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Fall 2004

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Around the Pond

Counting Sheep
UMass Extension and Massachusetts 4-H pioneer a heritage breeds program

–Carol Cambo




	Heather Ware ’87 and her daughter, Victoria, spend quality time with a Cotswold lamb at Hancock Shaker Village. Ware, a 4-H volunteer, grew up on a farm in Whately and has been involved with 4-H her whole life. In conjunction with UMass Extension, she’s helping establish a statewide heritage breeds program that will serve as a model for the rest of the country. (photo by Ben Barnhart)

HEATHER WARE ’87 TURNS THE rusty crank of a sheep-shearing machine that’s well over a century old. Her face strains as she works the medieval-looking contraption, but she keeps a steady pace. Next to her, backed by this determined womanpower, the shearer, dressed in denim jeans and suspenders, holds the animal upside-down between his knees. Sheep don’t struggle as long as all four feet are off the ground. He plunges a cutting edge into the sheep’s tightly wound fur, peeling it back inch by inch. He deftly detaches the animal’s fleece in a single, thick piece.

“This poor lady will probably have her arm in a sling tomorrow,” he says, “but she’s doing a heck of a job today.” In the airy round barn at Hancock Shaker Village on a breezy May morning, the historical sheep shearing demonstration and the farmer’s colorful commentary captivate an audience of 40 people, young and old.

“By 1827, 136,000 sheep roamed this area,” says Ware, a 4-H volunteer for UMass Extension. “During the 19th century, half of New England’s native forests were cut down. All these hills were covered with grass and grazing sheep.” She goes on to explain that if your drawers are full of pilly sweaters, blame it on an inept shearer: the secret to smooth woolens is fleece removed in one cut.

It’s just another day at the village, a living history museum in Pittsfield, Mass., where Shaker farming traditions are practiced and preserved. And, thanks to Ware and UMass Extension, it’s also a place where Berkshire County 4-H members under Ware’s guidance can learn about heritage livestock breeds and why it’s important to conserve them. That sheep, you see, hails from no ordinary flock. It’s a Karakul, a rare heritage breed that originated in Central Asia. Today’s demonstration is just one facet of a broader UMass Amherst initiative to save endangered livestock breeds— like the Karakul—from extinction.

Why should we care if, say, the quirky Tennessee Fainting Goat survives? Why does it matter if a Gulf Coast Native sheep thrives in numbers unseen for a century?

It boils down to the basic argument for biodiversity, says Ware and other experts. Animals favored by contemporary agriculture for their high productivity—such as the Holstein cow, the source for 95 percent of our milk—may be strong in number, but are derived from just a few paternal lines. As the number of surviving breeds dwindles, so does our chance to preserve valuable traits they may carry. Case in point: a turkey study conducted by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy recently proved that heritage Bourbon Reds have more resistance to disease than the commercial white turkey.

“A lot of our program deals with how little humans know,” explains Ware. “Heritage breeds have much to teach us.” Take the Ossabaw pig. Bred in isolation off the coast of Georgia, the swine become diabetic in the winter, when food is scarce. “Yet they don’t die,” says Ware. “Perhaps we could learn something about diabetes in humans from them, but not if they disappear.”

To foster public awareness about heritage breeds, the Massachusetts 4-H introduced a program in the fall of 2002. Searching around for a model, they found just one: Ware’s program through Berkshire County 4-H. And what better place to start a wide-reaching program, thought Carrie Chickering-Sears, director of community education in animal agriculture, than UMass Amherst, with its existing network of 4-H volunteers and expertise—and direct access to one of the country’s most renowned animal science programs?

Now, four clubs are up and running. Some work in conjunction with historical institutions such as Hancock Shaker Village and Plimoth Plantation. The latter is home to such older breeds as Milking Devon cattle, Arapawa Island goats, and Dorking fowl. Beyond their evocative names, they have particular traits that made them ideal for life in 17th-century New England. In Montague, the 4-H Heritage Farm Club concentrates on heritage breeds of poultry. Kids ages 6 to 14 raise their own small flocks of Dominques and other heritage breeds of chickens.

Also off the ground is the Heritage Breeds Adoption Program. Earlier this year, the first two of 10 Tennessee Fainting Goats slated for adoption in the state made their way to the home of Cori Katz, 14, of Leverett, a member of the Franklin County 4-H Dairy Club. He’ll raise and breed the animals and showcase them at fairs and other events.

The goats hail from Swiss Village Farm in Newport, R.I., a research farm that helps protect the oldest lines of livestock from extinction by collecting semen and eggs and preserving them cryogenically. The farm is one of a network of collaborators in the UMass initiative. As for their fainting, it’s a misnomer. The goats suffer from myotonia congenita, a condition that makes their muscles contract and stiffen when startled. Fewer than 3,000 exist nationwide, but it looks like that number is on the rise. Cori Katz’s goats started breeding immediately upon arrival.

For more information visit:
http://www.umassextension.org/
http://www.mass4h.org/
http://www.hancockshakervillage.org/
http://www.albc-usa.org/

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