The Painted Desert Sheep originated on Texas game ranches by crossing Mouflon Sheep with Rambouillet, Merino and Texas Blackbelly.
The coloured varieties of these sheep produced hybrid, spotted individuals known as Parti-Dalls.
Hunters wishing to add these colorful sheep to their trophy rooms started to call them “Painted Desert” sheep.
Painted Desert Sheep
The first impression of an ideal Painted Desert Sheep is of an alert, regal and athletic animal of obvious Mouflon heritage. It is a nicely coloured sheep with a slick, smooth hair coat. Mature rams should have large uniform horns with a full mane and bib; the nose is Roman shaped. Ewes are finer boned with a distinctly feminine face. These sheep fully shed their winter coats
This is Big Rock Beauty and her two ewe lambs Hazel & Joy
This is Circle C Nuclear Phin; our new yearling ram imported all the way from Texas. Big thank you to Mark Chaney.
...and grandfather Nuclear Jr
Circle C Stormin Kutenai; also imported from Texas this year. Used as a sire on our young registered ewes; expecting some nice lambs out of him
....and his father Storming Romeo from Circle C Ranch
This is Big Rock Zulu, our foundation Ram. He was actually a ram that we chose out of a herd of American Blackbelly Barbados when we knew nothing of this breed of sheep. It was later when he started throwing tons of colour in his babies and when we discovered Barbados are not allowed to have white on them that we realized what we had. He is a lovely boy with a great temperament. We spoke with the Painted Desert Sheep Society and registered him as a Painted Desert.
Sheep excluded from registration are those with polled breeding (St Croix, Dorper, Barbados, Katahdin) and rams with scur horns. There is also disqualification for any sheep with more than 1/8 wool breeding, and those showing no colour in registration photos. The Painted Desert Registry is an open registry and there is honour among breeders to ensure the standard of perfection is followed.
His Sire Phinneas
Registry information
click to access site
And.... a little more grown up... upon arrival to Canada - 6 months old
Our two handsome Rams Phin & Kutenai