WELSH MOUNTAIN BADGER FACE SHEEP

Types of Badger Face Sheep

There are two types of Welsh Mountain Badger Face sheep, the Torwen (Torwen is Welsh for white belly – but the rest of the sheep is black) and the Torddu (Torddu is Welsh for black belly – but the rest of the sheep is white), and we keep both under the Kington flock name. To add to the fun, Torddu is pronounced “Torthee”. The Badger Face is an ancient native Welsh breed, hardy, medium sized, polled (hornless) females, lavishly horned rams and the sheep are very attractive and produce superb, sweet meat. The Torddu are luckily not classified as rare, but they are unusual and appeal to large and small scale sheep keepers because of the quality of the meat, the hardiness of the breed, how well they grow on pasture with low inputs and how they look – we know many large scale commercial sheep farmers who also keep Badger Face sheep for their children.  The Torwen have been acknowledged as a separate breed by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust and in 2021 were included on their At Risk list which immediately encouraged new owners.

We’ve kept Badger Face sheep since the late 1990’s, and are longstanding members of the Badger Face Welsh Mountain Sheep Society. Apart from the necessity of bringing new rams onto the farm, our Badger Face sheep are closed flocks. Our lamb is truly grass fed, growing slowly on mother’s milk, grass and our own meadow hay and haylage to produce the best possible taste. Finishing live weights are approximately 33-40kg.

We have Badger Face livestock and lamb, hogget and mutton boxes available at various times of the year so please contact us for further information. We will give support to first time keepers and you might like to join one of our smallholder training courses, in particular our intensive two day Sheep for Beginners course.