Polypay

The Polypay is a designed animal. C.V. Hulet at the Dubois sheep station in Idaho combined four breeds in the 1970s, Finnsheep, Rambouillet, Dorset and Targhee, each chosen for one property, and the name says the goal: many pays per year.

What it produces is prolificacy. Polypay ewes lamb young, carry large litters, and will breed out of season, which makes accelerated lambing systems possible: three lamb crops in two years rather than one a year.

They are white, polled, and moderate in size, with a medium fleece.

The trade is that prolificacy is only an asset if you can manage it. Triplets and quadruplets mean supplementing lambs, more labour at lambing, and a ewe under real nutritional pressure. Run a Polypay flock the way you would run a single-lambing flock and the extra lambs will not survive.