Babydoll Sheep in Vineyards

Southdown babydoll sheep have done well in a trial vineyard.  2015 we introduced our small flock into a 120 acre vineyard in central Victoria. Due to our low numbers of sheep we fenced off 7 acres as a trial site in Shiraz.  Cordon height 900 mm, the results were more than we expected. They kept all weeds and grasses under control removing suckers from vine trunks. There good nature meant we could work in and around them with out spooking the sheep.

This is important we have had lambs and ewes of larger breeds in the vineyard over winter and they were flighty, knocking drip tube off and tangling it up, also hurting themselves.

We left the Southdown sheep in during veraison (fruit ripening) the results were red faced sheep, due to eating the ripening grapes.

The sheep were removed in mid January at the start of our ripening and put back to work in March / April depending on our last fruit pick.

Having these sheep do the work for you saves time and money, no slashing no herbicide and no dis budding (de suckering) this worked for us.

Having seen how well these sheep work in a vineyard they should do well in orchards as well.

There is a Vineyard in Victoria who runs Southdown sheep for more info look up  "Babydoll sheep solve vineyard problems " using your preferred search engine.

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