NEWS
First USA National Valais Blacknose Sheep Show
The first ever USA National Valais Blacknose Sheep show was held in Des Moines, Iowa on September 29-30, 2023. It was a great place to meet new breeders and see what all is going on in this small community. This was also a great time to be able to see where our breeding program is at relative to other breeders and more importantly to the Valais Standards. As it turns out we were pleasantly surprised. I'd like to thank all of our berner friends who made the trip to Iowa with us and a special Thank-You to Renee Tiano for showing our ewe (Laverne) in the ring!
The international judges for the show were Raymond Irvine & Jenni McAllister (Highland), Jamie Wood (Prendwick),
Dr. Marita Tauni, and Chris Slee (Halsbury Barton). A better group of judges could not have been picked for this first show. All were extremely knowledgeable, very approachable, and happily shared their knowledge and experiences with these beautiful sheep.
We were honored to have two of our ewes (Ayla and Freya) graded as maximum points -1. There was quite an extended discussion on both of them in regards to awarding them maximum points, but in the end they decided to take one point off for minor markings issues.
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We had entered Panda into the spitti portion of the show. She took first place in her class and then went back into the ring after the remaining classes were judged. What an honor it was to have Timberhaus Panda awarded the Grand Champion spitti for the show. Panda is our first farm bred Valais Blacknose sheep and we couldn't be more proud of her! We'll post more pictures in the photos section of the website as time permits.
