MITCHELL, Ind. – She grew up in a big city but an Indiana woman is now on the cusp of delivering what she expects to be her first pure-bred high-end sheep.

Diane Squibb, 55, is also making primarily handmade rugs from the wool of her growing flock.

Squibb, who grew up wanting to be an engineer, said living the farm life was not something she ever imagined herself doing as a child in Indianapolis or well into adulthood.

“If you would have said to me six or seven years ago that I was going to have sheep, I would have laughed at you. Thirteen years ago, I would have told you, you were crazy.  Now, I’m like I wouldn’t imagine life without it,” she said.

Five years after she started breeding sheep, Squibb said she expects her first-pure bred Valais sheep native to Sweden to be born in March.

Her plunge into breeding stems from catching her first glimpse of totally pure-bred Valais sheep on Facebook while she and her husband were living on a slightly over two-acre farm west of Indianapolis.

Her attention was especially drawn to their curly locks of hair, black faces and loving behavior she described as similar to a dog.

“They are so adorable. I just fell in love with them. It’s a unique breed,” she said.

Right away, she set out to acquire some of her own Valais sheep but learned having them transported here from other countries was prohibited to avoid the risk of spreading disease.

However, Squibb discovered semen from the Valais breed could be imported here from other countries. After considerable research, she obtained three female Scottish Black Face sheep from Maryland about five years ago due to their physical similarities with the Valais breed.

She had a nearby reproductive specialist artificially inseminate them with pure bred Valais semen from New Zealand and United Kingdom.

Squibb kept having each generation of her female newborns fertilized with Valais semen to increase the percentage of genes from the breed in each birth.

She was one or two deliveries away from meeting the qualifications of pure-bred status when she decided to short cut the process to save money on what has been a very costly venture.

She ordered fertilized eggs from a pair of 100-percent Valais sheep and had them inserted into the wombs of her highest percentage crossbred version of the species.

The embryos took in three of her sheep, which are due give birth to four lambs on her farm in March.

Eventually, Squibb hopes to at least recover the money she has sunk into crossbreeding by growing her herd of Valais sheep and selling them since pure-bred ones command as much as $25,000 to $30,000 apiece.

Squibb said she’s also looking to offer fertilized embryos and semen from her pure-bred sheep for sale.

She and her husband, Joel, have more room to keep a sizable herd since moving in July to a 60-acre farm outside Mitchell in the southern part of the state.

“It’s an investment. It’s definitely an investment,” she said.

Squibb, who’s a nurse, and her firefighter husband did not grow up or work on a farm, but was raised in a rural area.

They settled on living in the country once they married and later obtained a few animals like alpacas, chickens and donkeys.

For eight-years, Squibb also bred and sold full-blooded German shepherds. Her dog breeding and nursing skills have helped in her sheep adventure by not having to contact experts like a veterinarian to perform certain tasks like administering shots.

During the pandemic, Squibb, spending more of her personal time at home, also learned how to make yarn and products like rugs from the wool of her sheep laying around in bags after each sheering.

She acquired a spinning wheel and other tools like a carding machine to strengthen the fibers in the wool before pulling and twisting the material into long strands. She also obtained a floor loom for weaving the strands into the dozen or so rugs she has made and sold ever since.

“I did a lot of research. I’m a research person. When I get my mind set on something, I want to know everything about it,” she said.