Madagascar

Malagasy, Malgache

African Long-fat-tailed

Typically white or light brown coat, often with large red, brown or black patches; the head and neck are often black, the rest of the body being white in the same pattern as the Blackhead Somali sheep; the feet are black; head profile is convex, ears are long and pendent; horns are either small or absent; the tail is long and characteristically sickle shaped with an accumulation of fat at the base; the dewlap is sometimes well developed; the hairy coat consists of coarse fibre (Mason and Maule, 1960).

Found in Madagascar, mostly in the southern region.

The well developed, long, fat tail and coarse hairy coat of this breed suggest a common origin with other fat-tailed African sheep types. In appearance they resemble the black-headed sheep of Tanganyika and Uganda (Mason and Maule, 1960).