Meet the sheep!

The sheep featured in my first post is not actually mine, but a fine specimen of the breed I have.  Its called Barbados Blackbelly.  They are originally from North Africa, and were brought to the caribbean in the 1600-1700's to feed the slaves on the plantations there.   Now sheep are very good escape artists, and a bunch got loose on Barbados.  They soon became feral, living off whatever they could eat on a hot, humid island.  The plantations eventually broke up, the slaves became small farmers, and the sheep continued to thrive for centuries.  A few were brought to Texas in the early 1900's, and interbred with  Gulf Native and any other sheep that were around.  My guess is that most barbados sheep were kept on small ranches there to eat down the brush, and to have around in case anyone got hungry.  Nobody was actually in the sheep ranching business.  Barbados sheep were bought and sold around the southwest by these small ranchers, and eventually made their way to California.  The breed is very interbred with all sorts of sheep, resulting in many colors and other variations.  There are probably fewer than 10,000 Barbados sheep in the U.S., its considered a "rare", "heritage" breed.  Most dont have any wool to speak of, and when they do it comes with a good bit of hair.  They are smaller than most conventional sheep, but I've heard they have very tasty meat. (I quit eating read meat a while back).   The reason most people keep Barbados sheep is for weed/brush abatement.  They are very hardy, and will eat just about anything.  They can be really sweet too, when they get used to you.