Former Southeast art professor now crossbreeds sheep

A former Southeast Missouri State University art professor has turned to a new passion: crossbreeding sheep.

More specifically, Painted Desert sheep.

Edwin Smith, born and raised on his family's farm, is the owner of Amity Hills Farm in Cape Girardeau. There, he crossbreeds five varieties of hair sheep, which are considered a "meat sheep" and do not require shearing, to get multicolored Painted Desert lambs.

Edwin Smith bottle-feeds a 10-day-old Painted Desert lamb, which its mother did not claim. (Fred Lynch)

"As a retired professor from the Southeast Art Department, I have a vested interest in color," said Smith. "It's fun raising these sheep from an artistic standpoint."

He said the lambs can have any combination of black, white, brown, and even red coloring. Smith said recently one of his ewes -- a mature female sheep -- gave birth to a ram that even had multicolored horns, with black coloring on the front and white on the back.

It is these colors that inspired the name Painted Desert. In 1978 Dave Hale, farm owner and friend of Smith's, first gave the name to the multicolored sheep.

Smith said most lambs have "great colors with lots of combinations," but it's not uncommon to see a pure white lamb born from a Painted Desert sheep.

"White is the dominant gene in these animals," Smith said. "So I still get some lambs that are all white or mostly white."

In the three years that he has been raising and breeding sheep, Smith said he has 16 lambs born from eight ewes. Typically, ewes give birth to two lambs in one year, he said, but one of his ewes birthed four lambs this year.

"I came out to check on her on Super Bowl Sunday and she had delivered all four on her own," Smith said. "My friends in the sheep world joked that I should call Guinness World Records, because four lambs is just unbelievable."

Perhaps even more impressive, Smith said, was that all four lambs and the mother have survived with no health complications.

He said he does give the nursing ewe extra care and attention. Because these ewes typically nurse only one or two lambs at one time, Smith said he has been sure to compensate any nutrient losses with extra food and water.

Although most sheep do not require much assistance delivering lambs, Smith said emergencies can happen. When one of his ewes delivered her first lamb, she encountered complications that required Smith's intervention.

Edwin Smith watches his 5-year-old Kadatan sheep nurse two of its four lambs Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013 at his Cape Girardeau County farm. The quad lambs were born on Super Bowl Sunday. (Fred Lynch)

"I'm thankful I grew up on a farm," Smith said. "At the age of nine or 10, my father taught me how to turn a breached lamb, which not only saves the lamb, but the mother as well."

Smith said all of his lambs and their mothers are strong and healthy. Now, he's ready to expand. After placing advertisements and beginning the search for more Painted Desert sheep, Smith said he plans to "stay with it for a while."

"Now that I'm retired, I can spend all the time I want with the animals," he said. "I always wanted to be outside working on the farm."

In addition to the sheep, Smith also owns a variety of other animals, including cattle, potbellied pigs and ostriches. While he enjoys having the other animals, Smith said his interest in crossbreeding will stay with the sheep.

srinehart@semissourian.com

388-3641

Pertinent address:

1361 Kingshighway Drive, Cape Girardeau, MO