Balbas

a breed of coarse-wooled, fat-tailed sheep raised for their meat, wool, and milk. The variety evolved in Transcaucasia after many centuries of native selection. A feature of the animal’s external appearance is a long, fat tail that hangs below the hock, with the lower part curved like the letter S. The fatty deposits on the tail look like two cushions, one small and one large. The sheep’s coloring is white with dark patches on the extremities, head, and ear tips. The liveweight of the rams is 85–90 kg, with the largest weighing up to 110 kg; the ewe’s liveweight is 55–60 kg, with the largest weighing up to 75 kg. The carcass weight is 45–50 percent of the live weight. The fat deposits in the ram’s tail weigh up to 12 kg; in the ewe’s, 5–6 kg. The fleece is non-homogeneous and is 11–17 cm long. Rams yield a wool clip of 2.8–3.2 kg; ewes, 2.0–2.1 kg. The output of pure wool is 50–65 percent of the total wool clip. The wool is used to make carpets and felt coats and is also suitable for worsted fabrics. Ewes yield 124–130 kg of milk, and the best dairy farms get 65–70 kg of marketable milk during lactation. The fertility rate is 112–120 lambs per 100 ewes. The sheep are well adapted to high-mountain pastures. The breed is raised in the Armenian SSR, the Azerbaijan SSR, and northern Iran and Turkey.