So, why keep Dorpers anyway?

 

There are many reasons...

 

They are a low maintenance, easy-care breed of sheep. Ideal for anyone who has limited knowledge of caring for sheep.

 

As they breed continuously, you have lambs born every 8 months. And they often twin, so even if you only have a few acres, they can provide an enormous amount of fresh meat. You cannot buy fresh meat for a reasonable price, plus you have the advantage of knowing where it has come from, what it has been fed, and you know that the animal was well treated and cared for while it was alive.

 

Dorpers make great pets. The Dorper has a lovely quiet temperament and are easily tamed. 

 

Getting Started

 

So, how do you get started with Dorpers?

 

Basically, you must first decide what you want them for. Do you want to run some ewes as lawnmowers, to keep the grass and weeds under control and maybe provide a few lambs for the freezer? Or do you want to get into breeding and possibly showing top quality stud animals?

 

If you are after the purebred, stud registered animals, you are obviously going to have to pay for your foundation animals. Ewes of any quality are priced from around $750-$5000+ depending on age and quality. A good ram to go with them will start at $500. As you get going you will of course need rams of different blooodlines to bring in wider genetics and diversity to your flock.

 

If you are just after pets/lawnmowers/freezer lambs, cross breds are probably the way to go. If you are in the right place at the right time you might find some crossbred ewes for around $250 each. First cross ewes are usually cheaper. Usually second cross onwards won't need shearing or be bothered by flystrike etc. 

 

When breeding up crossbreds, make sure you get the ram with the best shedding characteristics you can afford. Nicely bred commercial quality rams are usually available for around $400+.

 

BEWARE!

If you are offered a commercial, purebred ram that doesn't have papers, be careful. We know of people selling "purebred" rams - they look pure, they shed quite well, but don't have papers. As it turns out, they don't have registration papers because they are NOT purebred, just crosses. A second cross Dorper can look very much like a pure Dorper. When these rams are crossed with woolly ewes they produce very woolly lambs with no shedding whatsoever. You may think you are picking up a bargain, but it becomes a very expensive problem when your lambs are born and need shearing, crutching, mulesing etc. You are probably better off shopping around and spending a little bit more to buy a purebred ram that comes with papers, that way you have some guarantee as to what you are getting.

 

 

 

Dorper "Upgrades"

 

What is an "Upgraded" Dorper?

 

Simply put, Upgrades are percentage Dorpers, where purebred rams have been used over ewes of other breeds, or crossbred ewes, to produce crossbred Dorpers. These animals are registered in a separate studbook to the pure, South African based Dorpers. For newcomers to sheep breeding, F1 means a first cross, so an F1 Dorper will be 50% Dorper blood and 50% something else. F2 will be 75% Dorper, F3 equals 87.5% Dorper, and so on.

 

To be registered, Upgraded rams must be at least F5, or 96.87% Dorper blood. Ewes can be registered at any stage.

There is absolutely no difference in a crossbred Dorper ewe and a registered Upgrade Dorper ewe, except that with the Upgrade you can get a piece of paper verifying the percentage of Dorper blood in the animal. For this reason Upgrade ewes are often more expensive than unregistered crossbreds, and are very hard to find, as most commercial producers running crosses do not register their sheep.

 

Upgrades can not be used in a stud breeding enterprise and can never be registered in the Purebred studbook, regardless of what percentage they get up to.

 

The terms "Fullblood" and "Purebred" only relate to 100% South African derived Dorpers. Upgrades are referred to as "Percentage Dorpers". Upgrades should be tagged with an NLIS tag that has an individual id number on it, this number will start with the letter "A".

 

If you are in the market for a ram, be aware that crossbred rams, whether registered Upgrades or just F3 or even F2 crosses, can look very good themselves, and indeed some of them are. However, when crossed with woolly ewes they often throw a good percentage of very woolly lambs. This eventuality should be considered if you are buying a ram to use over crossbred or wool-breed ewes with a view to getting into shedding sheep. 

 

If you would like more details feel free to contact us.