The Shepherd's Farm

Around the Ladoum Sheep and More. A Blog from Jacques E. Boillat, Sunday April 17 2022

The Ladoum Breed

The Ladoum Breed

The goal of this blog is trying to find out what is the Ladoum breed (race). It is not an easy job since there are only few scientific papers about Ladoum sheep.

The Ladoum sheep belongs to the group of the Mauritanian short-haired sheep. According to Abou Kane, it is a crossbreed of Mauritanian Touabire with Malian Bali-Bali¹.

Morphological Characters of Ladoum Sheep

The Ladoum sheep has a good bone structure, a broad pelvis, and a nicely convex forehead. Ladoum sheep are hypermetric, and long-limbed.

Considering the height at withers [HaW], the thoracic perimeter [TP], and the liveweight [LW], we can classify the Ladoum sheep as a large sized animal.

The height at withers HaW of females is 96.07 ± 1.73 cm, and the one of males is 105.75 ± 2.21 cm. The length of the body is 94. ± 2,.4 cm for females, and 102 ± 0.81 cm for males, The length of the muzzle is 19 ± 3.53 cm for females, and is 23. ± 5.06 cm for males. The sexual dimorphism is very strong. Most females have horns (62.93 %), and strong udders.

The coat is mainly white (23.61%) or piebald black & white(63.89%)².

Important Morphological Characters for Ladoum Contests

Cultural Characters of Ladoum Sheep

Abou Kane, the great Senegalese Ladoum breeder, also describes the standard Ladoum as a sheep that is both large and beautiful. It is a cultural matter in Sénégal to like very large and beautiful sheep¹. In French: Le Ladoum standard c'est le mouton qui est à la fois grand et beau avant tout c'est un aspect culturel car au Sénégal nous aimons avoir dans nos enclos des moutons très grands et super beaux.

Key Terms

Cervico sacral Length [csL]

The distance from the first cervical vertebra (immediately following the basis of the head) to the last sacral vertebra (immediately preceding the beginning of the tail) measured along the spine, i.e. it is a sequence of 7 cervical vertebrae, followed by 13 thoracic vertebrae, followed by 6 lumbar vertebrae, and finally 5 sacral vertebrae. FR: Longueur cervico sacrale [Lcs].

Coat

An animal's coat is the fur or hair on its body.

Convex

Curved or bowed outward like the outside of a bowl, circle, or sphere.

Height at withers [HaW]

This is the area above the shoulder and is used to measure the height of the sheep from the ground. FR: Hauteur au garrot [HG].

Hypermetric

Larger than normally measured.

Long-limbed

Having long legs.

Liveweight [LW]

The weight of an animal before it has been slaughtered and prepared as a carcass. FR: Pois vif [PV].

Pelvis

The pelvis is the lower part of the trunk, between the abdomen and the thighs, together with its embedded skeleton.

Piebald

A piebald or pied animal is one that has a pattern of unpigmented spots (white) on a pigmented background of hair, feathers or scales. Thus, a piebald black and white dog is a black dog with white spots. The animal's skin under the white background is not pigmented.

Sexual Dimorphism

The condition where the sexes of the same species exhibit different characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction.

Thoracic perimeter [TP]

FR: Périmètre thoracique [PTH]

1. senediaspora.net Abou Kane Interview

2. Diack Falou et all. Étude de quelques Charactéristiques Morphobiométriques de la Race Ladoum du Sénégal. International Journal of Advanced Research (IJAR), DOI: 10.21474/IJAR01/13017.

Prof. Dr. Jacques E. Boillat is a retired professor for Computer Sciences. Jacques E. Boillat has been studying Mathematics, Theoretical Pysics, and Philosophy at the University of Berne, in Switzerland. He has been teaching at the University of Applied Sciences in Berne for more than twenty years, and at the University of the Gambia from 2006 to 2020. His wife Lenna Correa Boillat is owner of the Shepherd's Farm in Bato Kunku.