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Author Topic: Hello from a Damara owner  (Read 3720 times)

sh3ph3rd

  • Joined Apr 2013
  • Queensland, Australia
Hello from a Damara owner
« on: April 18, 2013, 04:27:35 pm »
Hello everyone! Very tidy and informative looking site you have here. Expect I'll learn much, which is exactly why I'm here... Books aren't often as useful as other people's real-life anecdotes of experience, I find.

About me: I have one Damara lamb (Lucy; she's actually the reason I found your forum, looking for answers); two dogs; one cat; and a flock of turkeys and chickens. I have had many other animals in the past and intend to get back into self-sustenance farming as soon as I have another farm... LOL. Kinda hard to farm without a farm!

I am keen on the more natural methods of keeping my animals, and have had many random experiences but much to learn. I grow chooks for eggs and meat for my family, but also the pleasure of keeping them... I live in Australia, am a freelance artist, and have an interest in pretty much every livestock species there is being currently farmed, and then some! (I reckon some unusual but economically viable species loom on our collective horizon).

Nice to meet you all. Looking forward to gleaning some factoids!

plumseverywhere

  • Joined Apr 2013
  • Worcestershire
    • Its Baaath Time
    • Facebook
Re: Hello from a Damara owner
« Reply #1 on: April 18, 2013, 04:49:41 pm »
Hello from Worcestershire  :wave:
Smallholding in Worcestershire, making goats milk soap for www.itsbaaathtime.com and mum to 4 girls,  goats, sheep, chickens, dog, cat and garden snails...

zoe_emma

  • Joined Apr 2013
Re: Hello from a Damara owner
« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2013, 04:58:32 pm »
Hi  :wave:

sabrina

  • Joined Nov 2008
Re: Hello from a Damara owner
« Reply #3 on: April 18, 2013, 05:01:35 pm »
Hi and welcome  :wave:

lachlanandmarcus

  • Joined Aug 2010
  • Aberdeenshire
Re: Hello from a Damara owner
« Reply #4 on: April 18, 2013, 05:59:33 pm »
Hi and welcome from windy Aberdeenshire! :wave:

Rosemary

  • Joined Oct 2007
  • Barry, Angus, Scotland
    • The Accidental Smallholder
Re: Hello from a Damara owner
« Reply #5 on: April 18, 2013, 06:01:01 pm »
Hi there! Where are you? We're in Carnoustie  :wave:

What's a Damara lamb? :eyelashes:

Bionic

  • Joined Dec 2010
  • Talley, Carmarthenshire
Re: Hello from a Damara owner
« Reply #6 on: April 18, 2013, 06:01:26 pm »
Hello and welcome to the forum  :wave:  Can you send us some of your sunshine please  :sunshine: :sunshine:
Life is like a bowl of cherries, mostly yummy but some dodgy bits

sh3ph3rd

  • Joined Apr 2013
  • Queensland, Australia
Re: Hello from a Damara owner
« Reply #7 on: April 19, 2013, 07:36:11 am »
Hi there! Where are you? We're in Carnoustie  :wave:

What's a Damara lamb? :eyelashes:

Thanks for all the welcomes!  :wave:

Damaras are hair sheep from Namibia in Africa; they're on of the oldest and purest gene pools remaining. They're so much like goats it isn't funny... Not after they eat everything and anything in sight! Very intelligent, beautiful, hardy, they birth so quick that if you blink you will actually miss it. Very tiny lambs that grow so fast they're like fluffy maggots, only cute. They double size every week for their first few weeks. They have non-mutton flavor flesh and glove-quality, attractively patterned leather. Africans tend to cross them with Dorpers and call them Meatmasters. Males look pretty spectacular. Aussies tend to use them as weed-removalists in cattle paddocks. Here is a photo or two of Lucy... If it works, that is.


sh3ph3rd

  • Joined Apr 2013
  • Queensland, Australia
Re: Hello from a Damara owner
« Reply #8 on: April 19, 2013, 07:39:12 am »
Also South Africans say 'two baboons kill a leopard and two damaras kill a baboon' and they certainly do stalk and kill other animals! But can be very affectionate. As for sending you some sunshine, Bionic, we're having cyclones every few weeks or months where I am... Sorry.  :)   I'm in Australia, by the way.

« Last Edit: April 19, 2013, 07:43:00 am by sh3ph3rd »

Pedwardine

  • Joined Feb 2012
  • South Lincolnshire
Re: Hello from a Damara owner
« Reply #9 on: April 19, 2013, 10:45:17 pm »
That so doesn't look like a sheep and so does look like a goat. Amazing critter. Keep us posted on her progress won't you? I presume this is the same girl who's had the really dreadful start in life as per you post in the Sheep section?

sh3ph3rd

  • Joined Apr 2013
  • Queensland, Australia
Re: Hello from a Damara owner
« Reply #10 on: April 21, 2013, 03:25:27 pm »
Yep, she's the one with the terrible start to life. She's doing pretty good, I guess, all things considered! But that odd breathing and the bad smelling burps are discomfiting. Need to get on top of that situation ASAP.

A lot of people argue with me and tell me she's a Nubian-sheep cross, lol. They've never heard of Damaras and are quicker to believe she's a goat-sheep hybrid rather than just a fat-tailed hair sheep breed. But they're all people who haven't heard of hair sheep, so that explains that...

 

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