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SHETLANDS AND HST
By Nancy Krohn
Located in a beautiful valley in Southeastern Minnesota,
Bluff Country Shetlands is home to a small flock of 15 beautiful Shetland
sheep. Good conformation has always been the number one priority in Bluff
Country Shetlands' breeding plan. We decided to add the focus of breeding
for spots and a specific marking pattern! Although excellent conformation
and soft, dense fleece will remain a top priority, we will be breeding
towards a particular spotting pattern referred to as: HST:
Head/Socks/Tail. This pattern exhibits white areas on the head, legs and
tail of the animals that carry it. We LOVE the eye-catching quality of a
spotted Shetland, but prefer the solid color fleeces for handspinning....HST
markings give us the best of both worlds! Now we are focusing on trying to
reproduce these striking markings, consistently! ...here’s our story:
After much research and visiting Shetland Farms in three different states,
I selected the foundation animals that would be the building blocks of
Bluff Country Shetlands in early 2001. My primary focus was on excellent
conformation for my foundation flock.
We started off with 5 solid colored ewes and 2 rams. My rams were
"Dillon", a 2 year old grey (born flecket) and a black & white ram lamb
named Zorro. I purchased Zorro and Dillon from Nancy & Jerome Larsen, of
Sheepy Hollow Shetlands. On the day that he was born, Nancy e-mailed me a
photo of Zorro, the most adorable little black & white, yuglet/sokket/bielset,
ram lamb (he looked like a Holstein calf!) and I bought him "on the spot"
(pun intended). My grey ram, Dillon, was a magnificent fellow with
beautiful, long, silver grey fleece and incredible double spiral horns.
Zorro has black, single-coated fleece, crimpy and very fine. I figured the
two boys would make good crosses on each others daughters. I wasn’t
particularly concerned about markings. I was more interested in producing
sound, well conformed lambs and was working towards an "intermediate" type
fleece ~ longer stapled than a single coat, but very dense, with nice
crimp and very soft and fine.
After having raised several lamb crops, it was becoming apparent that we
were really drawn to the spotted lambs. However, as much as we absolutely
love the flashiness of those spotted babies, I prefer a solid colored
fleece for carding and spinning. Therefore, we decided to narrow our quest
for spots down to one specific pattern: HST (Head/Socks/Tail) ~ solid
colored Shetlands with white on the faces, legs and tails. This, to us, is
the best of both worlds.
With the help of Peter Hardman (long-time Shetland sheep and cattle
breeder in the UK), I developed a "scale" that illustrates the progression
of spotting which seems to lead to the HST markings I so desire.
THE HST
SCALE (Applied to solid color sheep):
"0"
~ Has no visible white markings, but carryies spotting genetics
(first generation).
"1" ~ Has a 'splash' of
white on it's head, at birth, that would probably fade as the lamb
matures.
"2" ~ Has permanent white markings on it’s head.
"3" ~ Has white anklets or socks on 1 to
3 of its legs,
permanent facial markings (krunet/blesset/yuglet, etc.) and, possibly, a white tip to it's tail.
"4" ~ Has yuglet, smirslet, or large krunet markings on its head, white
socks on 3 to 4 legs but not necessarily over the pastern, and a
white tail.
"5" ~ Typically has yuglet or smirslet markings on the head, all
4 legs
have white stockings that extend above the pasterns, and a white tail.
One of the things we like the most about our breeding program is that,
because our first emphasis is on conformation, our lambs are of
consistently good quality, regardless of markings. This is important to us
because it allows us to find good homes for the lambs that don't exhibit
the higher numbers on the HST scale.
You can view a more detailed version of the HST scale, along with
accompanying photographs, showing examples of the various "levels" of HST,
on our web site:
BLUFF
COUNTRY SHETLANDS
Dillon had sired an awesome, black/krunet ram lamb in the spring of 2003.
With great trepidation, we decided to keep him ("Bluff Country Skittles")
to replace his father in our breeding program. The way I saw it, we would
still have Dillon’s genetics but in a BLACK ram with a krunet marking. In
2004, both Skittles and Zorro sired HST lambs! Skittles first lambs were
outstanding. Our gamble (selling Dillon) had paid off!
Our 2004/05 breeding groups were specifically selected in hopes of getting
more HST lambs with intermediate fleeces. One of the theories that I’m
testing this year is that two HST’s, bred to each other, would increase
the likely-hood of producing Flecket lambs. Now, I think Flecket’s are
quite beautiful. But I’m breeding for solid body fleeces so I am trying to
limit the white markings to the head/socks/and tails. For this reason, we
will not be breeding any HST 5’s to each other. Rather, we will pair up
less spotted (HST 0 - 2’s) with HST 4’s & 5’s. Check out the 2004/2005
Breeding Groups Page on our web site to see photographs of this year’s
breeding groups. Our girls will begin lambing in the middle of April.
You’re welcome to join us in our quest and stay informed of the
progression of our breeding program. Visit our web site at:
BLUFF
COUNTRY SHETLANDS to see the results of our latest breeding
decisions...
HAPPY LAMBING EVERYONE!
Nancy and Don Krohn
Bluff Country Shetlands
Houston, MN.
nkmajik@acegroup.cc
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