The Texel is a Dutch

breed A breed is a specific group of breedable domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the same species. In literature, there exist seve ...

domestic sheep Sheep (: sheep) or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are a domesticated, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to ...

originally from the island of

Texel Texel (; Texels dialect: ) is a municipality and an island with a population of 13,643 in North Holland, Netherlands. It is the largest and most populated island of the West Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea. The island is situated north of Den ...

. It is a heavy and muscular sheep, and produces a lean meat carcass. It is polled, clean-faced and clean-legged, with white face and wool. The fibre diameter of the wool averages about , with a staple length of ; it is used mainly for knitting and

hosiery Hosiery, (, ) also referred to as legwear, describes garments worn directly on the foot, feet and human leg, legs. The term originated as the collective term for products of which a maker or seller is termed a hosier; and those products are also ...

wools. The Texel is distributed in approximately thirty-five countries in Europe, the Americas and Oceania, with estimated populations of over 5000 head in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom.

History

The Texel sheep originated on the island of

, the largest of the Wadden Islands off the north coast of

the Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. The exact origin of the breed is unknown although it is thought to be a cross of the original Texel sheep with multiple English breeds. It was slowly bred into a meat breed of outstanding carcass quality. It is now one of the most common meat breeds in the Netherlands, making up seventy percent of the national flock.

United Kingdom

Stock imported from France by the Animal Breeding Research Organisation in Scotland in 1970 was

cross-bred A crossbreed is an organism with purebred parents of two different breeds, varieties, or populations. A domestic animal of unknown ancestry, where the breed status of only one parent or grandparent is known, may also be called a crossbreed though ...

with a variety of British breeds including the Border Leicester, Hampshire Down,

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area, and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest city in the East Midlands with a popula ...

Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the 16th president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincoln (na ...

and Southdown, leading to the development of the British Texel; a

herd-book A breed registry, also known as a herdbook, studbook or register, in animal husbandry, the hobby of animal fancy, is an official list of animals within a specific breed whose parents are known. Animals are usually registered by their breeders wh ...

was started in 1972. It is larger and heavier than the original Dutch stock, with weights to for rams and for ewes. It is the most numerous British breed, with a population in the early twenty-first century of some ewes. Some of the sheep are valuable: a ram lamb was sold in

Lanark Lanark ( ; ; ) is a town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, located 20 kilometres to the south-east of Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Hamilton. The town lies on the River Clyde, at its confluence with Mouse Water. In 2016, the town had a populatio ...

in 2009 for £, and in 2020 another was auctioned for almost £.

Peru

In 1951, Texel sheep breeder and exporter Herman J. Keijser of

Den Burg Den Burg is a town in the Dutch province of North Holland. It is a part of the municipality of Texel on the island of the same name, and lies about 12 km north of Den Helder. Overview Located in the middle of the island, Den Burg is the lar ...

exported 100 Texel ewes and rams to Peru on the cargo ship Baarn, where their stocks were used for both meat and wool.

Characteristics

A mutation in the

3' UTR In molecular genetics, the three prime untranslated region (3′-UTR) is the section of messenger RNA (mRNA) that immediately follows the translation (biology), translation termination codon. The 3′-UTR often contains regulatory regions that P ...

of the

myostatin Myostatin (also known as growth differentiation factor 8, abbreviated GDF8) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''MSTN'' gene. Myostatin is a myokine that is produced and released by myocytes and acts on muscle cells to inhibit muscle ...

gene in Texel sheep creates target sites for the

microRNA Micro ribonucleic acid (microRNA, miRNA, μRNA) are small, single-stranded, non-coding RNA molecules containing 21–23 nucleotides. Found in plants, animals, and even some viruses, miRNAs are involved in RNA silencing and post-transcr ...

s miR-1 and miR-206. This is likely to be the genetic cause of the muscular phenotype of this breed of sheep.

References

External links

AustralianTexel Stud Breeders Association

British Texel Sheep Society

Blue Texel Sheep Society 2016 Flockbook
Sheep breeds Sheep breeds originating in the Netherlands {{bots, deny=Citation bot