Brookgreen's Blue Ribbon Tunis Sheep

When you visit the barn area in the Floyd Domestic Animals of the Plantation exhibit adjacent to our Lowcountry Zoo, the animals you will see are heritage farm breeds, Red Devon cattle, Dominique chickens, Marsh Tacky horses, and you will also see our  Tunis sheep.

These beautiful animals have red faces and legs, with body fleece of ivory. American Tunis sheep almost became extinct after the Civil War, but a small herd was saved by a farmer near the Congaree River in Columbia, SC.   They are still listed as a "watch" breed on the Livestock Conservancy's Conservation Priority List but are increasing in numbers. Brookgreen Gardens is the only registered breeder of Tunis sheep in South Carolina.

Each August, our sheep are sheared and some of that fleece is distributed to local wool spinners. (You can see them demonstrating their craft during Brookgreen's Harvest Home Weekend Festival.) In 2015, our Tunis rams, "Ramsey," produced a prize-winning fleece. 

That year, the Tennessee State Fair found Andrea DeMuth, Vice-President and Curator of Zoo Collections, through the Tunis sheep breeders directory and invited her to enter a fleece for competition. Ramsey's fleece was particularly beautiful that year, so when he was sheared we shipped it out to Tennessee, and won first place in the Tunis sheep division!  

This year we received another invitation to enter and sent three fleeces. Ramsey's is entered for the ram category fleeces; and two of our females, Molly and Maisy's, fleeces are entered in the ewe class.  

Judging takes place September 11-12. We will update you with results!