Mini Spotted Sheep
A flock of your own
Looking for a great addition to your family farm, a friendly pet, or a flock of woolly entertainers to greet guests at your attraction? These little sheep are versatile and charming!
Scroll down to see our growing 2021
lamb nursery.
- Meet Our Woolly Residents -
Friendly Greeters
Serious Fire Protection
Friendly Greeters
Small sheep with smiling faces who love eating treats and meeting Dairy guests. Our miniature sheep have beautiful, soft wool (great for petting, or spinning when they get too hot).
Sheep have no upper front teeth, and nibble gently when hand fed. Very sweet natured, they do not typically butt or ram their heads into people.
Easy Keepers
Serious Fire Protection
Friendly Greeters
Unlike larger sheep and goats, these mini sheep are easy to house behind short fences and light gates. They don't typically ram fences or challenge gates.
Our night housing serves the purpose of protecting the sheep from predators. Sheep require a night barn, or sheltered night pen with high, sturdy fences to protect against predators such as coyotes, bobcats and mountain lions.
Serious Fire Protection
Serious Fire Protection
Serious Fire Protection
Sheep concentrate on grazing, keeping four feet on the ground. Goats are typically browsers, not grazers. They tend to stand on their hind legs and reach up to bushes and trees.
The sheep keep the grass as low as possible. The entire East side of our Dairy is rich with large pastures for our little grazers. In the Fall, when grasslands dry, Eastern Santa Ana winds blow, and fires spark easily. We always ensure that our farm is well protected from wildfires, so our little ones stay safe.
- The Breeds -
Old English Babydoll Southdown Sheep: wooly face / wooly legs / short ears / NICE fiber
Miniature Harlequin Sheep: smooth face / smooth legs/ long ears/ BETTER fib
Miniature Harlequin Sheep: smooth face / smooth legs/ long ears/ BETTER fib
Small sheep with woolly faces and legs, the Old English Babydoll Southdown sheep are naturally poled (no horns). They are small, and very gentle-natured. These sheep are most commonly either white, black, or gray.
Originally developed in England as a meat sheep, their wool is not prized for spinning. American's love this small breed for pets, petting zoos, and for keeping the weeds under control in orchards and vineyards.
Miniature Harlequin Sheep: smooth face / smooth legs/ long ears/ BETTER fib
Miniature Harlequin Sheep: smooth face / smooth legs/ long ears/ BETTER fib
Miniature Harlequin Sheep: smooth face / smooth legs/ long ears/ BETTER fib
A new American breed known for wild spotting thanks to one of its foundation breeds, the Finn sheep.
Harlquins also have babydolls in their creation, These small sheep have less wool on the face and legs, making them easier keepers, as debris does not get trapped in the wool on their legs and faces. These sheep are also naturally poled (no horns) .
More athletic than the Babydolls, the Harlequin sheep put on quite a show skipping, prancing, and bouncing around the pastures. Their wool is either black with white markings, or white with black markings.
Color Variations
Spotted
black spotted, snowflake or flocked
Spotted
This lamb is a harlequin. Both his sire and dam are highly colored. Spotted babydolls are currently more rare. Spotted harlequins are more common.
black
black spotted, snowflake or flocked
Spotted
Black lambs rarely stay jet black as the sun will fade their color. But when sheered will be jet black underneath.
black spotted, snowflake or flocked
black spotted, snowflake or flocked
black spotted, snowflake or flocked
Black Spotted is when a lamb is black with scattered "celestial" looking white markings (looking sort of like a galaxy.)
According to the registry, This color is simply registered as Black/White Flocking
Black w/ White Spot
black lamb goes to gray
black spotted, snowflake or flocked
The spotted genetics will often show up on a black lamb as a white mark on the face. This happens often with a white ewe bred to a spotted ram. This white spot will often show on a black lamb indicating it carries the spot gene.
white
black lamb goes to gray
black lamb goes to gray
White is white. No markings. Sometimes a white lamb will be born with a pale spot here or there. That will fade and is not considered spotted.
black lamb goes to gray
black lamb goes to gray
black lamb goes to gray
This gray ewe started out jet black with no white hairs at all. She turned to this lovely gray over three years. Many of the black lambs will turn to this. When this ewe is sheered, she is gray... not black at the roots.
2023 Lambing Season
Lamb births should begin in February.
We have two rams we are breeding to this year:
Herman is our grey, spotted babydoll ram who has given us beautiful registered babydoll and F1 level Harlequin lambs.
Our new guy is Ozwald. He is a registered F1 valias blacknose out of a babydoll ewe and a purebred valias blacknose ram. This cross makes for a really pretty, super friendly small sheep and we are so excited to see what he adds to our friendly flock.
Lambs will be vaccinated, have tails docked and wethered (as needed) and be ready for their new homes around 10 or 12 weeks old. We rarely have bottle babies for sale as we prefer to let our ewes be moms. (If you saw how much the ewes love it, you would want that for them too.)
Sheep are smart and easy to train. All of our sheep that we handle at shows and events started out as mother-raised lambs that we patiently and gently trained to come and walk on leashes using treats.
OUR HARLEQUINS: Our harlequin ewes all have a highly colored sire with blue eyes. Big and flashy, Blue threw great color but a little too much height and a more energetic personality than we want to continue with. So, we brought in Herman, a petite, merle spotted babydoll ram that will give us the rounder fuzzier faces, sweet temperment, petite size and hopefully some interesting genetics for color.
OUR BABYDOLLS: Our babydolls, both ewes and our ram, are merle spotted in color and have high spotted genetics on both sides. Last year, we retained our first ever truly spotted babydoll ewes for future breeding!
OUR LIL' OZWALDS: All of the lambs sired by Ozwald, our F1 Valias/Babydoll ram Ozwald. Most of the dams are F1 harlequins with at least 50% babydoll. Super looking forward to these new, friendly, super cute sheep!
COLOR EXPECTATIONS: Most people who are contacting us are curious about spotted sheep. All of our ewes and our ram are from highly spotted parents and grandparents. So even if a ewe is black, if she is bred to a ram with spots or spot genetics, she can have spotted lambs when bred to a ram with strong genetics for spotting.
TEMPERMENT: Although color is fun, the most important element is a good temperament. Although we love the high spotting of the harlequins, their temperament is less calm than the babydoll temperament. That and the confirmation is why we are breeding back to a very calm, small, sweet, fuzzy babydoll ram…. We love the spots but mostly want sweet, friendly sheep.
HARLEQUIN LAMBS
Please note that our harlequins are F1 breed up stock. The way the registry works, any future lambs from these will be registerable as F1 or F2 only. F1 & F2 are five and six generations before pure, foundation stock harlequins. We are purposely sticking with the F1 and F2 generations to inject more of the babydoll qualities we like into our exceptionally beautiful harlequins.
