Bye Bye to The Blues.

Dumfries and Galloway Standard July 2008

June 2008 was significant for me, in that, it brought to an end my years of active involvement in the Bluefaced Leicester Sheep Breeders Association.  I made the decision three years ago that I would not seek re-election to the breed’s council of management when my term as national chairman came to an end.  It was a decision based on my belief that it’s not healthy for yesterday’s men to hang around for too long.  Innovation and progress is often held back when management committees become clogged up with people who have had their day.

The Bluefaced Leicester sheep breed is one that I’ve had a love hate relationship with for thirty years.  I love the fact that they produce a mule ewe that is ideal for lowland prime lamb production when they are mated with a Blackfaced ewe and I hate the fact that I have to keep them for that purpose alone. 

The business of breeding mules is an inexact science that is further complicated because the types of Bluefaced Leicesters that are favoured in the show-ring, as a general rule, do not breed the types of Mules that carry away the prizes in the mule show-ring or that gain the top prices at the mule lamb sales.

The Bluefaced Leicester breed itself was made from the all the bits that were rejected when they were developing the Border Leicester, about hundred years ago.  The only thing that was to be blue about the Border Leicester was the blood that surged round its regal veins; everything else apart from its nose, eyes and feet was to be white.  Any Border Leicester that had dark pigmentation in its skin or brown blemishes in its hair or the inability to produce a large heavy fleece was ruthlessly culled to maintain the “purity” of the breed, as was decreed by the members of the Border Leicester Sheep Breeders Association.

Consistent with human nature some people rather liked these outcasts and to cut a long story short a new breed was cobbled together from this hotchpotch of miscreants.  This new breed had a finer and lighter fleece and eventually developed a blue hue in the skin on its face and ears.  It was so successful in breeding the type of cross ewe that the market required that this new type of Leicester even began to rival the Border Leicester in popularity during the last half of the twentieth century. 

In 1963 an association was formed and in what seemed like a stroke of marketing genius this new breed was branded the “Bluefaced” Leicester to make it quite distinguishable and separate from its white-faced ancestor. 

The fairy tale continued and in the last forty years the humble Bluefaced Leicester has knocked the proud Border Leicester off its throne as being the top crossing sire in the UK.  The Border Leicester breed has now been consigned to the backwaters of mainstream sheep farming in the UK where the stalwarts of the breed still peer into the ears and under the hair on their animals to check for any signs of “impurity”.

You would think that if you were writing the story about the Bluefaced Leicester this would be a good time to end. But, no the story has taken another interesting twist in recent years.

The Bluefaced Leicester breed has continued to evolve in order to satisfy the market’s demand for mules.  The problem is that, currently, the animals in most demand don’t fit the description of the breed as it was laid down by the parent association.  Brown patches have appeared on the face and legs of the Bluefaced Leicesters that are most sought after, they have been dubbed “Crossing Leicesters”.

The appearance of these animals has been met with indignation by some members of the Bluefaced Leicester association.  They protest that these animals with their ever increasing amounts of brown hair on their face and legs compromise the “purity” of the breed.

Can you see where this is heading? Is history repeating itself?  Will the Bluefaced Leicester breeders eventually join the Border Leicester breeders in the backwaters; diligently checking for brown hair and other such “impurities”?  While the new “Crossing Leicesters” take their place on the throne as being the top crossing sire in the UK.

Back