Cormo sheep were first imported to the US by Travis Jones in 1976 when he imported 12 bred ewes and 2 stud rams from I.K. Downie. He was a very active sheep and wool producer in the 1970s and highly respected within the industry. At that time there was a lot of wool produced on rangeland in the Western United States. The purpose of the great expense and effort that Jones and later others made to import Cormos, was to improve the wool production of their commercial range flocks. It is fortunate that some of these people were willing to form ACSA, start the registry and maintain purebred flocks. None of the people who bought the first imported sheep are currently raising purebred Cormo sheep but they passed the registry down and helped and encouraged others to raise purebred Cormo sheep. 

It was about 1985 when personnel at Utah State U. started promoting Cormo sheep for the small farm fiber flocks. Cormo fit into that niche very well. The majority of Cormo sheep are still small fiber flocks today. However there are still commercial wool growers who are interested in using Cormo to improve their wool clips. 

Both carcass and wool traits are exceptional when Cormos are crossed with existing U. S. wool sheep. The Cormo is not being promoted as a show type sheep in the U.S., but rather as one of economic value. In recent years Cormo fleeces have received high recognitions over all breeds at some of the nations largest wool shows. Hand spinners find it the most exciting of the fine wool breeds.

Where will the Cormo breed in the US and the ACSA go in the future? The ACSA desires to uphold the principles of the original founders and registry. The registry rules are very simple. In order to be registered, both of the sheep’s parents must be in the register or come from ACSA approved semen. 

This was quoted from the letter with notes about the “first meeting of the American Cormo Sheep Assn,” Breed standards are being patterned on the Australian program in which selection is based solely on measured production of economical characteristics. This will include individual ram fleece micron testing and eventually individual fleece yield testing..