"Daghma"... a rare sheep breed that resists extinction in Algeria
There is a huge animal wealth in Algeria, on the throne of which are various types of sheep, but one of them struggles to survive and resists extinction.
The "Daghma" that the generations of the seventies and eighties of the last century knew was engraved in the Algerian currency "the dinar" from the denomination of 20 centimes, which the Algerians called "4 Doro" a species that resists extinction.
A rare breed of sheep and one of the best sheep breeds in the world and its original home is Algeria, and as it suffered in the 19th century from the "smuggling" of the French occupation, it is still resisting existence for more than 4 decades.
According to official statistics, Algeria counts about 28 million head of sheep, more than a million head of cows, 5 million head of goats, and more than 50,000 heads of horses of various breeds.
The "smuggled" breed
And on the eve of Eid al-Adha every year, Algerians “sad” the absence of one of the best types of sheep in the world, the “Daghma”.
The "Daghma" is a breed of sheep whose original homeland is the cities of western Algeria, and it emerged from the "Ostrich" governorate hundreds of years ago, and then moved to other governorates, namely Al-Beidh, Saida, Al-Naama, Tlemcen, and Bashar.
The "Daghma" dynasty was among the victims of the French occupation of Algeria (1830-1962), which began its "smuggling" operations from Algeria to France in the early years of its occupation of Algeria.
Researches and historical studies confirm that the French occupation inaugurated a railway line specifically for smuggling "Daghma", and started it from Bechar Governorate to the Mohammedia region in Algiers, and smuggled large numbers of them through the port.
After Algeria gained its independence from the French occupation in 1962, it decided to name a road in the capital as "Route Moutonnière".
Its name came from a historical incident that this road witnessed during the period of the French occupation, as it was “witness to the traffic accident of more than 2 million sheep of the Al-Daghma breed” looted by the occupation soldiers from the “Al-Mashriya” area of the Naama governorate in the southwest of the country, and drove it towards the port Algiers, then transferred to the city of Marseille, located in the south of France.
rare features
Livestock breeders in Algeria describe the "Daghma" breed as an "economic breed", and consider it a "friend of the money" in reference to livestock breeders.
They attribute this to the fact that the "Daghma" breed "is satisfied with pasture only", unlike the current types of sheep that require large amounts of feed.
“Al-Damaqh” is also a “birth” breed, according to veterinarians, as it gives birth between two to four sheep every 14 months, especially if they are in their original environment.
Protection from extinction
There are no official statistics in Algeria on the number of heads of the "Daghma" breed, but it is certain that it is "facing extinction".
In recent years, a group of livestock breeders in western Algeria launched campaigns to prevent the extinction of the "Daghma" breed, and to preserve and restore it to its previous era.
And this June, the "Regional Center for Artificial Insemination and Breed Improvement" in the Belhanjir region of the Naama Governorate (Wilayat al-Naama) launched a program to "improve the breeding of the local sheep breed and preserve its genetic characteristics."
It was decided to establish a special nursery for "stallions of the red dagma breed", with the aim of "intensifying applied research and sending a gene bank to breed this high-quality breed of sheep."
The center pointed out that these operations "will enable the formation of a fairly large model herd of stallions, which will serve as a starting point for conducting large-scale experiments with a larger number of loyalists of the state and neighboring regions to reproduce this breed and maintain the purity of its offspring."
https://al-ain.com/article/algeria-darma-rare-sheep-breed