South African Meat Merino
Encyclopedia
Wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....
and meat
Meat
Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...
sheep originating in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, but now found throughout the world.
The SAMM is derived from Deutsche Fleisch Merino animals imported into South Africa from Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
in 1932, to improve the quality of wool and meat from sheep in South Africa. The Deutsche Fleisch Merino is a common meat sheep in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, and Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. In South Africa, the German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
name was translated into Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
as Duits Vleis Merino and then into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
as "German Mutton Merino". The South African breed was recognised as separate in 1971 when the name was changed to South African Mutton Merino.
The SAMM has been developed as a versatile, hardy, polled
Polled livestock
Polled livestock are livestock without horns, of species that normally have them. The term refers both to breeds or strains which are naturally polled through selective breeding and also to naturally horned animals which have been dehorned...
dual-purpose breed. Ewes have a good maternal instinct and high milk production. Mature ewes will grow up to about 95 kg (209.4 lb) and rams to over 100 kg (220.5 lb). Ewes will produce 3.5 kg (7.7 lb) to 4.5 kg (9.9 lb) of medium/strong wool. The wool is classified separately from the higher quality wool of Merino
Merino
The Merino is an economically influential breed of sheep prized for its wool. Merinos are regarded as having some of the finest and softest wool of any sheep...
s, to avoid the risk of contamination of the latter with hair and kemp
Kemp
- People :* Kemp Hannon, American politician* Albert Edward Kemp , Canadian businessman and politician* Alfred Kempe , English mathematician* Anthony Fenn Kemp , Australian soldier and merchant...
fibre from the SAMM wool.
The SAMM is bred specifically to produce a slaughter lamb at an early age (35 kg (77.2 lb) at 100 days of age). In judging SAMMs the emphasis is on conformation (in relation to producing meat), 60%, and not on the animal's wool (40%).
SAMM rams have almost entirely replaced British breeds as terminal sires in the harsh regions of South Africa, where they (and their hybrids) are more adaptable than the former breeds. They were first imported into Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
in 1996. Also in 1996, Peggy Newman imported SAMM embryos from South Africa creating the first SAMM flock in Canada. In 1999, Dwight and Gwendolyn Kitzan from Nisland, South Dakota – USA, imported one of Newman’ embryo SAMM ram and have been developing the SAMM breed in the United States using top Australian SAMM producers bloodlines.