Montadale

The Montadale is an American breed with a documented origin. E.H. Mattingly, a St Louis lamb buyer, crossed Cheviot rams with Columbia ewes through the 1930s, aiming for a sheep that combined hill hardiness with size and a useful fleece.

What he produced is a large, white-faced sheep with a bare head and legs, easy lambing, and a fleece that is genuinely marketable rather than a by-product.

They are dual purpose in the real sense: the ewes raise good lambs and the wool sells, which suits a producer selling into both markets rather than optimising for one.

The trade is that being between two things means leading in neither. They grow more slowly than a terminal sire cross and their wool does not fetch what a fine-wool breed's does, so the argument for them is the combination.