Tunis

They circulated among the agricultural set of the early republic. The sheep appear in the letters, journals and farm records of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Peters, Charles Roundtree and George Washington Custis.

Out of that stock an American breed formed. It was recognizable as its own thing by the turn of the nineteenth century, which makes the Tunis one of the oldest livestock breeds developed in this country.

It suited the mid-Atlantic and the Southeast, handled the heat and humidity, and became the mainstay of sheep production across the upper South until the Civil War, when nearly all Southern stock was destroyed. The Conservancy credits Maynard Spigener of South Carolina with saving the last Southern flock by hiding it on his land along the Congaree River. The breed rebuilt afterward in New England and the Great Lakes states, and the American Tunis Sheep Breeders Association was established in 1896.

A middleweight sheep, 150 to 275 lb, polled in both sexes. The look is unmistakable: an ivory fleece over red face and legs, a clean wool-free head, and lop ears. Lambs are born red, with a double coat of red fiber that lightens as the fleece comes in.

The fleece is medium wool, 7 to 12 lb with a staple of 3 to 5 inches.

Docile, and unusually cooperative for a heat-country breed: the Conservancy notes they can be worked with dogs. The ewes are prolific.

Meat and wool from forage. They are good grazers and easy keepers that thrive in forage-based, low-input systems, and their old advantage still holds: they perform in Southern heat and humidity that punishes the British breeds.

Grass and not much else. The breed was the backbone of low-input Southern flocks for a century, and the Conservancy's husbandry notes amount to: give them forage and let them work.

The Tunis sits on the Watch level of the Conservation Priority List, and the direction of travel is good: the Conservancy records the breed increasing in numbers and reappearing in the Southeast, the region it was nearly erased from. It has also been added to Slow Food's Ark of Taste.

The book is old: American registration dates to 1896, and today the National Tunis Sheep Registry, Inc. keeps it. Ask for the papers, and ask about lambing records, since prolificacy is a breed trait a good flock can document.

If you farm in the South, this is one of the few heritage breeds whose entire history argues it belongs there. If you farm in the North, nothing stops you; the breed rebuilt itself in New England.

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