For Sale
Please be aware that in 2025 we will offer very few lambs for sale at less than three months of age. Since nearly all of them are sired by the highly worm-resistant KKS 7084, we want to see how they stand up to worm challenge of a summer on just grass. The only exceptions are two striking extension-dominant natural-colored ram lambs whom we will let go soon after weaning (late May) because we don’t want to keep ex-dom rams.
Our plan as of today is to observe the entire cohort of lambs for several months, then make available as future breeding stock in the late summer those that showed the most resistance to the spring-summer worm challenge and fit the ARBA breed standard in every way.
A note on white lambs from Anchorage Caution: All our white (18) lambs born 2024 will require a BW affix on their ARBA number when registered, because their sire, Anchorage 1856/22 has a BW. This does not mean that a lamb of his “carries recessive color” due to a color allele (“gene”) at the agouti locus on chromosome 13, but there is a chance of that. Accordingly, lambs who have a BW affix because there’s a known agouti recessive ancestor fit best in a breeding program that actively wants “recessive color,” or at least would not mind if it popped up unexpectedly.
Most of our white lambs born in 2025 will, also, require a BW suffix at registration. Many will get it because they have a recessive dam and a white sire; others because their white dam or white sire or both has a BW.
Barn lore says a black spot on a white sheep’s body means the animal has a single unpaired color allele at that key locus. This is hard to prove or disprove. For this reason, programs that abhor a black spot on a white sheep or don’t want a surprise colored lamb from ostensibly white parents should be wary of BW that’s traceable to a recessively-colored ancestor, as are all of our BWs now.
In previous years we had never used a white ram with a BW affix, though we had used a white ram not of our breeding (145) with an undetected, single, recessive color allele at the agouti locus; that is, an “unrecognized color carrier.” In fall 2023, however, the mature white ram from Oregon whom we had planned to use died suddenly, making us go with a resident white ram of our breeding (1856/22) whose white dam (1573-18) had been sired on a white dam (1328) by that previously unrecognized color- carrier 145. That parentage conferred a BW on 1573 and on all her progeny and their progeny. There is a 50% chance that the 2018 ewe was a color carrier. If she was, there’s a 50% chance that her son was, too; if she wasn’t (we’ll never know), there’s no chance he was, the BW suffix notwithstanding.
“BW” can be in the ARBA registration number for another reason, however, with very different implications for the perpetuation of “color.” A colored sheep in the ancestry of a Romney need not have been recessively-colored. That ancestor could have got its color from having a dominant color allele at another place in the genome, the extension locus. White offspring of an extension-dominant parent have not inherited that color allele; it’s gone for good from their genetic makeup and from that of their descendants, but ARBA rules decree that all BW affixes, regardless of origin, must stick generation after generation. Overall, I think that ‘s a good idea though confusing.
For the last thirty years or so, most natural-colored Romneys in shows (and, I would venture, nearly all of them in the majors) have a dominant color allele at the extension locus. This observation is offered without judgement or explanation here.
In summary, BW is not a mark of Cain nor a scarlet letter; it can be a tipoff to the possibility of a recessive allele at agouti, which some Romney breeders seek and others shun.
Questions? call Anchorage manager Rhonda Jaacks 845 217 1974 anchorageromneys@gmail.com
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