..Breychaks Blue Egg Farm ....Registered Fullblood and Pure Bred Dorper Sheep in beautiful Columbia Station, Ohio Home . Dorper Lambs For Sale About Our Dorper Sheep Farm Goodies & CSA info Artwork Available Contact Us

About Our Dorper Sheep

Our foundation ewes showing their hams

Dorpers are the largest of the meat sheep in the U.S. that can shed their hair and wool coat.
They are medium sized, polled ( no horns) and easy to handle.
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 prolapse 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 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 the local 4H and other shows, to sell dorper lambs to individuals and restaurants as high quality, locally raised , delicious lamb. Our feeling is that dorper lamb tastes better than any other lamb we have tried.

Our ewe flock originated from Debray Dorpers who produced some of the finest ewes in this country.
Our herd rams are from CMP Dorpers who consistently produce some of the finest rams plus our own line breeding program.
Our Dorpers are registered with the American Dorper Sheep Breeder's Society and we are members of both ADSBS and the OVRDA
Scrapies DNA testing is done through Gene Check
Most of our sheep gear is purchased from Premier 1 Supply

What is the difference between a Fullblood or Purebred?
For answers to this and many more frequently asked questions about dorpers please consult the ADSBS FAQs page


Picture Page

Notice How we shed our wool/hair coat naturally. Really it comes off in big and little chunks .
Each animal is different in the amount it sheds due to coat type, genetics and weather.

Some total shed, some leave a little rug on the back and some only shed around the bottom, tail and down the neck and brisket, in colder weather they may hang onto their coat longer also.

My goal along with good meat qualities will be to improve our herds shedding quality.

Even the animals that do not shed fully are easy to care for, eventually the wool does come off, but if it bothers you it can easily be removed without the need for shearing. Since the fleece mats into something that resembles a carpet or sweater and is only held on by a few bits of tangled wool it is easy to lift around the edges, all you need is a pair of scissors to remove the "rug".

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, caveman shawl, packaging material, stuffed animal stuffing and 100's of other uses.

The dorpers hair/ wool coat comes in different textures:

Some are more woolie

Some are more hair
But the goal is to have a coat of both wool and hair that sheds.

Notice that no matter how much the dorpers shed they are always clean of wool around the tail so docking in not necessary, which is nice. No need to worry about manure build up or maggots if they get the poops and of course they love to express themselves by swinging their tail around after flies just like horses and cows do. Also very nice is the fact that the under carriage stays clean of wool too, which makes it easy for newborn lambs to find their milk supply quickly.

Dorpers are a polled breed, which mean they should not have horns. But should have a strong horn base.
Sometimes from the horn base scurs will grow.

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.

Cross Breeding
below is a dorper x suffolk cross ewe lamb
She grows wool that needs to be shorn.
She is also extremely meatie from pasture grazing and hay only, no grain was given.

If you are looking to raise quick growing, healthy, meaty lambs with plenty of hybrid vigor by all means cross breed a dorper with any of the meaty wool breeds. 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 unless you are breeding to another shedding breed such as katahdin, Barbados or wiltshire horn, but in my opinion you would be undoing all the goodness of the breed (big and meaty) doing so.





Who Watches the flock when the humans can't?

10 year old Sparkle does!!



The Ford baby sitter

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