Sheep breed
Shropshire
Shropshire
A black-faced English meat breed that leaves tree bark and vines alone — also used to graze plantations.
Shropshire sheep. Photo: „Shropshire Sheep” – amandabhslater · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Flickr · Resized and converted to WebP
Description1
A single-purpose meat breed with black head and legs that grazes well. It has good maternal traits, good milk and a prolificacy of 1.7–2.0; it has little tendency to breed out of season. Conformation is good and lambs grow fast.
A special trait is that it does not damage conifers, buds, the bark of fruit trees or vines, so it is recommended for keeping nurseries, orchards and vineyards free of weeds.
A strong-boned meat breed. The head is medium-wide, somewhat coarse, with wool on the forehead and cheeks, and black or dark grey; the ears are carried horizontally and the short legs are wooled. It has a deep, wide, cylindrical body, a long, straight, firm back and deep, muscular thighs.
History1
Today
The breeding goal is to maintain and improve good maternal traits, prolificacy, excellent conformation and high growth, and to increase body weight.
Breed standard and breed society
The official breed description, breeding goal and herdbook rules are published by the recognised breed society (MJKSZ).
- MJKSZ – Shropshire juh fajtaleíráshttps://mjksz.hu/tenyesztes/fajtak/shropshire-juh
Photo gallery
All photos are freely licensed (Wikimedia Commons, Flickr); author, source and licence are shown under each image.
Sources
Accessed: 2026-10-18.