Is the polled Merino economically sound?

Polled Merinos are cheaper to produce and have a higher lambing percentage, among other advantages. However, they do come with their own set of issues. John Kingwill of Grootplaats in the Murraysburg district of the Western Cape wanted to breed a more economical sheep under natural conditions. He settled for a polled ram, the founder sire of his 20-year-old stud.

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Today he has 215 polled ewes in the stud, as well as a commercial flock of 500 breeding ewes.

The polled Merino is not a new idea. A first for South Africa, it was at Richmond in 1912 that CM van den Heever developed a polled flock after reasoning that if horns had no economic value, there was no need to have a Merino with them.

In Australia, Gordon Kirkby started a polled stud 20 years later. In 1948, provision was made for a polled Merino championship at the Sydney sheep show. In South Africa, it was only in 1958 that the South African Merino Stud Breeders’ Association accepted the principle of registering polled Merino studs, while the first official national show was held in Queenstown in 1960. Today, there are fewer than 20 stud breeders of the polled Merino in South Africa in contrast to over 700 horned Merino studs. Why should this be? When Farmer’s Weekly spoke to Kingwill, he was most emphatic that they did not want to push their strain or type, or seem to denigrate the horned Merino.

Here then is the basic reason why the polled Merino numbers remain so small: they are in the shadow of the horned Merino, and lack an image of their own.