Caucasian Fine-Wooled Sheep

(formerly called the Caucasian Rambouillet), a breed of sheep raised for wool and meat. The breed was developed between 1921 and 1936 at the Bolshevik Breeding Sovkhoz (breeding plant since 1960), Ipatovo Raion, Stavropol’ Krai, by crossing New Caucasian Fine-Wooled sheep with rams of the American Rambouillet and Ascanian breeds.

Caucasian Fine-Wooled sheep are large, with regular conformation and a strong constitution. The head is thin, with a straight profile (rarely hook-nosed); the neck is short and broad, with 1–3 folds of skin; the backline is even; the body is deep, wide and long; the legs are thin and strong; the skin is thick, with small folds along the entire body. The fleece is tightly curled. The wool clip is 10–12 kg from the rams (sometimes as much as 25 kg) and 5.8–6.5 kg from the ewes (sometimes as much as 13 kg). The wool is 7.5–8.5 cm long and is mostly 64 quality. Yield of clean fleece is 38–43 percent. Caucasian Fine-Wooled rams weigh 90–100 kg, ewes 50–60 kg. Fertility in the ewes is up to 150 percent. The animals are hardy and well adapted to the arid steppe climate. The rams were used in breeding Altai sheep and the Azerbaijan Mountain Merino and also to improve several fine-wooled and coarse-wooled breeds. Caucasian Fine-Wooled sheep are raised in the Stavropol’ and Krasnodar krais; in Rostov, Volgograd, Saratov, and Kuibyshev oblasts of the RSFSR; and in the Kazakh SSR, Georgian SSR, and Armenian SSR.