Ok I can't find the
scientific name for this damn thing so you will TAKE what I GIVE you and be HAPPY about it.
The altay is a sheep, yo. It originated in the dry, cold mountain basins of China. It belongs to the Kazakh group of sheep which are found in the desert and mountainous areas in west Xinjiang.
The altay is officially and impolitely described as "the fat-rumped carpet wool type." It gradually formed the fat tail (or rump) as a biological characteristic. The tail (or rump) weighs about 15 pounds.
Rams average 180 pounds and ewes 150 pounds at maturity. The lambing percentage of this breed is approximately 103%. I don't know what that means. The Kazakh group of sheep average 2.5 to 3.5 pounds of wool per shearing.
Here's the story of the big fat ass: sometimes there's not enough food for these beasts, sometimes there's too much. So the sheep tend to retain a large amount of fat in order to meet nutritional demands during the winter and spring. Plus, and this is a little gross, the herdsmen working under these climatic conditions need fat as their main source of energy, and so have selected towards sheep with high fat deposits.