The Fat-Tailed Sheep on the First Fleet; Australia's First Sheep

Summary

Singleton Mills homepage > The first sheep in Australia The sheep on the First Fleet Captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet spent about a month at Cape Town, a port in southern Africa, on their way to Australia in 1787. There Phillip purchased about 500 live animals for the new penal colony they were to establish at Sydney Cove.[1] Amongst these animals were at least 29 sheep. These animals would become the first sheep to be landed on Australian soil. Above, a drawing of the Fat-Tailed Sheep breed from South Africa, that was taken to Australia on the First Fleet in 1788. Source: Locher (1881) article – see below. Cape Fat-Tailed Sheep These sheep were known as Cape Fat-Tailed Sheep. Their coats were less woolly than modern Australian sheep – they were bred mainly for their meat, not their fleece. A remarkable feature of these sheep, that looks very strange to Australian eyes today, was their enormous, fat tails. Arthur Bowles Smyth commented on the tails of these sheep in the journal he kept during the First Fleet.[2] When the sheep were well fed, their tails would pack on huge quantities of a flavoursome fat that was considered a delicacy in southern Africa. A fascinating and detailed description of the Fat-Tailed Sheep appeared in an 1881 magazine article. It is of such interest, that we reproduce it here, almost in full. Fat-Tailed Sheep are still bred in many parts of the world, and this was the very first sheep breed imported into Australia. The Fat-Tailed, or Broad-Tailed, Sheep. Original Sketch of Travel, by August Locher. Published in Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, May 1881.[3] 'One of the most remarkable of domestic animals, yet the one least known to civilized people, is unquestionably the fat-tailed, or broad-tailed, sheep, originally a native of Central Asia, but now found in various parts of China, India, North and South Africa. In the region last mentioned it was formerly particularly abundant, having, in fact, been, up to the time of that country...