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.
