St. Croix

The St. Croix belongs to the Caribbean Hair sheep family. Its ancestors came from West Africa in the 1500s, carried on slave ships as food, and were later crossed with European wool breeds brought to the Caribbean from the 1600s.

They spread as subsistence livestock, and they were valued for something besides meat. Their manure was critical to the sugar cane crop.

Centuries in that climate produced a sheep adapted to heat and humidity, and the adaptation is visible. The coat is hair rather than wool, and it sheds, so there is no shearing.

The American population comes from two importations. In the 1960s Michael Piel of Maine brought over a ram and two ewes of the Virgin Island White landrace to use in creating the Katahdin. In 1975 Dr. Warren Foote of Utah State imported 22 ewes and three rams from St. Croix itself, choosing a consistent group of polled white sheep.

They are prolific and parasite resistant. Unlike several other primitive breeds in this catalogue, they flock properly and can be worked with dogs.