Dorset Horn Sheep, Dorset
One of the most characterful of the British sheep breeds, the Dorset Horn was perhaps more of a food hero in past times than today. This is because it is a fairly minor commercial breed these days, and the advantage it gave of lambs ready for the Christmas table and a second lambing ready very early in Spring has been reduced by competing methods, including of course freezing.
The spectacular curly horns on the Dorset result from its ancestry, a cross between the Portland and (probably) the Spanish Merino.
As mutton becomes ever more fashionable, the good size of the mature Dorset Horn may bring it back into favour with producers again.
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