OXFORD, Ohio – Kathy and Nick Forrest have been in the sheep industry for more than 35 years. They started with Suffolks and crossbreds as 4-H projects for their seven kids. That all changed when Kathy began to notice Dorper sheep.

“They seemed so docile,” Kathy said. “They don’t come up and run me over.

“Ron Waldron and Danny Burkholder, a local sheep producer, mentored me. Danny has the black-headed; ours are all white.”

Dorpers are a South African mutton breed. In the early 1950s, a controversy arose concerning black markings as opposed to a pure white sheep, according to The American Dorper Sheep Breeders’ Society. That was settled in 1964 when the blackhead and white Dorper breeders united in one association. They called the black head sheep Dorpers and the unmarked sheep White Dorpers.

To learn more about the breed, the Forrests visited Ron Waldron’s Ohio farm. Waldron is the past national director of the society and a certified Dorper judge. He explained that Dorpers are easy keepers and do well on a grass-based program.

“I was showing them our sheep, and Kathy just fell in love with them,” Waldron said. “I explained how easy doing they are and why life would be a little more simplistic with them. She just jumped in with both feet. It is a pretty expensive purchase to buy a ram, so I told them they could have access to my rams for a couple of years to help them get established and get their flock going.”

Nick said, “We got two to start with. We went to a sale at Riverwood Farms in Columbus. They had black-headed and White Dorpers. Kathy wanted the white. We ended up buying a ewe. It was the most I ever spent on a sheep. The ewe needed a friend, so we bought another one. You have to know the bloodlines. It was good to have people like Ron to mentor us.”

Nick and Kathy still market their Suffolks and crossbreds for 4-H and FFA kids, plus they sell to several meat markets and have a freezer lamb business. They also sell to the ethnic market. Nick is on the American Sheep Industry Council. They are known for their Ohio Lamb Roadshow, where they travel throughout the United States doing lamb cooking programs. They are gradually switching to the Dorper breed and now have five White Dorper ewes and a buck.

“One reason we got into Dorpers is that we’re older now, and we can’t wrestle these sheep like we used to,” Nick said. “With these White Dorpers, they come right up to her, and she is comfortable with them. We wanted a sheep that won’t knock us down or hurt us.”

Added Kathy: “Some of the other sheep we had when our kids were showing, they would pull them all over and didn’t do anything they wanted them to do. The White Dorpers do whatever you want them to do.

“Another good thing about Dorper sheep is they’re hair sheep; you don’t have to shear them,” she said. “They get rid of their fiber or hair by rubbing on trees. They may have a top-cap left that keeps the sun from burning their hides.”

Waldron likes that Dorpers are good mothers and the lambs have extreme vigor. The lambs are usually up and nursing within seven minutes. They can also breed out of season, give birth any time of year, and have three babies in one year.

“Also, with the markets the way they are, especially the nontraditional market being a 55 to 60-pound market, with better genetics, you can get to that 55 to 60-pound goal in 60 days,” Waldron said. “The problem we run into with our breed is we have the carcass yield, we have the quality, we have every attribute, but we are a smaller framed sheep.”

If processors use automation, the Dorper frame size is not big enough, he said. He believes Dorpers can beat the other breeds on a meat-to-bone ratio, “But we’re just in a smaller, tidier package,” he said.

The meat is flavorful, according to Kathy. “Nick was cooking Dorper meat, and I thought I would not eat it. I’m not a big meat eater. When I tried it, I thought it was the best I had ever had.”

But right now, she is raising them for her great-granddaughter, Paisley Taylor, age 8, to show. “It will be perfect for her because they are gentle,” she said.

For more information, visit dorpersheep.org.