Coolalee sheep are Australian short wool, meat sheep breed,
developed from an eight-year breeding program commenced in 1968. The breed
resulted from the crossing of the Wiltshire Horn, Suffolk, Hampshire Down, Poll
Dorset, Lincoln and English Leicester sheep.
The first Coolalee rams became commercially available in
1983. These rams are used as terminal sires for prime lamb production.
Coolalee sheep have shown considerable promise as an
independent central progeny testing system for prime lambs. The system is
designed to identify outstanding meat sheep sires and their ability to sire
elite lamb with a carcass weight of more than 22 kg and a fat score of 2-3. The
testing also showed significant reductions in fat depth, which is an important
consumer requirement, on first cross Coolalee lambs.