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Tongue River Farm

   Stefania  

“Queen of Icelandic sheep” Part 2      By Susan Briggs copyright 2008

In Part 1, the story of the first importation of Icelandic Sheep to North America is recounted. The second part continues the story of Stefania’s impact on the breed and much more.

Stefania finally had her beloved Icelandic sheep. Life was good for awhile. Then in 1980, the Minister of Agriculture in the province of Quebec Canada offered free testing for the virus Ovine Progressive Pneumonia (OPP) to all sheep flocks as a new trial program. Stefania decided to join the program. Stefania was well aware of OPP as this virus had devastated her grandfather’s flock in Iceland years before. The first tests came back with 33% of her flock testing positive. Stefania was so devastated by the test results that she had to go to bed for three days. OPP is spread through every body fluid including milk, saliva and birth fluids. Stef was told that the only way to deal with OPP was to orphan the lambs at birth and bottle raise them on a separate farm with milk replacer. This meant that she had to attend every birth and never let any lamb nurse its mother. In 1989, 1990 and 1991, she orphaned the lambs of her original imported Icelandic sheep. After three years of testing and destroying the ewes and rams that tested positive, she had three of the original 12 sheep still alive and testing negative. Stef then needed to bring the lambs that she had kept isolated back to her home farm. She made the grim decision to destroy the remaining original imported sheep even though they had always tested negative. Stef just couldn’t take a chance of having them infect the lambs and have to go through the whole process again. Ray shot them behind the barn. Stef was distraught. She said that if she had to do it over again she would not have destroyed the remaining three. Stef continued to blood test all of the sheep every year even though her flock soon tested negative.

  Old Mori STS 188Z Imported ram

    Although Stefania told everyone that she would never attempt an importation again, she kept in touch with Dr Olafur Dyrmundsson. In 1990, four years after her original importation, he contacted her and told her that if she wanted to make a second importation, this would be the time because some British shepherds had applied for an export permit and it looked like they were going to get it. But it was all going to be done quietly.

   Having just 12 sheep had severely limited the gene pool of the Yeoman Farm flock. Another importation would greatly expand the bloodlines. There were two groups of British shepherds, including one woman that chose 40 sheep. Stefania decided to make another importation. She got promises from several breeders in Canada, to buy some of the new importation. She went to Iceland and traveled with the British party and selected more than 100 sheep from a district further east of the original area where she had gotten the first sheep. Because it was the fall of the year and the sheep had been gathered from the hills and were at their home farms, there was no problem finding animals.

 There were 2000 animals on the six farms to select from. This time Stefania knew just what she wanted and selected colored and patterned sheep: moorits, mouflon, spotted and leadersheep. Only one farm had a leadersheep, a ewe with twin ewe lambs. Stef selected the leadersheep and her twins. She also chose 14 ram lambs. The biggest ram weighed 110 pounds at 4 months of age. This time the officials were more relaxed and the importation went smoothly. Stef was even allowed to truck the animals to the airport through other districts. 

   “Blessa” leadersheep ewe STS 150Z

  The bomb dropped, however, when the blood tests came back from Scotland. 30 lambs had a titer for Chlamydia, a bacteria that causes abortion “storms”.  The Chief Veterinarian for Iceland was stunned and said emphatically “There is no Chlamydia in Iceland. You don’t miss Chlamydia”. But the positive titers kept these lambs from being exported. One of the reactors was one of the leadersheep ewe lambs. Stef ended up with just 12 rams. The “clean” group of 74 sheep flew on to Canada and was then retested during the 30 days in quarantine at Mirabel. 2 more tested positive at Mirabel for the Chlamydia, and Stefania was upset. 

    Stef happened to mention the Chlamydia situation to a friend, Christen English who leafed through her Merck manual and found the section on Chlamydia. The test would show positive if the sheep had eaten bird droppings from a carrier bird. Bird Chlamydia is harmless to sheep but will cause a false positive. This was the answer that explained the positive sheep tests as wild sea birds were prolific in the area where the sheep lived and grazed. A call to the quarantine station and to Iceland solved the mystery and allowed all 74 of the sheep to leave quarantine in Canada. Stef had bought one of the rams sight unseen. When Stef saw him at the Mirabel Quarantine station for the first time it was quite apparent that he had bad parrot mouth, a gross conformation defect. He was butchered. Stef said it was the most expensive lamb they had ever eaten.

    The costs were only $962 per head this time or $71,188.00 which took most of the Dignum’s savings.  Many of the sheep had been spoken for before the actual importation, but when the time came to pay, most potential buyers backed out. The exception was Nancy Pease who ended up with two rams and five ewes. This was the start of Nancy Pease’s flock. The sheep from Stefania’s new importation went directly to a rented farm nearby in Parham and were kept there till the OPP situation on the home farm had been cleared up. Eventually all of the new imports and the lambs that had been orphaned because of the OPP were united on the Yeoman Farm.

  Ray, Louise and Stefania

   The original imports could not be sold to customers in the USA. It took five years before the US would allow the importation of the offspring of the imported ewes to qualify for import. Barbara Webb was the first to import the sheep into the states after many years of paperwork and hounding Dr Roger Perkins at the Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). Many other importations followed as shepherds in the US discovered the breed.

    Little did Stefania dream that her struggle to get a flock of her beloved sheep from Iceland would be the start of the breed in North America and that she would become the “Queen of Icelandics”. Stefania never promoted the breed too much, although she did write occasional articles in The Shepherd and Black Sheep magazines. If anything, she understated their attributes as she didn’t want any one to be disappointed with the sheep. In the beginning she was the only source of information on the breed. Eventually two breeders in the USA, Barbara Webb and I (Susan Mongold Briggs) were able to start the importation of semen directly from Iceland to add genetic diversity to the North American flock. Other semen imports followed, and now there is a yearly importation of semen for US breeders from the Artificial Insemination (AI) station SOUTHRAM in Iceland There are also occasional classes in Vaginal AI techniques by Dr. Thorstein Olafsson who pioneered the special process.  (www.southram.bssl.is )

   Stefania helped organize the first Icelandic sheep organization: Icelandic Sheep Breeders of North America (ISBONA) at www.isbona.com and was its first president. The organization was mainly promotional and designed to help breeders with the information they would need to be successful with the sheep. The Canadian Livestock Records Corp (CLRC) agreed to register the sheep and is not associated with ISBONA. This helped keep the registration process from becoming political. The CLRC handles all of the purebred breed registrations in Canada and does a very professional job. www.clrc.ca

    Stefania was involved in many aspects of the sheep. She helped Beth Abbott do a study on the Icelandic Fleece for Beth’s Master Spinner thesis. Beth eventually published her thesis in a book called The Icelandic Fleece, which is presently out of print. . Stefania already knew how to spin, weave and knit Icelandic wool and had been making garments for years. But to hone her skills, Stefania decided to participate in the 3 year master spinner course given through the Canadian college system and after completing the course received the degree of Master Spinner.

In 1998, Stefania arranged a breeders tour of Iceland which included a visit to the AI station, meat processing location, sheep farms, goat farm, wool processing plant, and a Rettir or Fall sheep round up. Our group made headlines in the Reykjavik paper and elevated the status of sheep breeders in Iceland. Sauvé city dwellers had a hard time believing that sheep breeders from the US would come all the way to Iceland to see lowly sheep! Our group got to see the nitrogen tank that held our first frozen semen import, ready to be shipped. This semen would help widen the genetics of the breed in North America, and we were excited!

  Stefania at the Rettir catching a ewe.

Stef made sure that we all experienced not only the spectacular sights but also Icelandic food like Icelandic breakfasts and lamb fixed in traditional ways. There was delicious skyr, a kind of thick yogurt, to eat and the more adventurous in the group tried pickled shark and sheep eyes. At one point Stefania stopped the tour bus and had us all get out and walk carefully on the very spongy mosses. We picked and tried the berries that were growing there. The spongy moss was 6 to 12 inches deep and we were told that you were not suppose to damage it, as it was the only plant that was able to grow on some of the fragile volcanic land. The moss not only was slowly making topsoil but prevented erosion.

 Stef demonstrating how to pick and eat berries in Iceland

    Stefania imported a male Icelandic sheepdog dog from Iceland and started breeding this rare breed after finding a female in Canada. The Icelandic sheepdog is a Spitz type, small to medium-sized dog related to Norwegian Elkhounds. They come in many colors and patterns like all of the Icelandic animals. The smart and personable dogs with natural shepherding abilities have been used for centuries to round up the sheep, catch lambs, kill vermin, keep predators away from the sheep and keep the sheep off of the hayfields. Many of Stef’s sheep customers got a pup as a bonus with their purchase of sheep. Some sheep breeders started raising the sheepdogs themselves and importing new bloodlines from Iceland. A registry was formed for North America.

 Stef and Icelandic sheep dogs.

   In addition Stefania had a hand in saving the rare Icelandic Goat that produces meat, milk and high quality cashmere fiber. On a visit to Yeoman Farm, Halla Eyglo Sveinsdottir, was made aware of the plight of the colorful Icelandic goat. Stef suggested that Halla write her thesis on the goat. This lead eventually to Iceland’s legislature subsidizing the winter feed for this rare breed making it attractive for breeders in Iceland to save the goat from extinction. Winter feed is the biggest expense for livestock in Iceland.

 Rare Icelandic goat.

   Because of Stefania’s experience with OPP, Yeoman Farm became one of the first to adopt biosecurity measures. No one got into the sheep area without wearing new or disinfected boots and clean clothes. She had her vet trained to carry disinfecting fluid to treat his boots before each visit. There was a collection of rubber boots in many sizes available for guests to use. You could use your own boots only after scrubbing them in the bathroom and then dipping in disinfectant under Stefania’s strict supervision. Because of Stef’s vigilance, Icelandic sheep got a clean start in North America.

    Stefania was always interested in leadersheep. Leadersheep are Icelandic sheep that have exceptional abilities. Weather prediction, watchfulness, a homing instinct and a feel for danger were some of those traits that made them revered in Iceland. There are stories of their abilities that saved many shepherds and their flocks by leading them to safety in white-out blizzards. Stefania imported a leadersheep ewe “Blessa” from Iceland with her ewe lamb. She wanted to breed leadersheep. After the importation of semen made it possible to get Leadersheep genetics, my farm, Tongue River Farm in Montana, had good results with AI and had a ram lamb that was son of Leadersheep, “Ari”. Stefania decided to buy the ram to breed to her beloved Blessa. Importation of semen to Canada was not allowed at that time. So in 1999 Stef bought and imported an “Ari” son from Tongue River Farm. This was a full circle as we had started our Icelandic sheep flock with stock purchased from Stefania.

 Leadersheep ram SRX 352J by Ari

   In 2006, Stefania was diagnosed with cancer and was undergoing treatments. She was responding well and had a good outlook. She had just imported her first semen from Iceland and inseminated some of her ewes using the vaginal method developed by Dr. Thorstein Olafsson after taking his class. She was looking forward to her first AI lambs in the spring of 2007. But suddenly in early February she became very ill, was rushed to the hospital and died 24 hours later on February 4^th 2007.

   The word of her death spread like wildfire from breeder to breeder in a flurry of tearful calls. We mourned her untimely and sudden death. We had so much that we still wanted to know about the sheep, that she had put off writing until she had the time “in her old age”.  This information and all of the stories that she kept in her head will never be told. After her death, the flock was dispersed with some being kept by friends for her daughter, Louise. Certainly we owe a huge debt of gratitude to that brave little feisty “pirate queen” that “stole” the breed from Iceland and made it possible for us to enjoy this wonderful and unusual old world sheep breed in North America.

Stefania was cremated and her ashes flown back to Iceland to be sprinkled on her wild beloved mountains where the Iceland sheep roam free each summer. A fitting end for the Queen of Icelandic Sheep.

 These are the sheep imported in the second import. The columns are as follows Registered name; registration number; Number of progeny; Breeder of the sheep in Iceland; Sire; Dam; Age when the sheep died or was culled; Owner. Rams are highlighted.

since 3-20-03