Sheep

Nowadays, sheep are often regarded as typical North German farm animals, but originally they came from far away.

Nowadays, sheep are often regarded as typical North German farm animals, but originally they came from far away. All farm animals have wild ancestors. Like dogs descend from wolves, sheep descend from Near Eastern mouflons.

Sheep were bred around 10,000 BC in the Middle East. Later, they came to Europe with the first farmers. In Schleswig-Holstein the first sheep were raised around 4,000 BC. They looked different from what we are used to today: with brown fur they still resembled mouflons. White sheep were bred much later. Early sheep did not have a wool fleece.