The reason I work with Norwegian fine wool sheep is that my grandmother, Bjørg S. Deinboll, imported the first merino rams from Portugal, crossed them with Tauter sheep in 1947, and later with meat merino from Germany. Afterwards, Elsa Sunde Olsen followed with the import of semen (import of fresh semen for insemination) from Germany in the early 1970s. From these sheep to my import of semen from New Zealand in 2001 there was no renewing of merino blood. I imported two bloodlines.

One is a traditional merino type from the Benmore breeding station. It is large with a lot of fine wool and a few skin folds, but not extreme such as the finest merino sheep are known for. The rams have horns.

The other is meat merino (called Samm = South African Meat Merino) which was imported from New Zealand to Kvam. They have – like the German meat merino – wool that is a little rougher and the rams are without horns. They are nearly as big as Norwegian white sheep, but their muscles are firmer, they have long rear legs, plenty of meat and they deliver lambs easily. A type which is excellent for cross breeding.

In the meantime, it was a balancing act of inbreeding and a mixture of Norwegian sheep, mostly “Spael Sau” (Norwegian land breed) and Suffolk. But one principle has been binding and that is to lay stress on wool quality. I never take rams with a coarser wool quality than 28 my, preferably under 25 my.

This year showed results with the new breeding line in the flock: a big success concerning both wool and meat. The meat is lean, the wool weight has increased a lot, and the wool tests saw good results. I am happy now to have such a big flock with such good wool.

2006: The first merino cross rams which have been selected for breeding for many years belonged to Bertil and Bjørg Grinde. They were selected as the best at the show. So I am curious about the future results with the offspring. The results now look like the animals will score highly for meat as well and not only for wool. I am very glad that the breed is starting to give such good results.

2005: Wool analysis of Leine Merino 2005