The development of the Dorper, its nutrition and a perspective of the grazing ruminant on veld.

The development of the non-woolled Dorper sheep breed is briefly reviewed. Despite the large number of Dorpers in South Africa, precious little research results have been published on its nutrition under harsh, arid grazing conditions, especially since this has been an objective for creating and developing the breed. Results from the limited number of trials with free ranging Dorpers on natural pasture (veld) regarding diet selection, voluntary feed intake and rumen variables are used in conjunction with production data to create a nutritional perspective of the free ranging ruminant.