PHILOMATH, Ore. — The prodigious size of some modern sheep breeds doesn’t count as an asset for Annie Tuttle’s small but diversified livestock operation.

“They’re designed for a farm with equipment and chutes and a tractor they can rely on for muscle,” Tuttle said.

Instead, she decided the smaller size of Gotland and Shetland sheep was more suitable for her family’s 52-acre Everfree Farm near Philomath, Ore.

“These girls, I can wrestle them down or flip them on their bum for veterinary care,” she said.

Tuttle is among a relatively small group of livestock producers in the U.S. dedicated to raising heritage breeds, whose popularity has waned in a modern era of shifting markets and farming methods.

Breeds didn’t fit in

“Those breeds didn’t fit into the commercial production systems that came to dominate American agriculture,” said Jeannette Beranger, senior program manager for the Livestock Conservancy nonprofit. “They got outcompeted by animals that grew bigger or grew faster or produced more milk.”

Reversing this trend isn’t a matter of simple reproduction: Heritage breeds must be financially worthwhile for farmers and ranchers if they are to survive long-term, she said.

“These animals need to make money. You can’t save a breed by making it a lawn ornament,” Beranger said.

For that reason, every American family that consumes a spiral-sliced ham, roast beef or rack of lamb from a heritage breed this Christmas is assisting in their recovery, she said. “You’ve got to eat them to save them.”

Old-fashioned attributes

Raising heritage breeds helps preserve history and genetic diversity, but farmers and ranchers often find these animals have old-fashioned attributes that better fit their specific circumstances.

Apart from their modest proportions, for example, sheep from the northern climes of Scotland and Ireland can shrug off the frequent rains on Tuttle’s property in Oregon’s Coast Range.

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“They’re hardy. They have feet designed to withstand the soggy mud,” Tuttle said.

Strong winter winds also make her operation vulnerable to power outages, which could seriously disrupt incubators and brooders for poultry, she said.

But Tuttle doesn’t require these manmade systems because her Narragansett and Bourbon Red turkeys have hens with solid mothering skills, she said.

“There’s definitely an advantage to animals that can raise their own young,” Tuttle said. “If they’re with the mother, it takes a lot of pressure off the farmer to constantly babysit them.”

The Beveren rabbits at her farm are also maternal, producing large litters of young that Tuttle uses for breeding, meat and “lusciously soft” fur, she said. “They have been some of the most pleasant rabbits I’ve ever raised.”

In the past, Tuttle also produced heritage hogs and geese before deciding to scale back. The common denominator among these different animals is a survival instinct that’s often “bred out” from mainstream breeds, she said.

Heritage breeds are more curious and prone to escaping or wandering off, though they seem likelier to avoid dogs and poisonous plants while finding their way back, Tuttle said.

‘Double-edged sword’

“They tend to be smarter, which is a double-edged sword because smart animals can get into trouble,” she said.

Meat is more flavorful from animals that naturally forage for food, get plenty of exercise and gain weight more slowly — however, that doesn’t necessarily improve the economics of raising them, Tuttle said.

The manageable size of Gotland and Shetland sheep, for example, may not be as appealing to consumers, particularly if the meat costs more, she said. “They don’t make a lamb chop the same size as you see in the grocery store.”

Heritage breeds thrive outdoors, so they’re typically produced on small farms without the cost efficiencies and economies of scale that lead to inexpensive meat, she said.

However, educated consumers who value local meat production will understand why it can result in a smaller carcass weight or higher price point, Tuttle said.

“When you build a relationship, they become interested in the animals you’re raising,” she said. “We have a really wonderful customer base. They love what we’re doing and love visiting the farm.”

Certain types of meat, such as mutton from adult sheep, were once considered delicacies but fell into disfavor, said Beranger of the Livestock Conservancy.

Since demand for such meats improves markets for heritage breeds, the nonprofit is teaching chefs and consumers about traditional preparation techniques, such as ridding mutton of its gaminess by letting carcasses hang for two weeks, she said. “The product has to be handled differently to shine.”

Rebuilding breeds

Americans had longstanding cultural affinities for certain heritage breeds, especially in certain regions, which can be revived by sophisticated eaters, Beranger said. The resurgence of heritage turkeys, which nearly disappeared entirely regardless of breed, is a prime example of this strategy.

“Connecting with the foodie community is a way to build markets,” she said.

The danger facing heritage breeds was initially recognized a half-century ago by several New England living history museums, Beranger. These museums had difficulty finding American Milking Devon cows for their exhibits but soon discovered the problem was alarmingly widespread.

“It wasn’t just the Devon cattle, it was the chickens and ducks and geese and sheep,” she said.

To thwart the decline, the living history museums banded together with geneticists and other scientists to form the Livestock Conservancy in 1977, she said. The nonprofit maintains a conservation priority list of breeds facing the greatest extinction risk and works to preserve them.

Though the nonprofit’s work is far from finished, the situation is no longer as dire as when the problem was first recognized, she said.

“We haven’t lost a breed we’ve listed,” Beranger said. “The populations have stabilized, (but) some are still slipping away.”

Shorthorn story

Unlike breeds that diminished due to disuse, native Shorthorn cattle became scarce precisely because of their utility among mainstream breeders.

Shorthorns were historically a dual-purpose breed, but over time, some specimens were bred for milk while others were bred for beef. As each type was increasingly combined with other breeds, the supply of dual-purpose purebreds grew short.

“The middle got lost. Chasing the extremes, the quick and dirty way to do that is to mix in other breeds,” said Sue Schallberger, who raises purebred native Shorthorns with her husband, Joe, at their Whispering Hills Farm near Perrydale, Ore.

The dwindling number of some breeds has resulted in a lack of genetic diversity, which poses a major hazard even if breeders are eager to repopulate them.

“You wind up with heritage breeds with such a limited gene pool, they’re almost a dead end because of in-breeding,” Sue Schallberger said.

The Schallbergers, who are both retired veterinarians, have shielded native Shorthorns from that fate by stockpiling frozen semen from a variety of bulls and using it to revitalize the breed worldwide.

“We have the opportunity to help people expand their genetics because we have that reserve of semen,” Joe Schallberger said.

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Crossing Shorthorns with other breeds “doesn’t do anything to move the breed ahead,” so the Schallbergers only sell breeding stock, semen, and embryos to other dedicated producers of native purebreds, he said.

It’s possible to select for characteristics more conducive to either milk or beef production while staying within the native Shorthorn breed, Joe Schallberger said. “You can push them in one direction in one generation just by using a different type of bull.”

Versatility remains a virtue in breeding, though, as the single-minded pursuit of milk output or another quality will ultimately cause shortcomings in livestock, he said. “If you focus on one trait, and I don’t care what the trait is, you’re dragging along a lot of problems.”

Genetics are important

Quality genetics are critical for heritage breeds to legitimately make a comeback in commercial agriculture, rather than just exist as pets, he said. “If they’re going to be productive long-term, they still have to be good animals.”

Preserving heritage breeds is valuable to the overall U.S. livestock industry by ensuring it won’t lose genetics that may yet prove indispensable, said Beranger of the Livestock Conservancy.

If commercial production becomes too reliant on a small number of specialized breeds, they can eventually become inbred and suffer from infertility and other defects, she said.

“It really boils down to biodiversity. If you have a really small gene pool, problems can creep in,” Beranger said. “If you don’t have those heritage breeds, you’re out of luck. You’re playing a dangerous game by not having this backup of biodiversity.”

Three steps

The Livestock Conservancy has a three-step approach to protecting heritage breeds: Discover, secure and sustain.

The first step is to discover “rare breeds and unknown herds” surviving in obscurity and determining whether they’re genetically unique.

The next step is to secure those breeds by studying their DNA, providing technical assistance to producers and connecting breeders with one another.

The final step is sustaining the population by finding market niches that prevent the breed from again falling into neglect.

“Getting a breed rolling and getting it to where you want it is really a great feeling,” Beranger said. “Sustaining is really just getting jobs for these animals.”

This commercial potential often involves meat and milk production but heritage breeds can also find useful roles outside the food system.

The race is on

A team of Gloucestershire Old Spots entertains crowds around the Northwest as part of a touring pig race show organized by Bart Noll of Eugene, Ore.

Each year, Noll trains newly weaned piglets to run around an obstacle course and takes them to county and state fairs, which pay for the performances.

“They’re cute pigs. That’s part of the breed, those big floppy ears. They’re photogenic but really it’s the behavior that works for us,” he said. “We have hands on them every day. They take to the socialization really easily. They learn to like what they do. They like being around people.”

Transporting full-sized hogs would be impractical, so the piglets must find new homes once their moment in the spotlight is over. Noll takes advantage of his frequent travels to help the breed proliferate.

“When they’ve outgrown the show, we look for farmers who are trying to breed them and try to do as many placements as we can that way,” he said.

Gloucestershire Old Spots have long lived in proximity to people in their ancestral British homeland, but they’re not suited to confinement, said Julie Clevenger, who breeds the pigs at her White Buffalo Ranch near Aumsville, Ore.

Sunshine is conducive to the breed’s health and reproduction — the hogs are meant to be out on grass, foraging to supplement their ordinary feed rations, Clevenger said.

“These aren’t factory pigs,” she said. “We recommend these pigs be paddock-raised for at least part of the year when there isn’t mud.”

This fondness for the outdoors necessarily limits the number of pigs per farm and precludes their adoption by large barn operations, said Clevenger, who imported hogs from 18 different bloodlines in Britain to revitalize the American breed.

“They’re a good pig to raise if you just want to raise a few pigs,” she said. “You’re not going to find 1,000 Old Spots or 5,000 Old Spots.”

That doesn’t mean the breed is incompatible with commercial success: Clevenger sells baby pigs for breeding stock as well as weaner pigs for meat. The demand is strong enough from word-of-mouth that she no longer needs to advertise.

“People like them and get them year after year after year,” she said. “They’re not as much trouble as some of the other pigs.”

Saving sheep

Selling breeding stock is also Karen Lobb’s main business, though she’s developed numerous other products from the Jacob and Navajo Churro sheep at her family’s Bide A Wee Farm near Newberg, Ore.

“It really helps that you can use them for other things because you can be more selective which sheep you keep for breeding,” she said.

Those specimens who aren’t lucky enough to be slated for procreation are sent to slaughter, generating meat, hides and bones that Lobb sells along with wool at farmers markets and online.

The most aesthetically appealing horns are sold along with their skulls as decorative items, while those with flaws are turned into buttons, earrings and spinning tools. Consumers buy other bones as knickknacks or as components for art projects.

“A lot of people collect bones,” Lobb said. “It’s really fascinating what people do with them.”

Heritage sheep can also be put to good homestead uses while they’re alive, said Kirsten Holbo of Iron Water Ranch near Corvallis, Ore. Though she currently raises Horned Dorsets among the sheep on her property, Holbo has experience with other heritage breeds as well.

Wool from primitive breeds, such as Icelandic sheep, can be of variable consistency across an animal’s body, she said. The softer wool can be turned into clothing while the coarser wool can make rope, for instance.

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“You don’t have to have a bunch of different types of sheep because it’s all on the same sheep,” Holbo said.

Primitive breeds can improve the homestead’s landscape itself, as their coarse wool “does a great job absorbing and stabilizing” moisture and soil on slopes to prevent erosion, she said.

Holbo said they’re also more likely to consume blackberries and other weeds that conventional sheep won’t eat, allowing homesteaders to “clear out areas that are overgrown and they’re trying to rehabilitate.”