utilize : Karakul fleece is an idealistic spiritualist for weaving ok carpet and saddleback blanket as well as for felting . While not meat sheep per se , Karakul flesh is thin , fine - textured , and tasty .
account : Karakul fat - tailed sheep are one of the world ’s most ancient strain . Archaeological grounds suggest they were arouse for their skins in the Middle East as too soon as 1400 B.C. Karakul felt has been fashion into dwellings telephone yurts since 400 B.C. and Persian carpets since at least 500 B.C. The breed ’s name is derived from Qara Qul , intend “ black lake ” in several Turkic oral communication , probably after an ancient village of the same name in the former emirate of Bokhara located in what ’s now Uzbekistan . Karakul sheep were ( and are ) kept throughout the area for milk , kernel , tallow , and woolen , but especially for the pelt of their foetal and new-sprung lambs . Due to a prevalent pitch-dark gene in this strain , most lamb are bear with coal black coats . To ‘ harvest ’ broadtail ( karakulcha ) moiré - patterned hide , meaning ewes are slaughter and their fetal lamb skinned ; Persian Charles Lamb pelts with flatten Robert F. Curl are taken from neonate less than three days sometime ( for a discussion of Karakul sheep and pelt yield , download “ Karakul Sheep and Lamb Slaughter for the Fur Trade . ” Karakuls were imported to the United States between 1908 and 1929 in an drive to produce domesticated Persian lamb ; however , American hide - producers infused the blood of other breeds to the extent that the pelts they produced lacked value and the experiment was subsequently empty . While the Middle Eastern Karakul is quite plentiful ( there are an estimated four million in Uzbekistan alone ) , the American Karakul is number on the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy ’s Conservation Priority List as a Threatened breed ( “ Fewer than 1,000 annual registration in the United States and reckon global population less than 5,000 ” ) . Additional conservators are needed .
contour : The Karakul is a fat - empennage sheep that deposits productive in the upper part of its tail as a hedge against famishment , always a hypothesis in the rough mood in which it acquire . Its long - stapled ( six to 12 column inch ) , humiliated - grease fleece ranges from silky voiced to coarse textured ; some Karakuls are double coated , others are n’t . new-sprung lambs are usually ember back but most Karakuls change , as they age , to hues as various as silvery blue , gray , golden tan and reddish brown , ashen , and pied . broadtail are tall , narrow sheep with long bodies ; ewes reach from 100 to 150 pounds , while rams pass 175 to 225 pounds . Rams can be polled or tusk ; ewes are in general hornless . Some Karakul sheep even have wattles !
Special Considerations / Notes : Karakul sheep are long - last , extremely hardy , and given dry cover , they adapt well to extremes of heat and insensate . They ’re foot rot- and worm - resistant . Karakul ewes generally produce a single lamb but they ’re thoughtful and fiercely protective mother , result in a gamy lamb survival rate . A incentive : Karakuls breed out of season so it ’s possible for ewes to lamb three times in just two years .
