Oh The Fiber – what the heck are these racka sheep?

huge herd of racka sheep courtesy of barithelamb

Racka Sheep are wonderfully primitive and unique sheep. They are attention grabbers due to their unusual horns which appear on both sexes. These distinctive animals originated in Hungary and have been around at least since the 1800’s (when they were finally documented).

They are a hearty breed being multipurpose for wool, milk and meat. They have a quiet disposition that has made them a favorite for hobby farms.

gorgeous racka sheep by culinaryanthropologist on flickr

Now about those awesome horns!!!! Both sexes sport corkscrew horns that seem to come from the very top of the head. On the males they can get up to 2 ft long! That’s a lot of pointy protection! The minimum length for rams is 20 inches and for ewes is 12-15 inches.

great close-up of racka horns thanks to fveronesi1 on flickr

Overall this is a smaller breed ewes weigh around 88 lb, and rams 132 lb. The Racka are so hardy they have been used to bring that trait into other breeds.

racka herd by sftrajan on flickr

I couldn’t resist one last one….Thanks to Ulli J. on flickr

 Information from wikipedia and Oklahoma state university breeds of livestock.

The winner of this weekends contest is Irkalla. Irkalla I will be contacting you shortly.

 I used a random number generator by Random.org.

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