[Jacob-list] Imports, primitives, color, etc

[edd bissell]

    I will agree that Hescock/Scottish background Jacobs were just one of probably many imports - but there was close to 100 years difference in time of some of the importations - from the maybe mid to late 1800s the early 1970s - and that allowed the different importations and those in England and Scottland to progress in completely different ways.  I also saw several different flock in the Northern and Eastern parts of Scottland - and saw Hescock stamped all over all of them. ......I personally found nothing that even resembled what I consider the "primitive' or "non-improved" type Jacobs that we can still find in the U.S. If some of you have access to the very rough video I made over there you can see two primary flocks that I visited - I lovedthem both.I think you have a much better handle of what you will get when you breed the Hescock/Scottish Import stock - wool type, horn set, two or four horns, etc.  Wth my particular flock that is not true - dark throws light, much smaller to mid size, varioud wool types from straingt to kempy to tight wooled to other types, fused to 4 nice horns [very few two horns - if fact I had NEVER seen a 2 horned Jacob for the first 4 or 5 years of breeding!!!] - What does this mean ???  Probably other breeds had been put into them thru the years here just as Dorsett and probably other breeds had been introduced into the English type Jacobs - over there to make a more commercially viable animal, selling on the meat market.  Over here who knows why.  Way back when there were lots and lots of little pockets of Jacobs out there - they showed up at the Exotic sales and were primabily from the midWest toward the eastern parts of the U.S. and from Canada -  have either heard or read where they were first introduced into the U.S. as a Park type sheep to some of the Eastern Estates - this sounds feasible but who knows?   

Personally I think that after the many, many years of seperation between importations that you could almost consider them as two seperate breeds - developing over many, many years into two different type animals that still have had the ability to interbreed into what we really have here today - probably hard to go backwards but it is a shame that I did not have the forethought to keep some of the old type stock that I had 20 or so years ago as was.   I think that Hatch was able to get much of the better old time stock to start his flock BUT he also introduced about 14 Reynolds ewes into them becaue of their horn quality - so here we still have primitive [for a lack of a better word for those of you who do not like that word] plus the Chicago Zoo importation genetics.  But he did not have all of them into the same pool - with the old Hatch ram being used for probably 4 or 5 years exclusively and his many, many other ewes that he bought thru the Exotic Sales, primarily Hale Brothers at Capr Ger,. Mo, he still carried on the primitime genes.  Vivian Moran, Frankfort, Ky, still has as close as I know personally to the old type ewes left.  althoug I have been "back breeding" I still have some Lesseau, Hescock, etc in my flock.  I am working with some people now to try to keep this particular bloodline [or what is left of it] it tact - Bill Reynolds and Mazie has the pure Imports - Bill Reynolds and another lady who offerend animals from up in Mass still have the Lesseau line - again as I have tried to impress upon some of you - THESE LINES need to be kept as intact as possible.  

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