You know you've been in the desert too long when...

1. Somebody says it's raining and everyone runs outside to see what it looks like.
2. Rain is measured by inches between drops.
3. The dog has a tarantula for a pet.
4. You stack rocks for shade.

Building a sheep ranch in the desert is definitely challenging. Selecting the right breed of sheep for the environment wasn't difficult. We chose Navajo-Churros, a breed that was developed in this region for the past 500 years or so. The breed was nearly extinct in the 1970's, but through the dedicated efforts of Dr. Lyle McNeal and some Navajo-Churro fanciers, the breed is on it's way to recovery. Months were spent researching the Navajo-Churros to see if it was the right breed for us. Nowhere in the limited literature did we find mention of:

1. These sheep have a sense of humor and will play tricks on one another as well as their shepherd.
2. They are more like their wild cousins, the desert bighorns, than they are like other domestic breeds of sheep.
3. That they bite when you nick them during shearing.

We didn't think too much about the comment that Navajo-Churros breed out of season until lambs started showing up in the corral in November. The older siblings of these lambs shown in the photo below are only 6 to 11 months older.


As you can see, Navajo-Churros come in an assortment of colors.

If you look closely at Pepper, the little black and tan ewe in the foreground, you can see the horn buds characteristic of this breed.








Fortunately, Pepper's horns won't be as impressive as her sire's, PDF Black Hawk.

I haven't seen a four-horned ewe yet, but I'm told they do occur. Our foundation flock of ewes do carry the four-horn gene so I'm waiting.