Elkhorn Icelandic Sheep

Grey Pet — Foundation Ewe

When I first saw Grey Pet (STS140Z), her great width and girth is what struck me as well as her lovely grey color and excellent horns. She had been born in Iceland and brought in with the second importation by Stefania. She was bred by Orn Bergsson and was born on May 8th 1990 . Her sire was Fifill 1026-01 and dam is Drynja 1026-20. Nothing else is known about her pedigree.

She always stood out from the ewes at Stefania’s farm. Her extremely wide rumen was what really made you look twice at her. While wide rumens are generally the result of sheep having a poor quality high roughage diet, Grey pet’s rumen clearly was her natural conformation and trademark as her offspring and “grandchildren” all seemed to inherit this trait. She also had an unusual almost tog-less fleece. Her thel was dense but had little tog. She had 11 registered offspring. She sometimes skipped a year and didn’t lamb so was not as prolific as some ewes in Stefania’s flock but clearly left her mark on the breed through her offspring.

The following table shows the registered Icelandic offspring of Grey Pet (STS140Z)...

Early on I was lucky enough to purchase one of her offspring from Stefania, STS366E “Ray Pet” (we named him after Stefania’s husband Ray) a black grey ram lamb whose sire was STS167C a spotted moorit ram. At that time there were very few spotted moorits in North America and we breeders were all trying hard to breed for this color and pattern. While Ray Pet (STS366E) was grey I knew that he carried both moorit and spotting through his sire and hoped that he would throw it to some of his lambs. Ray Pet inherited both the large rumen as well as the togless fleece. The fleece was soft but didn’t look very good in the field.

Ray pet also inherited the togless fleece of his dam Grey Pet (STS140Z). While Ray Pet’s horns looked excellent at the time we bought him and were uniform they eventually started getting too close and growing into his head and had to be cut. He has 28 registered offspring. I sadly don’t have any of his genetics left in my flock. But he lives on the flocks of others.

The following table shows the registered Icelandic offspring of Ray Pet (STS366E)...