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There are as many ways to train sheep as there are trainers. We asked some of our breeders for their tips for getting Babydolls to be super friendly.
Our breeders put their heads together to make a list of questions about Babydoll sheep that are often asked...
% Southdown is used by Babydoll Sheep Breeders Australia (BSBA) to summarise the amount of Southdown genetics in the pedigrees of sheep in our Babydoll registry. We use the % of Southdown genetics in the pedigree to decide when a Babydoll sheep is eligible to be inspected for registration as Purebred Babydoll. This is one way that we manage quality for the BSBA Purebred Babydoll sheep.
How can sheep be registered as BSBA Purebred Babydolls?
A new sheep breed is not created instantly. It needs a vision for what the new breed will be (the breed standard) and then careful, selective breeding to produce sheep that fulfill the vision. Babydoll Sheep Breeders Australia (BSBA) records this process in our registry. You can be sure that sheep registered as BSBA Purebred Babydolls have been through a rigorous process to achieve that status. Babydoll Sheep Breeders Australia offers a grading up process that allows our breeders to register two levels of Babydoll sheep: EM Babydoll (EM is for Emerging) and Purebred Babydoll. Sheep can only move from EM Babydoll to Purebred Babydoll registration after a rigorous inspection process. Why register sheep?
Breeders register sheep as a way of tracking pedigrees, genetics and purity of sheep type. Over time these registrations create flock histories that become a useful resource for all breeders. By registering and tracking our Babydolls we can gradually build our new Australian Babydoll breed. It is a form of quality control that reduces the chance of valuable genetics being wasted by not being tracked and consequently becoming unavailable to registered flocks in the future. Babydoll Sheep Breeders Australia makes the registration process easy for our breeders by providing training in how to use our online registry and keeping registrations simple and inexpensive. Tony and Belinda Somers from Somersrust Babydoll Sheep Stud have shared their experience of keeping Babydoll sheep in their organic pear and apple cider orchard in Elands NSW.
With the right planning and infrastructure, Babydoll sheep can be a huge asset to vineyards, both in terms of monetary benefits and overall vineyard health.
At our inaugural BSBA Babydoll Stud Tour on 27 November 2022, we were delighted to welcome Linda Power who was the first person to start developing a Babydoll sheep breed for Australia. Linda called her sheep Babydoll Southdowns. We now call them Babydolls to differentiate them from the larger, leaner type of Southdowns that have been developed in the last few decades in Australia.
Linda has given us permission to share her talk and photos on our website. All Babydoll sheep have Southdown genetics and any one of them could be carrying the gene for Gaucher Disease. Life for a lamb born with two copies of the Gaucher gene is pretty grim and short since they are unable to stand and feed. Anecdotally, it also seems that ewes carrying Gaucher are less fertile, more likely to have stillborn lambs and more likely to die unexpectedly (especially soon after lambing). None of us need this in our Babydoll flocks.
Fortunately there is a simple, inexpensive DNA test that can be done to find out whether a sheep is carrying Gaucher. Please ask about the Gaucher status of any Babydoll rams and ewes before buying. It is much easier to check before buying and avoid introducing Gaucher into your flock than to try to fix the problem later. In Australia we are lucky to have a big sheep meat and wool industry. One of the benefits is the high quality, evidenced-based information provided by state agriculture departments and sheep industry bodies.
Here are some webinar recordings from SheepConnect NSW and other information that you might like to dip into when learning about all things sheep. |
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