We raise dorper sheep, their purpose is to produce fast growing, meaty lambs that gain weight on unimproved pasture alone and come to market at a smaller size.
They are a commercial meat lamb, not wool sheep, novelty items, club lambs or show sheep.

Dorpers are the largest of the meat sheep in the US that can shed their hair and wool coat, are medium sized, are docile, polled ( no horns) and low maintenance, less worm drenching is required and tail docking is not required, can breed out of season with twins being the usual.

They were created in South Africa around the 1940s from a Blackhead Persian - a haired, fat-tailed sheep from North Africa and a wool breed - Dorset to give the South African market a meatier lamb to export to other countries that could survive and grow meaty in the tough South African environment . They were brought to the U. S. in 1995.
Low maintenance, Dorpers have a combination of wool and hair that they shed out in the summer, eliminating the need to shear, if you don't want to. Another benefit of short, shedding hair and wool there is no need to dock the tail as there is no manure and wool build up around the anus and tail making the risk of fly strike next to zero. By not docking your naturally clean tails you are allowing your lambs and sheep to live a more comfortable and humane life plus you will suffer rectal prelates much less often than sheep who have had their tails docked.
They are also naturally more resistant to parasites since they not only graze but browse on vines and tree leaves as far up as they can reach , about 5 feet. The leaves and vines which contain more tannins than grass alone have a an effect on parasites that may not totally rid the sheep of them but seems to naturally lower their numbers.
Dorpers also breed out of season, are excellent mothers with large quantities of milk for the lamb and produce quick growing lambs. Twins and triplets are the usual.
Naturally sweet meat since dorpers are not a wool sheep they have very little or no lanolin. Lanolin is the oil in wool that makes lamb meat taste strong or "muttony".
Adding a Dorper ram to your wool meat ewe flock will add great hybrid vigor to your F1 lambs. Your cross breed lambs will be quick growing, healthy, meaty lambs with more sweet meat flavor less of that "mutton sheep" flavor.

We are breeding and selling healthy, scrapies free, meaty, yet affordably priced production stock in both fullblood and purebred models so that other breeders can have their start in dorpers. Our goal is to educate the sheep buying public about the benefits of the Dorper breed, to include dorper sheep in their natural form at the local 4H and other shows, to sell dorper lambs to individuals and restaurants as high quality, locally raised, grass fed, delicious Ohio lamb. Our feeling is that dorper lamb tastes better than any other lamb we have tried.

In late summer if your sheep still has its "rug" on the back, and you see it scratching to get it off ,
you can help by cutting it off with scissors. It will only be attached by a few tangles of wool to the new
growing coat underneath and should be easy to remove. Give it a gentle wash to clean and felt the
bottom and you will have a humane, skinless pelt to use as a rustic centerpiece place mat

Scurs are the horn material, like what the hooves are made of, with no bone under it .
They are attached to the flesh and skin but not the skull and generally do not grow very large.
Rams with scurs are considered more masculine than those without.

Notice the different shaped tails, but both show the slightly fatter part at the top.

Tails

Dorpers have tails of different lengths and shapes. Some long, alittle past the hocks, some shorter, above the hocks, some have thin bony tails, some brushy tails and some tails are curved and flattened side to side. The funny thing is that as a new born lamb you really do not know which type of tail you are going to have right away, they pretty much all look the same.
As the lamb grows and tails start looking different, the only thing all these tails will have in common is that the first 3 or 4 inches of the tail from the body will be fatter than the rest of the tail that hangs down. This is probably from the Persian side of the dorpers ancestry where the Persian used the tail to store extra body fat for lean times. When we look at the bottom side of the tail we see skin or webbing extending from the back end of the lamb down to that point on the tail where fat storage stops and the tail naturally gets thinner. This skin or webbing is called the caudal folds. I have also noticed that no matter what shape or length, from caudal folds down to the end of the tail, it seems there is very little flexibility or control and in some animals this section of the tail seems almost fused and stick like.
It is true that the dorper does not need to have its tail docked or cut off. Since the dorper is a shedding sheep there should be no problems with fly strike or infection from the build up of manure in the wool around the back end as happens in most of the wool breeds. So if you want to keep your tails go right ahead.
Why dock the dorpers tail?
If you plan on showing your dorpers competitively and you want to do good in the show ring, the judge will not take a lamb with a tail as seriously as one that has been docked. Yes the judge is supposed to look past the tail and go hands on to examine the lamb for meatiness and structure but each judge is different. Docking the tail gives the appearance of the hams being much more meaty than they actually are, reason 1- optical illusion, reason 2- the fat that would naturally accumulate in the tail now has nowhere to go except the top of the rump and down the hams. So from a distance untailed beats tailed.

Where, when and how to dock.
If you have decided to dock, you have a variety of methods to choose from and when I decide to dock I use the band method and only dock at the caudal folds, which gives the dorper a stubby tail , I do not dock show short, here, I will show you.

A very small elastic band is placed on the tail where you want it to end. These are the same bands that are also used for castration.


This is a tool that stretches the band large enough to slide up the tail to the designated spot. The band is pushed onto the prongs and when you squeeze the handles it stretches the band.

Have a helper hold your lamb securely upside down.
Here the helper is seated, lamb on her back, restrained by holding the front and back legs in each hand, tail facing outward.
Brush off any loose dirt, clean with a baby wipe, we don't want any dirt under the band.

I do not dock "lamb show short", I dock the tail after the caudal folds which the green arrows are pointing to. The caudal folds are loose skin or webbing that connects from the body down past the fatty part of the tail. The blue dots is showing where I want the band to be.
This way the lamb will keep the fatter top part of the tail which is just enough tail to cover the sensitive areas from the sun and wag away bugs with.
Also there is less chance of rectal prolapse since the nerves and muscles that control the anus are not being compromised. (Show short would be above the green arrows).

The band on the spreading tool is slid up the tail with the band open and the prongs facing the body.
Let the band close on the tail and roll the band off the prongs and pull the stretcher tool towards you and you are done. If the band ends up in the wrong spot you can quickly remove it by carefully cutting it with a sharp razor blade and try again.
The constricted tail will quickly go numb, lose blood flow and after some time ( a week or 2) will dry up like a scab and fall off.

Timing the tail dock is important. Ideally you want to dock tails at 3 or 4 days of age, that way the lamb will have hopefully gotten over the stress of birth and is strong, healthy , bonded and nursing well from the ewe.
Since I lamb in January and February I have the added benefit of cold weather with no insects and less germs flying around. Cold weather really helps the tail go numb alot quicker too.

The older the lamb and the warmer the weather the greater chance of something going wrong like infection, fly strike and of course more pain. If you are not showing and do not plan to you might just want to keep the tail.
If older lambs absolutely need to be docked it would be best to let a vet do it surgically with proper medications and pain killers.

If you are very serious about competitive showing the president of the American Dorper Sheep Breeders Society recommends docking very short, with just enough tail to place a pencil under.

At breeding time, neither full tail or docked tail get in the way of the rams work.

There are other ways of docking but since I have not tried them I can not comment, but doing a search should bring up other options for you.



Feeding your Dorper

Ours dorpers are low maintenance Master Grass Passers with big efficient bellies that can turn grass, weeds and marginal land into meat.
Our flock is total grass and hay fed, only the bred ewes who will be lambing in winter will get alittle corn in their last month of gestation for a little extra energy to avoid pregnancy ketosis. Those who lamb in the spring and early summer get no grain. I do supplement all year long with mineral blocks and once in a while put vitamins in the water, wether they need the vitamins or not I really don't know, I do it just because.
So for me, a male, wethered ( castrated) lamb born in January or February at 9 pounds will be sent to the butcher in September at 90 to 110 pounds live weight, which will equal 45 to 55 pounds hanging weight.
The lamb will be be nice and meaty with just enough fat
.

If you are raising dorpers as 4H market lambs first check to see what the minimum weight requirements are for your fair. Dorper lambs are nice and meatie for their size, but are smaller and weigh less than market or club lambs of the same age, you might be disqualified for being underweight. And to really be competitive you have to do what other show people do which is to feed special show feeds and supplements. The lambs will grow faster, put on fat faster and weigh a few pounds more. This lamb will need a lot of special attention and care so that it does not succumb to acidosis , coccidosis or other digestive problems from the rich diet. It would be provided with probably no pasture, very little if any hay and be separated from the flock so that it can be worked with daily and fed its special diet. This will be a very high maintenance and costly animal.

If you want to take your dorpers to show just to promote the breed, answer questions and show what they can do naturally on pasture, not there to collect pretty ribbons, then taking them off pasture a week or two before the show just to wash them up and groom them is fine. A well bred dorpers genetics will always shine through and people will notice.

Cross Breeding

If you are looking to raise quick growing, healthy, meaty lambs with plenty of hybrid vigor by all means cross breed a dorper ram with any of the meaty wool breed ewes. That's the way to go. Just remember the purpose of this cross is to create meat, just like broiler chickens are raised just for meat. The cross bred lamb produced from a dorper and a wool sheep will not shed, will grow wool and will require shearing if you decide not to butcher it. If you thought you would end up with shedding sheep from this cross I am sorry, it won't happen in the first cross.
You can keep the shedding by breeding to another shedding breed such as the white dorper, katahdin, Barbados or wiltshire horn. These crosses can also show hybrid vigor and grow nice and meaty. Many folks that are increasing their dorper flocks through percentage breeding like to use white dorper and katahdin ewes as their foundation. Be aware that the color patterns of crossbreeds will be wild for the first few generations.
Shown above is a dorper x suffolk cross ewe lamb
She grows wool that needs to be shorn.
She is also extremely firm and meaty from pasture grazing and hay only, no grain was given and although smaller than a club lamb of the same age placed well in the 4H light weight class on her meatiness alone.

Dorper Lambing Calculator
it is pretty accurate with my flock

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