Diilidorper - Dorper Sheep Stud

Enterprise: Cashdown Goats Partnership

Stud Prefix Dorper sheep : Dillidorper

Flock Number: 5

In 1996 Cashdown purchased some of the first embryos released for sale in Australia. These embryos were implanted into some of our stud Wiltshire Horn ewes. We were so impressed with the Dorpers, that we purchased more embryos in 2000 to add to our numbers. Even though the black head Dorper is the predominant Strain in South Africa we also purchased some White Dorper embryos as we wanted to compare the two types of Dorpers under our conditions, we found that the Black Headed Dorper performed better. As our meat buyers didn't seem to mind if the lambs were black or white (they paid more for the bigger animals), we quit our White Dorpers to concentrate upon breeding superior Black Headed Dorpers.

Characteristics which we are currently placing selection pressure upon are:

Long,well muscled body
Excellent shedding characteristics
Good conformation

So we can select the best easy care animals we don't foot trim or shear. As the Dorper show standard mandates the shearing of animals, and careful foot trimming can be used to hide faults we don't show our animals.

We are confident that Australian Dorper sheep Breeders will develop the breed making it an ideal animal for Australian Conditions and that the Dorper will become a mainstay in Australian Sheep meat industry.