THE EARLY YEARS OF TEXELS IN CANADA
My earliest recollection of Texels was in the late 1960's when I stumbled
onto an article in a British faun journal. It was a report on feeding
grass silage and the Texels stood out from the other breeds that were
involved. Over the next few years of doing literature searches I became
convinced that Texels deserved a place in the Canadian sheep industry.
In the early 1970's I approached Agriculture Canada about the possibilities
of importing live Texels From Europe. They didn't laugh but they made it
very clear that it could never happen.
Sometime in the early 1970's I met Dr. David Armstrong who had recently
returned to Canada from Harvard University. David grew up in Eastern Ontario
on a dairy farm and had excelled in his academic education and joined Harvard
University research organization at a very young age. Over a period of 13
years he went on to a very distinguished career on the world stage. His
return to Canada was driven by an offer of a senior position at Western
University (U.W.O.) to establish a world class medical research program U.W.O. did
not have a large animal research facilities and I arranged for David to use
our farm and sheep flock for experimentation. This project expanded during
the 70's and David joined the faculty at the University of Adelaide in
Australia on a half time basis. This allowed him to carry on research in
natural breeding seasons in both the northern and southern hemispheres.
We also had daily contact with developments in sheep breeding from Australia.
David applied for and received a huge research grant from the Medical Research
Council of Canada and this meant his staff would grow and he would need
expanded research facilities.
