Valais Blacknose Sheep

Valais Blacknose Sheep are called the “cutest sheep in the world” for a good reason. They are personable, love human interactions and best of all- cuddles! They also look like the most adorable stuffed little animals as lambs. They grow into equally adorable adults, just more impressive.

The breed originated in the Valais region of Switzerland. Since it’s not allowed to import sheep to the USA due to scrapie and other health restrictions the breed is being established in the USA from a breed up program. Want to know what a breed up program is? Click Here to find out. Embryo import from NZ followed, starting in 2020. We, as well as many other farms have taken advantage of this in order to get 100% purebred Valais into their programs.

We started breeding in 2019 and have loved it since the very start. Choosing our foundation ewes, choosing the rams/semen, going for our first AI procedure, seeing our F1’s, getting our F2’s, experiencing the changes, the differences in not only one generation to another, but even changes in lambs from the same parents in one year to another. Wondering about horns, getting our first embryo and finally experiencing horns only to be thankful we started out with polled sheep! Almost feeling disappointed when we discovered that our F2 ewe lamb was getting horns in spite of her full sister from the year before not having any. And neither did her twin brother. Yes- the Valais is a horned breed. Their horns are big and look fabulous and it is part of the breed standard. But from a shepherdess perspective- horns get stuck, get tangled in stuff, and poke you- ouch! You simply have to be careful around horns. Life is easier without them. When we chose the Cotswold as our foundation ewes it was because of their similarities (size, wool, sweet temperaments, color) to the Valais. Knowing how DNA works, we are especially thankful for this now since we do not have genetics of a different horn set mixed in with the Valais genetics.

We invite you to come visit us and experience our sheep. Or get in touch with us- ask questions. We are so happy to make new friends, and to talk about issues and experiences we’ve had with our sheep. It doesn’t matter if you want to buy from us or someone else- we are excited hearing about you and your journey and will be pleased to introduce new potential breeders to the wonderful world of Valais Blacknose Sheep.

We invite you to look at our lambs- Click HERE to go to our page with the listings of our lambs. And please get in touch with us if you are interested in mature ewes. If we have retained daughters, we will sometimes contemplate selling the mom to special homes since we have a limited amount of acreage.

Come be our friends!

Scott & Lotta