Organisme de Selection de Races Ovines Laitières des Pyrénées

Pyrenean dairy breeds are exploited on difficult areas in small units (UAA of about 30 ha) in the West of the Pyrenees Mountains.

There are 420000 ewes producing 68 million liters. These ewes graze all year long and transhume the summer. Three local breeds dominate the area:

• Manech head Rousse with 260.000 ewes within 100,000 controlled
• Basco Bearnaise with 85.000 within 25 000 controlled
• and Manech Black head with 75.000 ewes within 19 000 ewes controlled.

Among the quality products of these breeds, mention may be made of Ossau-Iraty cheese AOC or, in meat, the label of Pyrenean milk lamb, a by-product of milking, which corresponds to a milk-fed lamb exclusively fed on milk. of the mother and shot at the beginning of the milking, which gives it a color and a flavor quite specific.

For the three breeds, traits of the breeding schemes are:

• standard conformation of the breed
• Yield and component milk
• CCS and mammary conformation
• Resistance and resilience to internal parasites
• Scrapie resistance