About Glanmire Dorpers

Originally on the property Noel and Maureen Galea ran fine wool merino’s, however, as they got older and looking after the merino’s became more labour intensive and the price of wool plummeted, they decided to retire and handed it over to us.

We had taken a keen interest in the progress of the Dorper sheep breed and were impressed by the breeds early weight gain, mothering ability, excellent conversion of feed and hardy constitution.  As the mulesing issue was being hotly debated, the Dorper sheep’s clean breech and shedding coat were also very appealing, from both a cost and flock management perspective.

In 2002 we purchased a Dorper ram from Macquarie genetics and six ewes from Algoa in Dubbo. We were of course novices in this area and still had a lot to learn about selecting Dorpers. We kept some Merinos, purchased some Suffolk and joined them with a Dorper ram. When the drought hit we sold off most of our crossbreds and decided to have just Dorpers which would allow us to concentrate on the stud side more intensively. 

In the past we have purchased embryo’s from Amarula of which Rifle (Type 5 ram) was the sire. We also purchased embryos from Samehaling Stud in Namibia hoping to infuse new genetics into our stud; unfortunately we had very limited success.  We have also used semen from Gilchrist of Global Dorpers. We have also used rams from Dell Dorpers. 

In 2016 we have decided to do an overhaul on our flock and have started by purchasing a very handsome Type 4 Ram from Edson Black. Purchased at Bendigo 2016 we beleive his genetics and conformation, fat and muscling, fit in well with the direction we want to go and with his first drop in 2017, his lambs are proving this to be true.

We are currently running approximately 40 ewes and our aim is to keep supplying the local commercial breeders with rams that we are continually upgrading and adding new genetics.

In addition, our latest move is to keep tails on are sheep in accordance with the latest MLA recommendations (2017). We believe that due to dorpers being sheeding and clean breech it is not necessary to dock tails. From our research it has also been found to minimise prolapse's in ewe's. Dorpers are meant to be a low maintenance breed and we would like to keep it that way. Minimising labour also minimises cost.

Where to from here?

Last year, 2015, we successfully exported rams to China through Elders which we aim to do over the next few years. 

We are able to export and are always open to enquiries.