The North Country Cheviot is a native of Scotland. In the mid-18th Century the sheep grazing
the Cheviot Hills on the Border with England were called the Long Hill Sheep, the Short or Linton sheep being the present-day Scottish
Blackface.
Apart from the occasional outcross with Merinos from the European Continent, they had remained more or less of a similar
type for centuries. A well known farmer, James Robson of Kelso, improved the Breed very considerably by using rams from Lincolnshire
around 1760. It is thought that Leicester blood was also introduced before 1800. In 1792 Sir John Sinclair brought 500
of these Cheviots (pronounced Chee-viots) to his estate in Caithness. By this time the crossing had largely stopped.
Large numbers
of sheep were driven north to the vast tracts of hill land depopulated after the Highland Clearances. The sheep thrived, and
due to the high price of wool, some Merino blood was introduced. A side effect of the Merino cross is that the ears of North
Country Cheviot are carried much lower than those of the South Country or Border Cheviot sheep.
Today there are three distinct types
of North Country Cheviot:
- those that developed on the hard and rugged hills of Sutherland are known as the Hill Type or Hill
Northies and they have retained many of the visual characteristics of the original Cheviot of the late 18th/early 19th century
- the
more fertile, productive ground of Caithness has produced a bigger and heavier sheep, the Caithness Type
- the reinfusion of these bloodlines
back to the Borders between the World Wars has resulted in a third strain, known as the Border Type
In the 1970s, 3000 North Country
Cheviots were exported to Nova Scotia. The sheep here at Littledale are the progeny of those sheep.
The North Country Cheviot is at
home in virtually all grazing situations. It is very hardy and thrives well on pasture.
The North Country Cheviot ram imparts quality
when crossed with almost any other breed and produces lambs of good conformation and finish at all weights without becoming over fat.
Used on hill breeds such as Scottish Blackface the North Country Cheviot leaves hardy and vigorous lambs.
In 1998 and 1999 we used
imported semen from Scotland to improve the genetics of our North Country Cheviot flock. The semen came from the Longoe flock in Caithness,
owned by HM The Queen Mother Trust and from Tommy Dun's Brotherstone flock. We have had excellent results and again used the
imported semen on grand daughters in the fall of 2005 to further fix the Scottish genetics in our flock.
