Jacob (American)

Spotted sheep run through a lot of human history, in art from the Far East, the Middle East and the Mediterranean, and in the Biblical story of Jacob breeding spotted flocks, which is where the name comes from.

Spotted sheep were documented in England by the 1600s and common by the mid-1700s, kept as ornamental park sheep on estates. That job suited them: they looked good and needed almost nothing. Nobody selected them for much beyond hardiness, spots and four horns, which is why the Jacob is a primitive breed that still largely looks after itself.

The first came to North America in the mid-1900s, though most of the current population descends from imports in the last thirty years. Small flock keepers, hand spinners and weavers have kept it popular.

They are small and horned, black and white, and honestly a little goat-like to look at. Ewes run 80 to 120 pounds and rams 120 to 180. More than half the animal is white, with colored patches that are usually black but can be brown or a paler shade called lilac. The skin is pink and the hooves are usually black.

Expect variability. That is what an unimproved breed looks like, not a fault in the animal you are being shown.