Delightful Dorpers

The British Dorper, a true all-round breed, seems to have everything a smallholder could want, but UK numbers are very low. Charlotte Cooper visits a Derbyshire breeder who has gone to the other side of the world in her bid to create the perfect sheep

- Charlotte Cooper

You have just decided to get into pedigree sheep. You want something a bit unusual and you don’t want to shear as you are only going to buy a small number. Your herd also needs to be able to pay its way with good carcass values, and be able to survive on little hard feed. It sounds like a tall order, but enthusiasts of one of the UK’s least-known sheep breeds — the British Dorper — think that they have just what you’re looking for.

With its snow-white body and black head, the British Dorper looks like it is poking its head out of a big woolly jumper. This unusual look comes from its ancestry. The Dorper was created in South Africa in 1942 by crossing a Dorset Horn ram with a Blackhead Persian ewe. This created a very meaty, prolific sheep, capable of producing lambs every eight months. Other benefits are that it is self-shedding — so it doesn’t need shearing — and is an excellent, milky mother.

The breed only came to the UK in 2004 and, although very common in South Africa and Australia, where they are among the most popular meat breeds, there are just 28 registered breeders in the UK and the British Dorper remains largely unknown.

There is also a White Dorper, which, as the name suggests, doesn’t have the classic black head.

One of the most proactive British breeders of Dorpers is Margaret Hollinrake. She lives high up on the limestone hills above the market town of Bakewell in Derbyshire and I went to meet her and fellow Dorper enthusiast Alison Richards, congregating in Margaret’s cosy stone farmhouse for a chat.

On an early spring day Knotlow Farm is green and pleasant, with a camping site, wooden yurts with barbecue pitches and hot tubs — all the ingredients needed for an idyllic holiday away from the working world. But in the middle of winter it is a bleak and exposed place and the sheep need to be able to deal with whatever the weather throws at them.