Southern sheep breeders build awassi flock

A South Island farming couple appear to have broken the grip of foreign companies on the awassi breed of fat-tailed sheep in New Zealand.

Karen and John Garrick, of Timaru, acquired a ram and two ewes in 1996, and have started breeding up a small flock -- now numbering 23 purebreds.

They believe the flock is only the second still in New Zealand, the other being a big flock of animals in Hawke's Bay farmed specifically for live sheep exports.

Awassi sheep were initially bred at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry's Flock House in the Manawatu as the foundation for a sheep dairying industry in New Zealand, but in 1995 Hmood Al Ali Al Khalaf Trading and Transportation (NZ) Ltd (HAATT), took over many of the sheep.

Trading as Awassi New Zealand, it sent two-thirds of the flock to Australia as the base for a potentially-lucrative sheep milking project there, and kept the rest in New Zealand for the live sheep trade under constraints which stopped them being used for dairying on this side of the Tasman.

Since then, the company has effectively controlled most of the breed's genetics in New Zealand -- at one stage it bought all the progeny of 30,000 New Zealand ewes inseminated with awassi bloodlines.

Scientist Jock Allison, director of MAF's Invermay Research Centre until 1986 -- worked for the United Nations in the Middle East in the late 80s, and during that time, also organised the 1990 introduction of awassi sheep from Israel. He later managed the importation and multiplication of several other exotic sheep breeds, including the now widely-used finns and texels.

The awassi are best known in the Middle East for their very good lean, sweet tasting meat, which fetches premium prices, but they were intended as the basis for a sheepmilk industry in New Zealand.

But Mr and Mrs Garrick said centuries of natural selection had made the breed the highest milk-producers among sheep. A peculiar characteristic of the awassi is that the sheep are multi-coloured when born but usually turn to a white or brown as they get older.

When Dr Alison was stymied by the sale of the awassi bloodlines, he turned around and imported the east friesian breed -- also suited to milk production -- which has since been widely used by sheep farmers to boost their lamb production. That breed has boosted lambing percentages, speeded up growth rates, and led to leaner and heavier lamb carcases.

- NZPA