Beltex Sheep in France

The Beltex Breeder's Yearbook 2009

The early pioneers who imported Beltex sheep into the UK overcame many problems on their way to firmly establishing the breed into British culture.  A family from Belgium who tried to do the same thing in France found that the people there were not quite so keen to embrace the double muscled invaders.

For the Verberckmoes family the chance to change from hobby farming a small flock of Beltex sheep in Belgium to owning a 260 ha farm in France was too great a lure to resist.  In 1985 they moved to Trans Sur Erdre in South Brittany to take up a life which was to revolve around the commercial production of prime lambs.

The policy, in the region, at that time, was to run Rouge ewes and to cross them with a Charollais ram but it wasn’t long before the newcomers began to have their doubts about this regime.  Initially they were unhappy with the conformation of the carcases that were produced from the Rouge ewes.  But, after two cold lambing periods when huge losses were incurred because of the bare skinned Charollais lambs they were convinced that changes had to be made.   The first change that was made was to replace the Charollais rams with French Texels.  This certainly improved the survival rates of the newborn lambs.  However, the conformation of the lambs was still disappointing compared to the Beltex sheep that they used to own in Belgium.  So, in 1988 they decided to import Beltex rams to use on their, ever growing, flock.   An open day was organised to introduce this new breed of sheep to the farmers in their local cooperative.  Quite a bit of interest was stirred up on the day but finally the local sheep men decided that these Beltex rams were somehow un-natural and they were more than just a little wary of their unusual double muscling.

The following year, however, the Beltex sired lambs sold by the Verberckmoes family drew a lot of attention in the locality.  It transpired that when they were marketed through their local cooperative the lambs all graded E’s and U’s.  That kind of news was hard to ignore and slowly but surely interest in this new breed began to grow in the area.  Soon the Verberkmoes’ replaced their Rouge ewes with Beltex and Beltex cross Texel ewes and a good trade in ram lambs and shearling rams soon developed. 

However, along with this upsurge of interest there also came a great deal of resentment.  The local ram breeders, who could see that their businesses were being affected by this foreign breed, were most unhappy.   Vendeen, Rouge and even the local Texel breeders demonised these new Beltex sheep.  They were so vociferous and effective in their lobbying that the breed was excluded from being eligible for one of the local subsidies.  This was a subsidy which was available to farmers to assist the purchase of replacement breeding stock.  This exemption put the Verbeckmoes’ business at a huge disadvantage and made their Beltex and Beltex cross breeding stock less attractive to prospective buyers and so the family decided that one more change had to be made to their stocking policy. 

This next change was to be even more radical than what had gone before but it was seen as being vital to the viability of the prime lamb production from the flock.  They decided that they needed a ewe which would be easier to manage than the Texel ewes that they had at that time.  This ewe would need to reduce their lambing problems; produce more lambs and still maintain a high standard of carcass grades.  The answer they came up with was to import their breeding females from the UK. After all, the UK had a proven track record for producing top class hybrid females. 

In the late nineties the first batches of Mules were imported…Oh la la!  If the locals had been unimpressed with Beltex sheep, the shock of seeing mule ewes grazing French pasture was almost too much for them to cope with.  The UK Mule was soon hailed, by the local sheep farmers, as being far too “exotic” to be a serious proposition and they concluded that - the venture would be sure to fail.

But, au contraire, the pundits have been proved wrong.  A decade later the farm now carries a stock of 2000 ewes which have all been imported from the UK.  The majority of these females are by a terminal sire out of a mule ewe with some straight mule ewes still being imported.  Of course, as you would expect, the terminal sires used on the flock are Beltex.  The rams are still imported from Belgium, although in recent years because of Bluetongue restrictions in Belgium rams have been sourced in the UK and in particular from Northern Ireland.  However, the havoc caused by FMD and BTV restrictions in successive years have brought the Verberckmoes family to the conclusion that they will begin to re-establish a purebred flock of Beltex for their own use.

Willem Verberckmoes, who now runs the very successful family farm, is philosophical about the future of sheep farming in France.  Like here in the UK, he feels, it is difficult to be adequately rewarded for your effort.  He is, however, convinced that the blend of using a UK mule cross ewe and a Beltex ram is by far superior to any other combination to be found in Europe.  He concludes that, “No other breed can beat the outstanding meat qualities of the Beltex - it is simply the best.” 

Sentiments we here would all agree with, I’m sure.

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