May 4, 2005

Virginia’s Historic Hog Island Sheep: a treasure from the past preserved for the future

By Don Bixby, Technical Programs Director, ALBC and Marshall Scheetz, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

On a cold, rainy day in February, a handful of people gathered to preserve part of Virginia’s agricultural history and to help ensure the future of Hog Island sheep. Dr. Stephan Wildeus of Virginia State University, Dr. Don Bixby of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, Marshall Scheetz of Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and Jeff and Ginny Adams, Virginia sheep producers, brought together nearly a dozen Hog Island rams for semen collection for the National Animal Germplasm Program (NAGP). The NAGP is headquartered in Fort Collins, Colorado, and is the animal side of the better known and older national plant genetics repository or seedbank.

Jeff and Ginny Adams have about 50 Hog Island sheep along with their commercial ewe flock. This flock of rare sheep represents a quarter of the 200 or so Hog Island sheep in existence. The Adamses hosted the collection event at their farm near Fredericksburg, Virginia. They provided a well-lighted and straw-bedded stall for the collection of 11 rams - 10 of their own and another ram from George Washington’s Birthplace. A processing lab was set up in the adjoining feed room. All animals were weighed, measured and photographed as part of the breed documentation. Blood samples were also taken for a planned future project to conduct a DNA analysis of the breed to determine relationships to other sheep breeds.

You may never have heard of Hog Island sheep since they are a regionally-developed breed, but their history is long and colorful. Small populations of people and livestock have inhabited Hog Island near the coast of Virginia’s Eastern Shore for hundreds of years. The sheep numbered in the hundreds at the peak of their popularity in the early 20th century - before a string of hurricanes and northeasters washed across the island in the 1930’s, discouraging humans and livestock alike. By 1945 the residents of Hog Island had migrated off the island to the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and had taken most of their livestock with them. Many sheep remained, and continued to thrive on the island as they had for centuries. The annual shearing and ear notching in the spring was generally the only contact between the owners and their sheep. The sheep roamed freely upon their “floating” pasture consuming the marsh grass and drinking fresh water from small pools that had been dug ankle deep into the sandy soil.

The sheep were removed from Hog Island in 1974 when the Nature Conservancy purchased the island. Four years later Virginia Coastal Reserve agents found, to their surprise, a thriving flock of sheep on the island. This is a testament to the extreme hardiness of these animals. The Nature Conservancy removed the last of the sheep in late August 1978.

While private breeders hold some flocks, most Hog Island sheep remain part of the agricultural landscapes of living history museums, including Plymouth Plantation, the Museum of American Frontier Culture, Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens, George Mason’s Gunston Hall, George Washington’s Birthplace, and the National Colonial Farm. They were chosen because the breed resembles historic sheep that existed during and after the colonial period, which were small in stature with a coarse, light fleece, and possessed of the ability to survive almost entirely without care and shelter.

Hog Island Sheep are distinguished by their variability. The majority of the breed is white but about ten percent have black wool. The face and legs can be speckled brown, white, or black, or they can have all black faces and legs. Both sexes may be polled or horned. The horns are an open spiral pattern. Average weight of a full-grown ewe is 90 pounds. The average weight of a full-grown ram is 150 pounds. The fleece weight ranges from 3.5 to 5 pounds. The legs and face are devoid of wool. In some sheep there are guard hairs that poke through the fleece especially down the spine. The wool is considered to be medium to coarse. Most ewes will give birth to a single lamb.

Because of the long isolation with heavy natural selection, this landrace population could offer interesting genetic divergence from more commercially developed breeds. It is this diversity that has now been captured and preserved at the NAGP. Director Dr. Harvey Blackburn was pleased to report that the Hog Island semen was received by overnight express in good condition, has been processed, frozen, and is now part of the collection of livestock genetic material banked at Fort Collins. This collection now represents nearly a half million units of semen and embryos from some 70 breeds of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and chickens, and represents nearly half a million animals.

This enterprise owes its success to the efforts of Dr. Wildeus, Jeff and Ginny Adams, the initial organization by Marshall Scheetz, and the breeders who arrived to both help and learn about the conservation technology of cryopreservation of genetic materials.

For more information about Hog Island sheep and other endangered breeds of livestock and poultry, contact the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy at:

ALBC National Headquarters
PO Box 477
Pittsboro, NC 27312
919-542-5704
albc@albc-usa.org; www.albc-usa.org