Rearing and Breeding of Sheep

Rearing and Breeding of Sheep

Rearing of sheep means to look after the sheep by providing them food, shelter and health care. The persons who look after the sheep are called ‘shepherds.’ Sheep are herbivores and eat mainly grass and leaves. So, shepherds take their herds of sheep to countryside for grazing. Apart from grazing, sheep rearers also feed them a mixture of pulses, corn, jowar and minerals. In India, sheep are reared in the hilly regions of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.

So, the breeding of sheep is done to obtain such breeds of sheep which yield good quality of wool in large quantities. These breeds of sheep have a thick coat of hair on their body and are called sheep of ‘good breeds.’ This raises the quality and quantity of wool produced. Once, the reared sheep have developed a thick coat of hair, the hair is shaved off for getting wool. The cut off ‘wool coat’ of a sheep (along with a thin layer of skin) is called ‘fleece.’

There are different breeds of sheep in our country. Some breeds of sheep posses only fine under hair. These breeds are produced by selecting the parents for obtaining special characteristics in their offspring, such as soft under hair. This process, in which parents are specially chosen to give birth to sheep having only soft under hair are called selective breeding.