Jacob sheep

The Jacob is a British breed of domestic sheep. It combines two characteristics unusual in sheep: it is piebald – dark-coloured with areas of white wool – and it most commonly has four horns. The origin of the breed is not known; broken-coloured polycerate sheep were present in England by the middle of the seventeenth century, and were widespread a century later. A breed society was formed in 1969, and a flock book was published from 1972. The Jacob was kept for centuries as a "park sheep", to ornament the large estates of landowners. In modern times it is reared mainly for wool, meat and skins.

History The origins of the Jacob are not known. It has been bred in the British Isles for several hundred years. Sheep of this kind, little different from the modern breed, were shown in paintings from about 1760 at Tabley House in Cheshire, and – by George Stubbs – at Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire. In the de Tabley family, the tradition was that the piebald sheep had come ashore in Ireland from a wrecked ship of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and been brought to England by Sir John Byrne on his marriage. Among the many accounts of ancient breeds of piebald sheep is the story of Jacob from the Book of Genesis (Genesis 30:31–43). Jacob took every speckled and spotted sheep from his father-in-law's (Laban's) flock and bred them. Due to the resemblance to the animal described in Genesis, the Jacob sheep was named for the Biblical figure of Jacob sometime in the twentieth century. In 2009, a study which used endogenous retrovirus markers to investigate the history of sheep domestication found the Jacob to be more closely linked to sheep from Africa and South-west Asia than to other British breeds, though all domestic breeds can be traced back to an origin in the Fertile Crescent. Some believe that the modern breed is actually the same one mentioned in the Bible (although there is little genetic evidence) having accompanied the westward expansion of human civilisation through Northern Africa, Sicily, Spain and eventually England. Elisha Gootwine, a sheep expert at the Israeli Agriculture Ministry, says that the resemblance of a British breed to the Bible story is a coincidence, that the breed was not indigenous to ancient Israel, and that "Jacob Sheep are related to Jacob the same as the American Indians are related to India". The Jacob was referred to as the "Spanish sheep" for much of its early recorded history. It has been bred in England for at least 350 years, and spotted sheep were widespread in England by the mid–eighteenth century. The British landed gentry used Jacob as ornamental sheep on their estates and kept importing the sheep which probably kept the breed extant. A breed society, the Jacob Sheep Society, was formed in July 1969. Mary Cavendish, dowager Duchess of Devonshire, who had a flock of Jacob sheep at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, was the first president of the society. From 1972 onwards, the society published a flock book. Jacobs were first exported to North America in the early twentieth century. Some individuals acquired them from zoos in the 1960s and 1970s, but the breed remained rare in America until the 1980s; registration began in 1985. The first North American association for the breed, the Jacob Sheep Breeders Association, was established in 1988. The Jacob was introduced to Israel in 2016, when a small flock of about 120 head was shipped there from Canada by a couple who believed the breed is the same one mentioned in Genesis.

Conservation status In 2012 the total Jacob population in the UK was reported to the DAD-IS database of the FAO as 5638, of which 2349 were registered breeding ewes. In 2017, the Rare Breeds Survival Trust listed the Jacob in Category 6 ("Other UK Native Breeds") of its watchlist, in which categories 1–5 are for various degrees of conservation risk, and category 6 is for breeds which have more than 3000 breeding females registered in the herd-book. Small numbers of Jacobs are reported from four other countries: the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States, with conservation status in those countries ranging from critical to endangered-maintained.

Characteristics

The Jacob is a medium- to large-sized sheep; body weights are usually in the range 60–65 kg for ewes and 80–100 kg for rams. Weights in the United States are considerably lower, approximately 40–50 kg for ewes and 55–80 kg for rams. It displays two characteristics unusual in sheep: it is piebald – dark-coloured with areas of white wool – and is commonly polycerate. Unlike other European breeds that may be polycerate (such as the Hebridean or the Manx Loaghtan), broken-coloured (such as the Finnsheep or the Shetland) or both (such as the Icelandic), it does not form part of the Northern European short-tailed group of breeds. It does not have the short fluke-shaped tail typical of those breeds, but is long-tailed. The body frame is long, with a straight back and a rump that slopes toward the base of the tail. The rams have short scrotums free of wool which hold the testicles closer to the body than those of modern breeds, while the ewes have small udders free of wool that are also held closer to the body than those of modern breeds. The head is slender and triangular, and clear of wool forward of the horns and on the cheeks. The tail is long and woolly, extending almost to the hock if it has not been docked. Jacob owners do not usually dock the tail completely, even for market sheep, but instead leave several inches (several centimetres) to cover the anus and vulva. The legs are medium-length, slender, free of wool below the knees, and preferably white with or without coloured patches. The hooves are black or striped. It is not unusual for Jacobs to be cow-hocked. They provide a lean carcass with little external fat, with a high yield of meat compared to more improved breeds.

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