Dorper
Associations in Middelburg

The Dorper breed is now numerically the second largest breed in South Africa. In 1946 the breed project was finalized and the Dorper Breeders Association was establish on the 19th of July 1950 (at Grootfontein College of Agriculture) and currently we have more than 600 members.

Office The office is located in one of the historical residential buildings in Middelburg, which was kept in its original state. After the First World War, increased interest developed in South Africa in crossing indigenous sheep, like the Persian and Merino with British mutton breed rams. As a result of circumstances such as the depression, surplus mutton and the slump in wool prices in the early 30’s, the exporting of mutton and lamb received more attention. In the Karoo areas, the aim was to replace the fat-tail types with a breed with a more acceptable carcass. A relatively easy care sheep with an acceptable meat carcass had to be found for these difficult circumstances. Resistance against cold wind and rain, extremely high summer temperatures and radiation. To determine the proportion British mutton breed to introduce without losing the hardiness of the indigenous breeds. This phase only started in 1941 as high prices, mortality and mating ability of purebred British mutton breeds lead to their failure. To establish an improved South African mutton breed. There were already experiments taking place at Grootfontein with the Dorset x Persian proving more and more to comply with the need for ewes to lamb in Autumn or to conceive in November-December. Stahl, D.J de Smidt (and his son H.C. de Smidt) worked successfully with Dorset Horn crosses on their farms and contributed a lot to the establishment of the Dorper breed as such. As the Dorper was developed on their farms under the guidance of D.J Engela, these people devoted a lifetime’s work to the project and not always under easy circumstances. At that stage Edmeades did not have mature half-cross rams available but he had quite a few ¾ bred on which he was previously concentrating. He mated his ¾ cross DP rams the following mating season with Persian and 3/8 cross DP ewes. The ¾ cross and 7/8 cross DP ewes and also some Persian ewes were mated to a Dorset Horn ram. Edmeades and Engela continued with the mating, weighing and comparing of the different crops of lambs with interesting and rewarding results. The first crosses between Persian and Dorset Horn were mostly spotted but there were also white lambs. Thus, he became a Dorset x Persian (Dorper) breeder but he concentrated on the white variation. In later experiments, Dorset Horn x Van Rooy cross-breeding was also done and the Dorper was also built up partially by this cross-breeding. In the early stages, there was quite an argument about the name. Since then it grew to one of the biggest small stock shows in the world. Since 2002 a World Championship Show takes place every second year in South Africa. From this humble beginning, the breed proved itself as a hardy mutton sheep with a top quality carcass at a relative early age. The breed is now in the hands of the current generation and they can further develop the breed by applying what they have learned from the past, but also the overcome the challenges of the future.