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Dorper Type and Standards

Dear Dorper Breeders,

Many of you have contacted me about the direction our breed is headed in and how shows affect this. I made it the central focus of my term as ADSBS president to discuss and reinforce the Dorper breed standards and the Type of Dorper that has worked for 80 years now. Can shows be detrimental? Of course they can but with a knowledgeable judge we can enforce and improve our breed standards. The problem we are facing and some people don't like me saying this is that the "Club Lamb" judges can not get their eye adjusted to our sheep. They have spent their life and have been reinforced by others in this artificial sheep industry to the point that they will destroy our breed if we are not careful. What we have is a sheep that almost magically takes the worst forage and turns it into the best meat in the world. They can't understand forage first of all because their industry is based on feedlots and liquid diets. Second they can not understand that at 6 months our lambs are dead and are hanging up a carcass that has larger chops than theirs at 12 months. Who is efficient here? Who cares about efficiency? Dorper breeder do because it puts money in our pockets. Forget about breeds for a minute what do you honestly think the difference is in taste on a 6 month old lamb versus a 12 month old almost mutton? It does not take a PHD to figure that out!

So what do we do? We continue with our breed, our breed standards, to educate on our hardiness and adaptability, educate on our meat qualities, and only allow judges to judge our sheep who are committed to Dorper Sheep. Then we can continue with showing and improve our breed.

Blessings,

Philip Glass