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With the development of industrial technologies, sheep begin to repeat the fate of skinned rabbits, the demand for skins of which is not great today. Synthetic materials today are often warmer than natural furs, and advocates of organic products are also in no hurry to buy natural furs, since in order to obtain natural fur, you need to kill an animal.
Sheep do not need to be killed to obtain wool, but wool is more expensive than synthetic winterizer, and it warms worse. Status wool products today are made from llama and alpaca wool with the addition of angora goat or angora rabbit wool. Even the wool of merino sheep began to be valued lower. Rough sheep’s wool is practically worthless. Sheepskin coats made of sheepskin also went out of fashion.
It is the low demand for coarse wool sheepskins that the Katum breed of meat sheep owes its appearance to.
Katumsky sheep are a young breed, more precisely, it is not a breed yet, it is a breed group of sheep, made up of crossbreeds of Romanov coat sheep with the American meat breed of Katadin sheep. The first mention of Katum sheep is found only in 2013.
The breed group got its name from the locality in the Leningrad region, where it began to be bred. The farm that breeds the Katum breed group of sheep is also called “Katumy” today.
Motives for the appearance of the Katum breed group of sheep
Owners of private household plots “Katumy” started breeding sheep in the 90s. At that time, these were Romanov coarse-wooled sheep – an excellent breed, well adapted to the climate and characterized by multiple pregnancies.
But it turned out that the main product of the Romanov sheep – skins – is no longer popular due to the emergence of new materials for clothing. The quality of the meat of the Romanov sheep, although it was not bad, was not enough to pay off the production.
The Romanov sheep spent too much of their body’s resources growing their famous fur coat instead of building muscle mass.
The owners of “Katuma” began to look for other ways to develop production. They needed a sheep well adapted to the climate, unpretentious in nutrition, prolific, with good (broiler) live weight gain. There is no required breed in Our Country. There are either merino, or fur coat, or meat-greasy breeds. And what was needed was a meat breed that was not prone to accumulating fat.
The required breed was found in the USA. The same problem exists there: the demand for sheepskins and sheep’s wool is falling, while mutton is growing. The American meat breed Katahdin was bred in the state of Maine in the second half of the XNUMXth century for the same reasons that the owners of Katuma undertook to breed the meat breed: low demand for wool and high for meat.
Pictured is a Katada ewe with two lambs.
In America, the demand for smooth-haired meat sheep is growing, and breeding individuals are also becoming more expensive.
Elite rams Katadin were imported from the United States to the Leningrad region and crossed with ewes of the Romanov breed.
The goal was to return to the wild variant of the coat in animals with the elimination of the long hair mutation and a high yield of quality meat from the carcass.
It was impossible to simply bring katadins to Our Country, since the goal was to obtain a breed that would give birth like Romanov sheep (3-4 lambs per lamb) and be capable of year-round breeding and, at the same time, like katadins, well fatten up muscle mass in the absence of wool , which must be cut at least once a year.
Description of the breed group of Katum sheep
The selection of the Katumians was carried out harshly, individuals that did not meet the necessary requirements were ruthlessly culled. As a result, today, although it is too early to register the breed group as a new breed, the desired features are clearly visible in the population:
- ordinary natural wool of a wild animal;
- multiplicity of Romanov goats;
- the ability to come into the hunt and lamb year-round;
- good gain in muscle mass. Monthly lambs weigh 12 – 15 kg;
- excellent taste of meat. If you believe those who tried Katum lamb at the Golden Autumn agricultural exhibition in 2014.
Breeders themselves note that the meat of their sheep, in its characteristics, is fundamentally different from ordinary lamb in the absence of a specific flavor and resembles veal.
The color of animals in the population is mainly fawn or light red with a slight piebald.
Advantages of the Katum breed group:
- large size. Sheep grow up to 110 kg. Ewes up to 80 kg;
- short hair, although, judging by the photo, the influence of Romanov queens is still felt and Katums are not truly smooth-haired;
- no need for a haircut;
- disease resistance inherited from katadins;
- the weight of a ram at 1,5 years is 100 kg;
- multiple pregnancy. 2 – 3 lambs per lamb – the norm for Katum people;
- the ability to endure frosts in a paddock equipped with shelter from the wind;
- long lifespan. Katumians are capable of reproduction up to 10 years;
- philosophical outlook on life, in the sense of an accommodating disposition.
In the photo, an 8-month-old ram, weight 65 kg.
Although the work with the Katumians has not yet been completed, but even now the sheep are able to overgrow with undercoat for the winter, shedding it on their own in the spring and leaving only outer hair for the summer. When keeping them outside in the cold, it is necessary to provide the sheep with hay for the possibility of self-heating. In the presence of heated drinkers with warm water, feed consumption in winter is reduced by 30%.
Some sheep breeders interested in this breed group sought out information about the influx of the mouflon to the Katum population. The owner of LPH “Katumy” denied this information. Previously, the farm bred semi-wild sheep for hunting, mixing the Romanov breed and the mouflon. In the photo, a mixture of mouflon and Romanov.
This business proved unprofitable and was closed. “Hunting” livestock sold out.
Real Katumians are hornless.
The presence of a horned individual in the flock is explained by the fact that this is not a ram, but an alpine goat, “working” as a leader in the flock of the Katum yars.
Conclusion
The question of the interested sheep breeders about whether the Katums are a breed registered in the State Register of Our Country was bypassed by the owner of the private household farm “Katumy”. Which shows, most likely, how the Katum breed has not yet been registered. This is not surprising, since no more than 8 generations of Katum sheep have been received so far. Splitting by genotype and culling of individuals that do not meet the desired standard will continue for at least 10 years before the breed group is recognized as a breed. Nevertheless, the direction is very interesting and there is no doubt that with the capabilities and knowledge of the owner of Katuma, a new breed will be registered. Now “Katums” sell extra breeding young animals to private hands and sheep breeders who are tired of shearing sheep have the opportunity to buy smooth-haired lambs with delicious meat.