In the beginning…
“We just need a few sheep to eat the grass under the trees, so let’s see if we can find “other people’s sheep” to do the job.” All well and good until the “other people” took their sheep away and convinced us we could produce a quality meat sheep on our hilly Glen Alvie property. Five lambing seasons later and we are starting to think of ourselves as sheep farmers.
Our initial breeding ewes were a Wiltshire Horn/White Dorper cross, which conveniently sheds fleece each spring – no shearing, crutching or dipping required. The wool of course is no use to us; however all the local birds are very appreciative. We purchased two rams which were also Wiltshire Horn/White Dorper crosses and we have since added two Dorper rams and a Wiltipoll ram.
After lots of trial and error (too shaggy, sheep with horns, and so on), we are refining our flock to breed clean shedding, poll (no horns!) sheep that are closer to the Wiltshire Horn in characteristic. Follow this blog to see how we progress on our journey.