Phillip Sponenberg, VaTech – Navajo-Churro Sheep

Dr. Phillip Sponenberg has become our resident zoology expert contributing previous pieces on domestic extinction, Choctaw hogs, and even adorable fainting goats.

Today, this Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine professor of pathology will tell us all about Navajo Churro sheep.

Dr. Phillip Sponenberg is a professor of pathology and genetics in the Department of Biomedical Sciences & Pathobiology in the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech. Sponenberg received his DVM from Texas A&M University and his Ph.D. in veterinary medicine from Cornell University in 1979. He joined the faculty of the college in 1981. Sponenberg’s research interests are genetics of domesticated animals, coat color genetics, conservation of rare breeds of livestock, diagnostic pathology, and reproductive pathology. Sponenberg is a member of the American Veterinary Medical Association and the Virginia Veterinary Medical Association. Sponenberg also serves as the technical programs director of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.

Navajo-Churro Sheep

Navajo-Churro sheep have played essential roles in Navajo and Hispanic cultures in the Southwest for over four centuries. These sheep are a great reminder that “best” is a tricky concept. What’s the best wool? The answer depends on what use that wool is put to.

For three centuries the locals used the sheep with little outside interference. Local textiles, usually blankets, found wide appeal and good demand, assuring a steady flow of resources back to shepherds and weavers. The distinctive fleece of long coarse fibers over a short down-soft undercoat is perfect for this sort of textile.

Early in the 1900s experts from outside decided it was better to produce fine wool for clothing manufacture. In came the imported rams, out went the traditional rams. As fleeces changed, the local character of textiles also changed. They lost their traditional strength and resiliency, and also lost the wide range of natural colors available from the old style sheep.

Fortunately a handful of independent programs began to assemble the small surviving remnant of traditional sheep, multiply them, and get them back into the hands of shepherds and weavers. Old shepherdesses would weep while receiving back the sheep of their childhood. They could now once again produce those fabulous traditional textiles with the appropriate wool from the right sheep.

The sheep play a host of roles in Navajo society, including many ceremonial roles for which four-horned rams are the top rated candidates. This link of animal resource and human culture is so tight that the Navajo say that “sheep is life.” Guarding this resource from once again becoming rare takes constant attention and care. Breeders are careful to evaluate each sheep for original characteristics to make sure that the sheep do not change from what has proven successful and valuable over centuries, thereby linking the past to the future.