Laurel Highland Farm is on a mission to bring this rare sheep breed to the USA! Feel free to share We also raise Fell Ponies and Olde English Babydoll Sheep!
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Laurel Highland Farm, established in 1995, was pleased to be one of the first to import Valais Blacknose Sheep genetics into the USA! These genetics came in the form of purebred ram frozen semen, to begin our long-awaited breeding-up program! Currently the USDA does not allow importation of embryos or live sheep, so "breeding-up" is the ONLY legal way to have this breed here in the USA right now.
This saga began in late 2014 when we came across a video of these sheep, which are native to the Swiss Alps (in the Valais region of Switzerland), and we have been working on "finding a way" to acquire them ever since! At first it seemed impossible, as there was also a ban on semen import at the time. Nonetheless, we went ahead and acquired suitable foundation ewe lambs in early 2015, hoping that by the time the lambs were mature that semen would become available. As luck would have it, the ban on semen import was lifted in 2016 we began searching for breeding prospects. USDA criteria are very stringent, but eventually our friends at Highland Valais Blacknose Sheep in Scotland found several suitable donor rams for us!
We are very fortunate to have already met Valais Blacknose sheep in person. We immediately fell in love with not only their charming and unique appearances, but also their wonderfully docile nature! (And no, they really don’t look “real” in person either!)
Our original foundation ewes are either purebred Scottish Blackface, or half-bred Scottish Blackface/Leicester Longwool F1 crosses. We specifically chose the latter cross as we felt they may have more in common with purebred Valais Blacknose, with the Leicester Longwool genes adding a larger frame, longer fleece, wool forelocks, wool on limbs, more docile temperament, etc. The Scottish Blackface of course add genetics for black faces and black limbs, as well as horns in both sexes, mountain hardiness, Roman noses, and plenty of fleece! Theoretically, more genes that the foundation ewes share in common with the purebred Valais Blacknose, the fewer generations will be required for the offspring to look like the real deal! Each generation will be bred to pure Valais Blacknose (VBN), so 1rst (“F1”) generation will be 50% VBN genetically, 2nd (F2) will be 75% VBN, 3rd (F3) will be 87% VBN, and so on.
