Location: Waikato, Glen Afton, but we’re on the move to Taupo.
GlenAcres has been breeding Babydolls since 2015 in Glen Afton, though we’re on the move to Taupo.
It’s been an educational journey learning about sheep and stumbling across the Olde English Miniature Southdown.
Coming from a dairying background, we bought our lifestyle block with the intention to calf rear, but inherited sheep with it. After researching sheep, we took up the challenge and fell in love with Babydolls buying a breeding pair, Camilla and Raymond, from Fielding. Then introduced Rodney, Rex and Victoria from Glenbrook over the next few years to broaden the bloodline and to craft our own bloodline.
We have purebreds and mixed breeds with Romney and Arapawa ewes. We are moving towards breeding purely purebred Babydolls and currently working towards being a registered breeder.
Golden Creek Miniature Sheep is a small lifestyle breeder. I am way down in the Deep South at Waimumu, which is about 20 minutes drive from Gore in Southland. I started off with Babydoll Southdowns, but I only have a couple of purebred Babydoll ewes now. My focus has moved to my tiny miniature moorit sheep, as I love the way they look and their extremely small size.
My long-term aim is to breed very small sheep that are docile natured, pretty to look at and come in a choice of colours. As well as being of robust and easy-care health. Even longer term would be to add shedding ability into that mix … but I am afraid that don’t have enough years left in me to accomplish all that myself!
Some of my ewes are already tiny, while others are larger, and even normal sized ewes with characteristics that I want to include in my breeding genetics.
I would love to see a pet market develop, where our babies can find homes that will cherish them as family companions and lawnmowers. Sheep can make seriously wonderful pets, they are cute and cuddly, easy to care for and they happily mow your grass while fertilising it as they go! And some take on human-type traits, especially if they are bottle-raised as lambs.
NOTE: I am not breeding purebred Babydoll Southdowns any more. I do still have 2 ewes, but they are only bred to my miniature ram. I like to have nice looking animals in my paddocks and I personally don’t really like the look of the Babydolls. I find the appearance of my tiny miniatures must more attractive to look at :-). Plus the minis are a lot smaller. Tiny size makes handling the rams a breeze, and there is much less danger of getting badly hurt by a ram.
Below are just a few of my current sheep, which were/are the base starting point of my breeding program. And you will see others sprinkled throughout the website, in time (more coming soon ).
First up is Skippy, my current teeny tiny ram, who doesn’t even come up to my knee! He is much smaller that the Babydoll rams I have had. Skippy is a gorgeous, deep chocolate colour which is more apparent after he has just been shorn.
Skippy (unshorn) in foreground with 3 mth lambs behind him. The smallest lamb is a Babydoll, others are normal sized lambs
Here is Skippy (foreground) with my other young ram, Coco (behind). Coco is Babydoll X Arapawa and is genetically small. He was ewe raised by his doting mother, but has a nice, calm temperament. He leads, ties up and tethers, so is great to manage as a ram.