Letelle sheep: SA's most undervalued breed

The Letelle is a proudly South African dual-purpose sheep, but despite its exceptional qualities, it remains one of the most underestimated sheep breeds in the country. Theo Oosthuizen, who breeds Letelle on his Free State farm, spoke to Annelie Coleman about these remarkable animals.

-  Annelie Coleman

 The Letelle sheep breed has European origins. It descends from the Rambouillet or French Merino, the development of which can be traced back to 1786, when King Louis XVI of France purchased more than 300 Spanish Merinos (seven wethers, 41 rams and 318 ewes) from his cousin King Charles III of Spain.

The Rambouillet, a plain-bodied sheep with very fine wool, was exported all over the world, including to South Africa. A dual-purpose animal, raised for both meat and wool, it flourishes to this day, and formed the backbone of the Letelle in this country.

"The foundation for the Letelle was laid about a hundred years ago by legendary breeder TP van der Walt, who can rightly be called the father of the breed in South Africa," says Theo Oosthuizen, owner of the Blandfort stud near Dealesville in the Free State.

"In the early 1920s, he bought 35 fine-wool Rambouillet-type ewes, as well as three rams with the same qualities, to serve at the core of his breeding plan. He wanted to breed a polled Merino that would yield the optimal amount of meat and wool per grazing hectare."

MUTTON AND WOOL

Van der Walt's objective was to develop a medium-sized, smooth-bodied animal with top mutton conformation and uniformly fine Merino-type wool. Resistance to diseases and parasites was also an imperative, as were prepotency (ability to pass genetic characteristics onto progeny), fertility and strength.

He chose to apply line- and closed-breeding principles to his flock. (Line breeding is the intentional mating of distantly related animals; closed breeding is the most intensive form of inbreeding, as the two animals being mated share more than one close relative.)