Its hard to believe that we've been raising Dorper sheep for just over 5 years now.
When I was 16 I decided I wanted to have sheep. The year prior I had taken home four ducklings from my FFA advisor and I loved taking care of them. My family also had cattle in the past and I wanted to try it out myself. My grandparents have always been extremely supportive of anything I wanted to do, so when I asked my papa for some sheep of course he said yes.
I knew very little about sheep at the time, really any livestock in general. My papa spent some time looking on the web and he happened to come across a lady on craigslist that was selling young dorper crosses in March of 2018, not far from our home. We decided to get in contact with her and not longer after when to visit her farm. She had many to choose from and I picked out my favorite two ewes. They weren't old enough to bring home yet so we would head back in June to pick them up.
Bringing home those two girls would set me off on one of the craziest and most wonderful adventures of my life. I had never used a halter, I didn't know how to look for illness, overall I really had no idea what on earth I was doing. It took me a long time, but eventually I could take care of those girls like it was nothing. My grandparents still like to tell the story of them watching me sit up on the hill all those summer days, slowly building a bond with Willow and Big Momma.
I could tell hundreds of stories about me and my girls. One of my favorites being the day the first two lambs were born on the farm. I had never been through a lambing before so I had no idea what to look out for before hand, therefore I had no idea the twins were coming. It was a very cold and dark day in January of 2020, I was a senior in high school at the time studying for finals when I got a call from our guys. I remember being so excited and worried at the same time. I got there and big momma had a set of twins, common for dorper sheep, a beautiful brown and white ewe and an all white ram. Unfortunately with her being a first time mom, momma rejected her little girl and Chloe became our first bottle baby. All the late night and early morning bottle feedings, I was so grateful to have the help of my family, every minute was worth it as she made it out the other side health and was such a sweet girl.
In life, there will always come the bad with the good. Sadly, miss Chloe passed from an infection due to an injury in 2022, but her little girl ginger is still with us today. We also lost miss Willow, one of my two originals, in 2019 shortly after we bought our first two purebred ewes.
These purebreds brought us into a whole new world of Dorpers, the registered and show world. Out of my two purebred ewes, one I named Ivy became my show ewe. Showing wasn't a completely foreign world to me, as I had shown chickens at the county fairs and my best friends had shown cattle, so I wasn't completely on my own. I spent those few months after buying them getting her ready for the county fair. I went to meetings, learned how to clip her for show, and how to lead without a halter. When show time came we ended up winning first place in our class! It was a great experience spending the whole week surrounded by friends, family, and the excitement of the fair. Unfortunately because of Covid, the next year our county fair was cancelled and we stopped showing after that.
Since then, we've working hard to start really embracing the Dorper life. We bought our first fullblood Dorper ram in the fall of 2020 and were able to start registering our first stock under Vanderhei Farms in 2021. We attended our first Dorper event in 2022 with Lobdell Dorpers and learned so much! We've been working on new upgrades to our barn each year, with the addition of cameras last year. They have made such a difference with watch during lambing season.
We've come so far in 5 years, and we have a lot more planned for the coming years. With life sometimes it gets difficult to make time for the truly important things, but everyday the time we spend with our girls reminds us how precious life is. I love sharing our farm life with those around us and hope that 5 years from now we have even more wonderful stories to share.
Comments