Ours might not have been pure Damara, they were mostly brown , and brown and white, with fat tails, bigger then my blackbellies i have here, and with a finer meat with milder flavour, lower fat content, but very juicy. They had quite long legs, and were very good browsers, eating much of the grasses and shrubs that the cattle would not eat. We had dairy cows, so after the cows had grazed a field we would put the goats and sheep in after them, to clean up. During the dry season, water was limited, so they would often only drink once a day, and they were still able to provide enough milk for the lambs.
We had a huge veld fire problem, so the sheep worked well at cleaning up the stuff that would contribute to a veld fire if it jumped the firebreaks we had around the farm. I mispoke, the goats were not masai goats but Galla goats from Tanzania. They were probably also cross bred i think with saanens or toggenbergs, and we used to milk them. They had to be hardy, and athletic as we had leopard on the farm. We did very little with the sheep or goats, letting them breed and lamb unassisted, i never remember having to trim hooves, or medicate them. We did not dock tails, castrate, etc. I guess the nature was truly the best selector, and only the hardy ones did well. I was honestly looking for something like that when i found the blackbelly barbados, and since they were fairly accessible to me, i tried them. I like them, i have a very small place, and no need of the very hardy breed we needed in Zambia, so we are working out fine, i do miss the fat tails though! Friendship is an horizon that expands as we approach it. =============================================== This message is from the Blackbelly Sheep mailing list (http://www.awrittenword.com/listserv/index.html). To respond to this message, send e-mail to [email protected] To unsubscribe or change your membership options, go to http://lists.coyotenet.net/mailman/listinfo/blackbelly To search the archives, go to http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
