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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.
We have a small flock, mostly ewes, but with a carefully selected small number of 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 always breed within the 1927 Breed Standard.
Our 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 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.
Shetland Sheep first came to Annavale in 2016, via Morven Macfarlane of the Stoneheap flock. Morven's breeding had been built on the well-respected 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 produced tremendously well for us and was a brilliant first stock ram for the flock.
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, and at that stage it was decided to register a separate prefix for the coloureds. As the "Biggar Burn" runs through Annavale, and all of our shape graze at the side of it, "Biggarburn" seemed a natural join-on to the "Annavale" flock name.
In 2024 the first of the Biggarburn flock were registered, and in their first season gave great account of themselves including numerous class wins at shows. The sale of our first ever coloureds took place at Carlisle 2024, and couldn't have gone better! Biggarburn Axel was best lamb, best male, and reserve supreme champion (later selling privately), and Biggarburn Agatha reached one of the top prices of the day.
We hope you enjoy looking around our website, and learning more about our sheep!
Why Shetland Sheep?
When first looking, we 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. We looked at a few different breeds, wanting a breed which were purposeful and practical with some commercial viability too.
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 eight years now (only two veterinary interventions in those years is pretty good going!).
As a member of the Shetland Sheep Society, all Annavale & Biggarburn 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 Society is very active with lots of events, and they also produced a superb newsletter a few times a year. If you're interested in the breed, we highly recommend becoming a member!
David was elected to the Shetland Sheep Society's Committee (now Board, as of 2022) in October 2020 and is currently the Chair of the Breed Publicity and Communications Group. Gavin Ingram is a SSS member and is currently the Society's Show Secretary.
