After a challenging year due to drought Glengarry dorper stud Brocburn has fought its way back to the top with several ribbons at the Royal Launceston Show.
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One of the stud’s rams took out a grand champion ram ribbon and several of the other sheep also won a variety of first, second and third place ribbons for their sections.
Brocburn stud owner Jim Lyall said he and his wife Jo were the first sheep breeders to introduce the dorper breed of sheep to Tasmania in 1999.
Mr Lyall said he and his wife Jo were drawn to the dorper breed because they were relatively low-maintenance animals.
“They are non-shear, they shed their fleece so they are a bred as a special meat breed,” he said. “But they are an easy-care breed and you don’t have to worry about things like flystrike.”
Mr Lyall said it was great to see the breed taken up by other breeders in Tasmania and how it had grown to be a legitmate show breed.
The Lyalls started showing their dorpers in 2009 but had to have last year off because of adverse weather conditions.
“We were one of the properties that were affected a lot by the drought and we had to sell off a lot of our sheep to a mainland breeder just to make ends meet,” he said.
“But we’ve had a good year this year and are back in the rebuilding phase.”
He said thanks to the wet winter and spring pasture growth on his farm had been good and there was plenty of grass around. Brocburn dorper stud is located at Glengarry but used to be located at Upper Natone.