Welcome to Annavale
Situated in the historic town of Biggar, South Lanarkshire, in the Southern Uplands, Annavale are small hobby breeders of pedigree Shetland Sheep.
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We have a small flock, mostly ewes, but with a small selection of carefully selected rams either purchased or retained for breeding purposes. All of our Shetlands are fully registered with the Shetland Sheep Society and the stock we sell will always be fully SSS registered. We try to always breed within the 1927 Breed Standard for the breed.
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The small-holding of circa 12 acres is just half a mile outside Biggar, a town sitting between the Clyde and Tweed Rivers, around 650ft above sea level. As well as our Shetland Sheep we have a small collection of poultry and breed Weimaraners, Gordon Setters and Border Terriers, and along with Irish Setters and a Whippet, we have shown all of these breeds with tremendous success.
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Shetland Sheep joined Annavale in 2016, via Morven Macfarlane of the Stoneheap flock. Morven's breeding had been built on historic Rench lines. Via Morven, we were introduced to Moira Morrison and John Bogue of the Rigg Flock. From Rigg we purchased our senior ram, Rigg Apache, who has produced tremendously well for us and was a brilliant first stock ram for the flock. These three wonderful people have been great friends and mentors during the first years in this great breed; I am forever indebted!
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The flock was established in 2016 with just white sheep, and it wasn't until the autumn of 2022 that some coloureds made their way into the flock - Blackford Hazel and Broadwath Dixie - two grey katmogets. The flock took an additional leap into the more coloured side of things in 2023 with three further grey kats, and two blacks.
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We hope you enjoy looking around our website, and learning more about our sheep!
Why Shetland Sheep?
When first looking, I wanted sheep which were easy to manage, would lamb with ease (preferably outdoors), were good doers, and hardy. Whilst we are in a more Southern part of Scotland, the weather can be harsh at times, and we aren't abound with housing for sheep and lambing.
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We looked at a few different breeds, wanting a breed which were purposeful and practical with a degree of commercial viability too.
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Shetlands made the long-list, then the short-list and then the final decision was made ... and we don't regret it! They suit our "system" perfectly, have done extremely well on our land with very little extra feeding, and have lambed with ease for seven years now (only one veterinary intervention in seven yeas, for a retained placenta, is pretty good going).
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As a member of the Shetland Sheep Society, all Annavale Shetland Sheep are registered with them and we encourage those looking to purchase sheep to ONLY purchase registered sheep to ensure quality and guarantee pedigree.
The SSS have a super Marketplace on their website which is a great source of all things Shetland Sheep. The Society is very active with lots of events taking place, and they also produced a superb newsletter a few times a year. If you're really interested in the breed, we highly recommend becoming a member!
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David was elected to the Shetland Sheep Society's Committee (now Board as of 2022) in October 2020.
