The Valais Blacknose Breed

The Valais Blacknose sheep, originating from the Swiss Alps, are known for their friendly, almost 'dog-like' temperament, enjoying the company of people like a family pet. Hikers often report encounters with these sheep, amazed by their friendliness. As the saying goes, "meet a Valais, and you have a friend for life!"

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What Are Swiss Valais Blacknose Bred For?

Historically, Valais Blacknose sheep were bred for meat and wool.
In New Zealand and other countries, they are popular as cute, cuddly pets.
Known for easy lambing with long-legged, fast-growing lambs.
Ideal for lifestyle block owners seeking family-friendly sheep.
Their wool can be used for felting and carpet making.

Breed Characteristics

What Majestic Sheep Breeders Offer For Sale In New Zealand

We sell purebred Valais Blacknose rams, and a limited number of ewes when we have surplus stock available for sale.
We offer ewes for sale scanned and guaranteed that they are in-lamb with purebred Valais Blacknose embryos already implanted. Please enquire for more details.
We have limited numbers of F1 Ewe hogget’s for sale (F1 - 50% Swiss Valais Blacknose X 50% Romney).

What Majestic Sheep Breeders Offer For Export

Majestic Sheep Breeders are experienced in exporting livestock and semen from our registered rams and ewes available to the New Zealand and International Export Market such as South Korea and the United States. We currently have semen stored in the United States (USA) so contact us for more information.

Swiss Valais Blacknose Export

We export Swiss Valais Blacknose semen from New Zealand to the United States (and other countries by request). We work closely with Animal Breeding Services here in the Waikato, who undertake all our semen collection, artificial insemination, embryo transfer, embryo freezing, semen freezing and storage for export.

More About Embryo Transfer

FAQs

What’s involved in the export process?

Majestic Sheep Breeders follow the export quarantine requirements for the country that embryos or semen are going to be exported to. The embryos are flushed, and semen collected and stored by Animal Breeding Services ready for export.

How do we import embryos from New Zealand to the USA?

The process is reasonably simple. You will talk to your chosen Animal Breeding Centre that work with sheep and are able to implant your embryos into surrogate / recipient ewes or artificially inseminate your breeding ewes. Your chosen breeding centre will be able to complete all necessary paperwork and communicate with Animal Breeding Services who will then arrange the shipping of your embryos and the necessary documentation for export / importing into your country.

How can you guarantee the quality of your progeny?

When selecting embryos or semen we will provide you with the details of the bloodlines of the embryos or semen.

What breed of sheep can I use as a surrogate?

Any breed of sheep is suitable to be used as a surrogate. Your chosen surrogate ewes should be of good health and body condition and preferably should have given birth and reared a lamb or lambs previously.

How many embryos do you recommend are purchased?

The more embryos you implant the greater your chance of getting more lambs born. The expected hold rate from frozen embryos is 50 to 60 percent. There’s a lot of factors that can influence your ewes pregnancy hold rate. We have a lot of information we can provide to you to get help you get the best results possible. It is possible to get 100% hold rate, but this is not considered to be the normal expected result. If flushing fresh embryos and implanting them straight into surrogate ewes at the same time the expected hold increases slightly to 60 – 70% once again higher rates are possible as well lower rates can occur also.

What does F1 and F2 mean?

F1 is the ranking, given to the first generation progeny resulting by crossing a purebred Valais Blacknose ram with another wool breed sheep (eg Romney or similar). This resultant progeny are referred as F1 (50% VBN and 50% Romney).

F2 is second generation achieved by mating an F1 ewe with a purebred Valais blacknose ram & the resulting progeny will be F2 (75% VBN and 25% Romney).
F3 = F2 ewe mated purebred VBN ram = F3 87% VBN.
F4 = F3 ewe mated purebred VBN ram = F4 93.75% VBN.
F5 = F4 ewe mated purebred VBN ram = F5 96.88% VBN.
F5 = Under the New Zealand breeding up rules F5 are able to be listed as purebred Swiss Valais Blacknose if they meet all over the breed standard rules required to achieve the purebred status