Sheep breed
Dorper
Dorper
A South African hair sheep with a black head: no shearing, non-seasonal and drought-tolerant.
Dorper sheep. Photo: „Dorper Sheep” – mikecogh · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Flickr · Resized and converted to WebP
Description1
Developed in South Africa from a cross of the Dorset Horn and the Blackhead Persian. The coat is white or greyish white on the body and legs, with a black head and upper neck; black spots or patches may appear on the white parts.
A hair sheep: it largely sheds its wool, so it needs no shearing. It breeds out of season and suits accelerated lambing, with a prolificacy of 1.6–1.8. It is calm, has very good maternal traits, grazes well, is hardy and tolerates drought; lambs gain weight fast.
Well-proportioned and attractive; the skull is broad, tapering slightly towards the face. The body is long, deep and well sprung, the belly round and capacious, the rump curved, long, wide and well muscled. Bone is strong, the limbs short and muscular; the high-set tail is usually docked.
History1
Origin
Developed in South Africa by crossing the Dorset Horn with the Blackhead Persian.
Today
The breeding goal is to keep non-seasonality and raise lamb growth, body weight and prolificacy while preserving hardiness and easy lambing.
Breed standard and breed society
The official breed description, breeding goal and herdbook rules are published by the recognised breed society (MJKSZ).
- MJKSZ – Dorper juh fajtaleíráshttps://mjksz.hu/tenyesztes/fajtak/dorper-juh
Photo gallery
All photos are freely licensed (Wikimedia Commons, Flickr); author, source and licence are shown under each image.
Sources
Accessed: 2026-10-18.