Several attendees of the USU Shepherds Symposium had the pleasure of an informal chat with Mr. Cole Evans on the evening of September 10, 2025. Cole was a graduate student who was working with Dr. Warren Foote when the founding flock was imported to Utah State University. Mr. Evans still raises St. Croix sheep on his ranch in Utah and plans to obtain a new ram from USU for breeding season this year.
Some Things Change, Some Stay the Same
He compares the size of today’s sheep with those from the import, stating that they are much larger now. When he looked at the lambs in USU’s flock, he was visibly impressed with their size. When asked how the USU flock looks now compared to those from the past, he said “They looked just like this only miniature.”
Mr. Evans describes the fertility, fecundity, and prolificacy of our sheep in accelerated lambing, and those traits are still common today. Our sheep rarely require assistance during lambing, and Mr. Evans reports he often had to remind students to leave them alone because they wanted to pull lambs. When Dr. Page asked if the sheep were friendly then, he said “They were always friendly.”
The First Flock
Cole explains that the first set of sheep were selected from several farms on the island of St. Croix. The university was interested in them because they “were so different” reproductively. The team chose sheep that were white and without horns because it was believed that they were most likely to be “pure.” However, he also says that while on the island, he saw sheep of other colors and with spots running among the white sheep. Several of the ewes they imported were pregnant, and for the first couple of generations, some of the lambs had spots or even small horns/scurs. The team at USU chose to cull those animals, but he was unsurprised to learn that color still pops up in flocks.
St. Croix as a Meat Breed
Mr. Cole Evans shared his observations at one of the local livestock auctions, stating that ethnic populations “…buy up these hair sheep a lot faster than wool.” He described a meat quality panel at USU in which the meat from six different sheep breeds (Dorper, Rambouillet, Suffolk-type commercial, crossbreds, and St. Croix) was compared for juiciness, flavor, and tenderness. “The St. Croix were the favorite on all three …” with Dorpers in second place and St. Croix-Dorper crossbreds in third. Wool sheep were the least favorite. The study was published by Dr. Bunch after Cole retired.