Talk:Romney sheep

Fneep is it just my imagination or have i seen the background of the first photo on this page? I know who you are will reveal more about my identity when i next see you in person...hehehe —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tigergirl93 (talk • contribs) .

I too recognise these pictures - both the background and the individual animals. Having just become an ex Y.F member myself (sob) it's nice to see people still keeping up their interest in it after they leave school... I am prety sure I know you guys, I'm just trying to figure out exactly who you are...but I have some good ideas!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 144.137.45.216 (talk • contribs).

Romney sheep

Hello, I would like to work with whoever wrote this page on Romney sheep to correct some errors. Please email me. I breed Romney sheep in America, have for 25 years. Am also a member of the RomneyNZ and the Romney Sheep Breeders' Association in England (though I haven't been asked for dues from the latter for two years and may be off their roster). I have visited Romney Marsh.

I'm not sure who the writers of the current page are, nor where they live. Seem to see a connection with Kent, however. Here are a few of the points I would like to work on: 1) the U.S> I have never heard the term "Chip Romney" "Kent Sheep" is an historically valid other name.

2) "Romney Marsh" in the large sense extends into Sussex, although some of its components like Walland Marsh are entirely in Kent and most of the area is in Kent. Perhaps the location could be rewritten to capture a bit of Sussex, unless there is too much rivalry.

3) "The Marsh Country of that district was at the time, rather inhospitable sheep country." What time, please? Probably you mean the Middle Ages. Actually it was not inhospitable. Sheep were brought there for centuries from the hills and midlands for premarket fattening, because the pastures were, and are, so rich.

As you writers know, rainfall is low (for Britain) in the Marsh, but in the winter and spring the ground is often very wet. The Marsh, with fodder scarce in the winter and cold winds blowing, was inhospitable to sheep making the transition from lamb to one-year old, and this age group was traditionally wintered on the downs.

4) Folklore says Romneys are more resistant to foot rot than most other breeds, but I think that is an exaggerated difference. If it is true, it would not be because the hooves are "hard." The hardness of a hoof depends almost entirely on the dryness of the terrain; the dryer, the harder.

5) Appearance "black points" this is a matter of breed standard, which varies around the world. In the U.S. more than a trace of pink on the nose is looked down-upon, while in NZ no one worries about much pink.

6) "crimp" is defined as cycles (wave crests you might say) per inch. Romneys, with strong wool, have relatively few crimps per inch (say 2.5 at the stronger end of the spectrum, 5 at the finer end). The average fiber diameter is measured in microns. In America the breed standard runs from 29.3 microns (finer end) to 36.2 microns, but many good Romneys there and in NZ are stronger, with AFD in the low 40s.

7) It is worth saying that Romney wool is the foundation fiber of the world's high-end wool floor-covering industry, especially in the U.K., U.S. and Europe. For felting, it is good but many people would say Merino is better for felting; depends on the use of the felt, really.

8) Romney interest: you are way off on this interpretation. The Romney is still the second most numerous pure breed of sheep in the world, second only to the Merino (which actually has several sub-races). No other pure breed even approaches the 20-25 million Romney census in NZ for second place (Merinos probably number far more than 50 million).

It is true that ten years ago Romneys comprised about half the NZ sheep flock and are probably down now to a third of the flock, but that does not mean interest has gone down "significantly." In fact, interest in the U.K. is rising rapidly. In NZ the purebred Romney is faced with competition from cross-breeding; many cross-bred sheep have a Romney progenitor, I might add. It is still the foundation breed of NZ and therefore still the world's most economically important "dual-purpose" sheep.

I've never tried to edit Wiki before. I'm here because I wanted to see what Wiki said about this breed I love so much. Was glad to see a friendly readable article, but would really like to see some changes. Would vastly prefer we all work together, not cut and slash.

Returning to sign the page correctly (I hope) --Sawyer12477 19:11, 26 March 2007 (UTC)sawyer12477

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sawyer12477 (talk • contribs) 19:05, 26 March 2007 (UTC).

Replying to the above comments-

I too have never heard the term "chip romney". I'll remove it as soon as I finish writing this- it's unofficial, and isn't a nickname of sorts.

According the the Romney Marsh page, it does extend into Sussex, so by all means we should re-write the location to include this.

I think what you are referring to in your third point was a bit of a mistranslation. Where I don't really know anything about the place of Romney Marsh, I think the editor who wrote that part meant that one of the reasons Romney's were such a success in this area was because of their hardiness. Perhaps this could be re-written too- but as I said, I don't know too much about the place, so I'll leave that to other editors.

For point four, we really need to find external sources to back this up.

For the black points, we should write a section that incorporates a world-wide view. This article is generally focused on one or two areas of the world, so we should really include the general standards for each country. In Australia, for instance, at the shows I've gone to pink on the nose is generally looked down on, but if it's a 'good' sheep, this is minor, and is overlooked quite a bit. Discoloured hooves, however, tend to have more weight on a judge's decision. It's really a matter of who's judging. I'm not sure about other countries, but I do know in the US pink has a lot more weight on a judge's decision than most other countries.

Agreeing with you on your 6th point. Crimp also needs to be defined.

Point 7- you seem to know more on the uses of Romney wool. Keep in mind that we'll need to find reliable external sources for this information.

Point 8- Romney interest in Australia has dropped off considerably, but as you say in NZ is still very high. Again, see what I said before- the article needs to incorporate a worldwide view.

Altogether, the article needs expansion, more reliable sources and a worldwide view. With enough work, we could even get this up to GA standard. CattleGirl ^{talk | sign!} 08:42, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Romney sheep

I just tried to post a sort of essay criticizing the current page but forgot to sign my name and email. My wiki screen name is sawyer12477 and my email, if you can't get it from wiki, is sqs1@columbia.edu Thanks --Sawyer12477 19:09, 26 March 2007 (UTC)sawyer12477

--Sawyer12477 00:43, 21 April 2007 (UTC)Sawyer12477

This is written United States Eastern Daylight Time 0811 on April 28 I'm trying specifically to contact Cattle Girl about revisions on the Romney sheep page. Thought I e-mailed a proposed revision to you last week, but cannot tell if you got it. If you did, and are reformatting it to wiki markup standards preparing to post it, please let me know. If you did not get it, likewise, please let me know and advise a good way to try re-sending. Probably I don't understand how to communicate within wiki, and may be putting up messages where you don't see them. Best, Sawyer12477 12:19, 28 April 2007 (UTC)Sawyer12477

Just replied on your talk page, sorry about the delay :) CattleGirl ^{talk | sign!} 13:07, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Hello to everyone interested in the Romney (sheep) page. Let's start talking to each other in some convenient forum like this discussion page. We need to make some [relatively minor] changes and add some references to bring the article up to snuff. I also have a few minor substantive disputes with editors who worked on the article since April 2007. Rather than competing to see how fast we can remove or alter each others' work I propose we talk to each other and get consensus on changes. I don't know how best to communicate with other writers except through this page. Please leave messages here if you would like to be involved. If no one replies I will go in after a while and do the edits myself, but that's not at all my best hope. I think you can also reach me on my user's page for sawyer12477. Thanks, hope to hear from several people soon. --Sawyer12477 (talk) 22:34, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

This is a pretty good idea...

We can have a look at the page when we have time and look at some of the conflicts in the text and search for some sources... shouldn't be too hard to do. A few more tweaks till a GA? CattleGirl ^talk 10:44, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Cattle Girl glad to see you are still involved. I will start in on some of the "citation needed" spots and we can discuss them on this page. Some of these are for statements that neither you nor I wrote, but we might be able to back them up anyway. Some in my opinion are not necessary, but what the heck.

I would like to change considerably the recently added statement that Romneys have been recognized as a breed for 700 years. This cannot be the case. The writer of that line (and I may have misquoted the line) was perhaps saying that sheep have been identified in people's minds as living on Romney Marsh for those centuries. Those sheep, if we could go back in a time capsule, might indeed look distinct from sheep peculiar to other locales, but we have no written description, no stud book nothing to identify a breed conclusively until just into the 19th C. The concept of a "breed" is relatively recent in agricultural history, less than 200 years old for nearly all those classes of sheep we now denote as "breeds." Do you agree with this?

Look forward to working with you, --Sawyer12477 (talk) 19:10, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Back again Reference about the fever. We could refer to the very nice Wiki article on Romney Marsh, which has a section on malaria. Maybe you could put in a link straight to that as the ctation. For another citation about fever, could use Finlayson, Iain Writers in Romney Marsh, London Severn House 1986 p. 4

By the way, the Wiki article on Romney Marsh article has an error in the section on Romney sheep. It says the principal country to which they were exported from England was Australia, in 1872. This is not correct. The most successful exportation was to NZ, and it was a bit earlier. If you or I fix that , then the paragraph on Romney Sheep in the Romney Marsh article will fit OK with our article. Do you want to change that? You are a more experienced editor.

I don't know why somone changed the word alluvial to estuarine. Alluvial is more correct, but it's not worth a back and forth contest. Can you tell who made the change?

"The breed is one of the oldest known" I suggest we take that out . Suggest also we take out the stuff about improvement from within the breed. Such improvement is respected and desired for the 20th and 21st centuries but claims that one breed is more pure than others are impossible to support.

"blood from Northern Europe" I can't find where I read this, perhaps it was in Ryder. Suggest we remove that and not have to cite it.

Gotta go, big wind blowing up have to go the barn and batten down the hatches. More later,--Sawyer12477 (talk) 20:36, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Nothing blew away yet. I don't know who ask for clarification on white hornless sheep. It may be the same person who wants clarification on the English Leicester. I think he or she is the astute reader who wonders how there can have been improvement only from within the breed if other types of sheep are mentioned in the ancestry. That's why I'd like to set aside the remark about improvement from within the breed as above. Then maybe we won't get asked for "clarification."

citation for incrased lambing percentage: the external link to Farm News that somene put in works well for this. Another more technical reference is to an article by G.H. Davis et al "A putative autosomal gene increasing ovulation rate in Romney sheep" Animal Reproduction Science 2006; 92: 65-73

citation for bold crimp and bold lock formation I will find one and let you know

Th word External as in links is spelt Eternal in at least two places, needs to be fixed

I think I can do these changes but would like to hear that you agree with them. When they are enacted, is there some re-review process ? Can you nominate it for such a process?

Again, if you know how to reach any of the other participants who have edited this page in the last 9 months, please try. If an article is on someone's watch list, is that person alerted when there is action on the discussion page or only when someone else has edited the article? Cheers,--76.15.44.97 (talk) 22:39, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello again, it's sawyer 12477. I wrote the section above beginning with "nothing blew away yet" down to cheers but did not see that I was not logged in; therefore there was no signature. Sorry for the error.--Sawyer12477 (talk) 23:03, 10 February 2008 (UTC)