For the producer

The Damara breed of sheep offers excellent opportunities to producers wanting to breed a quality meat sheep all year round.

• Highly productive meat producer
• Minimal handling and maintenance – hair breed of sheep
• Extremely hardy, thrives in adverse conditions
• Lambing intervals 8 monthly
• Superior mothering
• Highly efficient forager
• Unique herding instinct

World markets today demand that we deliver a consistent product all year round to the consumer. Damaras allow this by reducing maintenance costs of the meat sheep enterprise enabling producers to run large flocks and produce lambs all year round. Meatmaster sheep can be crossed with the second and third Damara crosses to fine-tune the carcass qualities. This gives better breed performance and greater growth characteristics.

The Damara’s uniqueness is that it rapidly brings any breed of sheep into quality parameters.

In a study of gross margins from Merino, Damara, Dorper and Goat enterprises in various growing regions in Australia the Damara enterprise showed the highest gross margin.  It achieved a premium.

Improved productivity of the Damara was attributed to :

• Higher lambing percentages;
• More ewes able to be mated as 1 yr olds;
• Increased income through higher sale prices;
• Reduced cost of production

These improvements far outweigh the loss of income from wool production.