Dorset Horn

The Dorset is an old breed from the sheltered valleys and hill pastures of southwestern England: white-faced, horned and short-wooled. Today it exists in two forms, Horned and Polled, and only the Horned one is a conservation concern.

Here is how that happened. Dorset Horns reached the US around 1860 and were common by the 1880s, with the Continental Dorset Club organized in 1890. Then in the early 1950s a mutation for polledness turned up in four lambs at North Carolina State, and the Polled Dorset was developed from them. Australia had arrived at the same place earlier by putting Corriedale and Ryeland blood into the Dorset Horn.

The Continental Dorset Club registered the first Polled Dorsets in 1956 and put them in the same flock book as the horned sheep. The polled variety took off, and the Dorset became the second most popular sheep breed in the United States.

It took off at the horned sheep's expense. Polled Dorsets have very nearly eclipsed Dorset Horns, and Dorset Horn registrations are falling sharply. The two have also diverged over time, so they are no longer the same sheep in different headgear.

The trait worth buying either for is the same: Dorsets breed out of season, convert feed well, and can raise two lamb crops a year.