Discover the Hoge Berg

14,000 Texelaars (people) live on Texel alongside 40,000 Texelaars (sheep). Texel is a real sheep farming island. The Texelaar (sheep) is the most-bred breed of sheep for its meat worldwide. The Hoge Berg area is traditionally at the heart of Texel sheep farming. The area is characterized by fields full of grazing sheep, especially during lambing season in the spring. 

Pielsteerten

In the course of a few centuries, a special breed of sheep evolved: the ‘pielsteert’, meaning ‘arrow tail’. These animals owed their name to their arrow-shaped tail. They were quite a small breed of sheep, with a thin head and short tail. Pielsteert sheep were hardy, well suited to the unpredictable conditions on the island. They supplied milk with a high fat content for cheese and also fine spinning wool. The lamb meat found its way to the markets along the coast of the Dutch Zuiderzee.

Clean wool

The Texel sheep farmers washed the sheep before shearing, resulting in clean wool. This was in contrast to the sheep farmers on the mainland who shore their sheep unwashed. The clean Texel wool was a well-respected trademark.

Texel Green

Up until about 1990, Texel Green sheep cheese was one of the island’s successful export products. Connoisseurs rated this cheese more highly than Roquefort. The cheese acquired its distinct taste through an infusion of sheep droppings during production. This type of cheese was also produced on Wieringen and Terschelling. The forerunner of the Dutch commodities law prohibited the use of excrement in foodstuffs. This meant the end of Texel Green.

Bred for mutton

More than a century ago, the era of the Pielsteert sheep came to an end. Demand for lamb was increasing, especially in England. The industrial revolution was in full swing and the workers needed quality food on the table. Texel sheep farmers played to this demand by developing their own breed of sheep. The Pielsteert was crossed with English meat breeds. In this way, the Texelaar breed as we know it today evolved: a real mutton sheep.

Duvets

Wool from the present-day Texel sheep breed is not as suitable for spinning wool for knitting. But the sheep have to be shorn every summer to prevent them from becoming too warm. An inventive Texel entrepreneur found a new use for the wool: as a filling for duvets. In the last few decades, these Texel duvets have grown into an important export product on the island.

Texelse Witte

Some of the Texel sheep farms have kept up small-scale cheesemaking. ‘Texelse Witte’ (Texel White) is now a popular cheese, especially amongst tourists on the island.