Barbaresca
The Barbaresca or Barbaresca Siciliana is a breed of large fat-tailed sheep from the Mediterranean island of Sicily, in southern Italy. It derives from the cross-breeding between indigenous Sicilian Pinzirita sheep with fat-tailed Barbary (or Barbarin) sheep of Maghrebi origin. These were probably brought to the island after the Muslim conquest of Sicily in the 9th century; Arabic texts preserved at Agrigento document the movement of large numbers of sheep to the Sicilian interior. The Barbaresca is raised throughout most of Sicily and in Abruzzo. It is a triple-purpose breed, yielding meat, milk, and wool . The wool is not now in demand and the Barbaresca is kept principally for meat and milk production. It yields approximately 140–160 litres of milk per lactation, with 6–9% fat. The Barbaresca is one of the seventeen autochthonous Italian sheep breeds for which a genealogical herdbook is kept by the Associazione Nazionale della Pastorizia, the Italian national association of sheep-breeders. In 1983 the breed population was estimated at 75,000 head, of which 5500 were registered. In 2013 the number registered for the breed was 1260.