New Mexico Dahl Heritage Hair Sheep Foundation; Terra Patre Ranch LLC

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New Mexico Dahl Heritage Sheep

That there is a dearth of recorded history of the actual saga of New Mexico Dahl (Ovis Dali Novo Mexicanus) sheep makes its reality no less so. According to John O. Baxter’s book “Los Carneradas", Francisco Vásquez de Coronado y Luján brought sheep in 1540 seeking the mystical Seven Golden Cities of Cibola. Coronado and his supporters sank a fortune in his ill-fated enterprise taking 1300 horses and mules for riding and packing and hundreds of head of sheep and cattle as a portable food supply. Much to his chagrin Coronado's greatest legacy was his loss of unknown quantities of sheep, horses and cattle into the remote recesses of wild American Southwest. There exists a plethora of documentation as well as physical evidence that the Spanish brought hair sheep to the Americas from Europe and West Africa, but the documented trail goes cold when they continue their trek from Mexico to New Mexico. There are numerous historical examples of Spanish livestock which for various reasons were left behind or escaped from captivity in the Americas. In 1521, Juan Ponce de León with two ships of colonists and a complement of livestock including seven head of Andalusian cattle, landed on the southeast coast of Florida. These were some of the first cattle which stepped onto North American soil in what is now the United States. The Calusa Indian tribe of Native Americans attacked the party and Ponce de León took a poisoned arrow to the shoulder. His ships returned to Cuba, leaving the livestock behind. As was the case with livestock brought by the Spanish these animals were proven hardy and are today widely known and famous for just those reasons. Florida Cracker and Pineywoods cattle are hardy creatures that make excellent low-input, grass-fed livestock. In 1540, Don Diego Maldonado brought large herds of livestock; sheep, cattle, and horses to the Pensacola Bayarea to supply Hernando De Soto’s ongoing exploration of the Spanish Southeast. Maldonado was unable to find De Soto’s expedition and many animals were left to run wild or given to local tribes. The animals’ roamed woods and scrub for 450 years until Florida ended the open range at the end of WWII. Their descendents became Florida’s widely known “Cracker” livestock. When the Spanish founded St. Augustine in 1565, the King of Spain sent 200 cows, 200 horses, 200 pigs and 400 sheep to Florida. The descendants of those sheep which became feral are now called Florida Native sheep. Floridian historians do not know for sure and only conjecture at those original breeds (hair, woolen, both?) introduced by the Spanish.

In the north of New Spain and what is now the Southwest US, Spanish colonial expeditions moved at a pace slow enough for people to walk along side carretas or in tow behind draft animals, and slowed even more to help woolen sheep breeds cross swollen rivers on (made on the scene) rafts. Colonial expeditions took the time to navigate around large regions of rocky terrain or even hold over long enough to allow sore hooves to heal after covering rocky spans. However, exploration expeditions had different objectives and different priorities. In 1540 Francisco Vásquez de Coronado y Luján, (my 14th generation great+grandfather) did not have the luxury of building rafts in wet neither months nor sheering wool in hot months, and frankly time was of the essence. These sheep had to be far hardier than the livestock brought to lush green Florida, as the desert southwest was harsh and unforgiving. Not knowing the distances they had to cover, they needed to move quickly and before their live food source (namely the sheep) was expended. They took the most expedient direct practical route. They needed the most expedient animals. New Mexico Dahl sheep fit this ticket perfectly. What’s more, when faced with hostile Indians, speed was the key to survival and only hair sheep could have met such a challenge and kept up with horses on the run. Again, woolen breeds in hot months on a sustained run would perish from heat prostration. Nor could they, as previously established, cross bodies of water (running arroyos & rivers) in a hurry.

Yet, the role of “hair” sheep in these expeditions is conspicuous by their absence in the history books as well as the modern American sheep industry. Their special abilities were absolutely indispensable to the success of Spanish exploration and yet they are scarcely mentioned. To be sure, Spanish explorers were neither novice nor happenstance world conquistadores. Neither were they religious refugees fleeing the oppressive tyranny of their fatherlands. Spain sent accomplished noblemen of education, culture, means, and political sway; romantic adventurers with big aspirations, impresarios, nobles, businessmen, investors, and entrepreneurs. Spanish archives show they investigated years in advance and invested vast personal fortunes into the planning and preparation of their expeditions. That is well documented. A key element of survival and success is the advance planning. Any such undertaking would have certainly begged the question, what kind of animal has the stamina to endure the unknown and yet untold distances of the new world, and inherent in their own ability to survive hardship, thusly keep us alive? Hair sheep could go where cattle and woolen sheep could not. Willful goats and pigs have their own ideas and are more labor intensive. Clearly, the hair sheep were the best gamble for expeditions like that of Coronado. Given the legacy of Coronado and others like him, the New Mexico Dahl sheep has been true to this hardiness claim, has now reemerged, and is extant today. This is one of nature’s miracles and a credit to many ranchero planners and breeders of anonymity and antiquity.

In easier times, where the availability of animal feed and water is never in question, business keepers of livestock have understandably digressed away from simple hardiness toward more competitive marketable pursuits. Alternatively, for those whose lives depended on their animals survival attributes, it did not make sense to raise and breed exotic animals which were larger at the possible expense of producing animals not naturally hardy, resistant to parasites, able to travel long distances, withstand high desert winters and summers, or even bear its own young without special assistance.

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