The Katahdin is a modern American

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 ...

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 d ...

. It is an easy-care sheep: it grows a hair coat with little wool which

moult In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is a process by which an animal casts off parts of its body to serve some beneficial purpose, either at ...

s naturally in the spring, and so does not need to be

shorn Sheep shearing is the process by which the woollen fleece of a sheep is cut off. The person who removes the sheep's wool is called a '' shearer''. Typically each adult sheep is shorn once each year (depending upon dialect, a sheep may be sai ...

. It is reared for

meat Meat is animal Tissue (biology), tissue, often muscle, that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted and farmed other animals for meat since prehistory. The Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of vertebrates, including chickens, sheep, ...

only. It was developed by a breeder named Michael Piel in

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

, and is named for

Mount Katahdin Mount Katahdin ( ) is the highest mountain in the U.S. state of Maine at . Named Katahdin, which means "Great Mountain", by the Penobscot Native Americans, it is within Northeast Piscataquis, Piscataquis County, and is the centerpiece of B ...

in that state. From about 1957 he

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 ...

a small number of African Hair Sheep from the

Virgin Islands The Virgin Islands () are an archipelago between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and northeastern Caribbean Sea, geographically forming part of the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean, Caribbean islands or West Indie ...

with various meat breeds, principally the Suffolk (sheep), Suffolk.

History

In 1957 a farmer named Michael Piel imported three African Hair Sheep – a ram and two ewes – from the island of Saint Croix in the

to his farm in Abbot, Maine. For almost twenty years he experimentally

them with sheep of a wide variety of breeds, among them the American Tunis, the Cheviot (sheep), Cheviot, the Hampshire Down, the Southdown (sheep), Southdown, the Suffolk (sheep), Suffolk and other English Down breeds. All but the Suffolk crosses were eventually discarded, and a flock of about 120 breeding ewes was selected. In the 1970s he experimented with cross-breeding with the Wiltshire Horn, the only naturally-moulting English sheep; after his death in 1976, his widow took steps to breed out unwanted characteristics of this cross including the horns, the lower prolificacy and the reduced ease of handling. A breed society, Katahdin Hair Sheep International, was formed in 1985, and a flock-book was started. The Katahdin was formerly an endangered breed, included on the watchlist of the Livestock Conservancy; it was removed ("graduated") in 2013. In 2024 its conservation status was listed in DAD-IS as "not at risk"; the world-wide population was estimated at , of which approximately 85% was in the United States. The sheep were also present in Canada and in sixteen other countries, principally in the Caribbean, in Central America and in South America.

Characteristics

The Katahdin is of medium size: the average weight for ewes is approximately and for rams about . The sheep may be of any colour, and are usually naturally polled (livestock), polled (hornless). The Katahdin has the typical characteristics common to hair sheep: it has an outer coat of fine hair, and in winter may grow a wool undercoat which moults naturally in the spring, so that it does not need to be

; it is tolerant of hot and humid climatic conditions, and has good resistance to parasites including some gastrointestinal nematodes resistant to anthelmintic drugs; ewes are to some extent aseasonal and capable of breeding in the spring.

Use

The Katahdin is reared for mutton and lamb, meat. The lambing rate is some 168%.

Notes

References

{{Sheep breeds of Canada and the United States Sheep breeds Sheep breeds originating in the United States