The Damara breed of sheep can be traced back to Egypt in the days of the pyramids, some 4,000 years. The Damara is a hardy animal that stores fat in its tail while times are good and lives off of that fat in dry times.

These animals are known as browsers, they consume a far wider range of food sources compared to Australia’s conventional breeds producing minimal impact on our native pastures when managed. They are also able to utilise plant species of less nutritional value and as they do not produce wool, all of that energy goes into body weight and not wool growing. The Damara has a quiet, gentle nature, it is family oriented, has very high herding instincts and is territorial. It has a high fertility, great volumes of milk and is an attentive mother. Other than all of the impressive traits described above, the Damara has a high resistance to internal and external parasites making it ideal for the production of certified organic lamb.

 

The Dorper breed of sheep has come from the British Dorset Horn ram crossed with the African Persian ewe which has similar traits to the Damara. The Dorper breed has been developed since the early 1930’s to deliver a quiet tempered, early maturating, high meat yielding sheep that does not produce wool. The Dorper in our experience has shown many of the favourable traits of the Damara but matures at a younger age. Through careful selection of ewes and the use of premium rams we are producing more meat per animal delivering greater individual cuts to the customer. We are able to improve our product partly through a large input from Gossamer Down stud where we purchase all of our ram’s. Gossamer Downs are forever at the cutting edge of technology. We have found these two breeds to have very similar eating traits and favourable fat characteristics and for these reasons produce both breeds across the group.