to 5 kg with a virgin a year.

Dams throw an average of two lambs, only once a year, usually in spring. The lambs weigh at birth 4-5 kg. In rare cases, litters occur four or five lambs that need to be resolved feeds. The gestation period is about 20 weeks ( " five months minus five days ").

On Texel itself around 14,000 animals are kept permanently ( ie about the same number as people live on the island). In the spring of about 11,000 lambs are born. Texelaar in the Netherlands is the most commonly kept sheep breed. Throughout the Netherlands, almost 1.5 million sheep are held by around 20,000 companies, of which 70 % Texel sheep and 25 % Texel sheep crossings.

The largest number of Texel sheep now exist in New Zealand and Australia, where in the early 1990s animals from Europe were imported for breeding.