Dorset Horn Sheep at St Sever Sheep Fair
La Voix Le Bocage – 23-08-2006
Translation of an article which appeared in La Voix Le Bocage a few weeks after the annual St Sever sheep fair which took place on 24th August 2006.
Translated by Christopher Long
PONT FARCY
CHRISTOPHER LONG PROMOTES THE DORSET HORN
Christopher Long is English and passionate about many things, sheep among them. In his flock he has very handsome specimens of Dorset Horn sheep with impressive horns.
"This breed was once one of the glories of Normandy. We find numerous images of them in manuscripts and church facades but they inexplicably vanished from France at the end of the Middle Ages although they had arrived in England where they became the Portland breed in the C18th. Crossed with South Down sheep in the C19th they became the Dorset Horn breed," the authoritative breeder explains.
According to Christopher Long "they exist in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and the United States, but the current flock in Pont-Farcy is probably the only one in continental Europe."
He hopes to reintroduce this breed in Normandy: "I'd like to show people that there's a breed which is 100 per cent Norman." However, Christopher is disappointed: "I've lent two of my rams to the Conservatoire de Basse-Normandie [CFEN Basse-Normandie] but I have had very little useful help from the regional Chambre d'Agriculture."
In 2006 two of our young rams were lent to the Conservatoire Fédératif de Espaces Naturels (Basse-Normandie) but, by the time the above article had appeared, it was clear that this breed required conventional management and would not easily adapt to an entirely rustic and unsupervised existence on chalk downs in Orne.
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