Charlie the ram is rare sight in the Northern Territory — so rare that his flock is at risk of inbreeding because his owner cannot find a new stud male.
He is one of about 30 sheep kept at Willeroo Station, which runs about 20,000 head of Brahmans on its 1,700 square kilometres in the heart of cattle country south-west of Katherine.
Damaras are the only type of sheep allowed in the Northern Territory because of concerns about the spread of blue-tongue disease, with only a handful of people actually keeping the animals.
With so few sheep in the NT, Charlie's owner Linda Bowman is having a hard time replacing him before he starts mating with his own daughters.
"[My original] ram started going over his daughters and grand-daughters so I did a ram-swap with someone, but I am now seeking another ram-swap," Ms Bowman said.
"I have tried a number of different ways to connect with other sheep owners, but most of the ones I know are people I have sold sheep to.
"So obviously I can't ram-swap with them because I would be bringing my own bloodline back in.
"I did start a Facebook page called Top End Damaras with the hope of finding other Damara breeders who are not associated with my sheep."
Ms Bowman has two other rams she is looking to swap because they are too closely related to the ewes in her flock.
Sheep grow fat off cattle feed
Ms Bowman said the sheep had worked out their own feeding schedule, which kept them fat.
"They generally leave the yards in the morning, head out to steal all the calf pellets, then come over and graze on the hay bales for a little while, wander around and graze in the paddock, and then do the second round of feeding in the afternoon," she said.
"We are not fenced appropriately for sheep, only for cattle. So they tend to go under the bottom wire and just roam around.
"I call them home in the afternoon and call them back to the yard with a small bucket of feed."
Willeroo Station's Damaras are kept mainly to provide some variation from beef in the station's kitchen.
Ms Bowman said the station's workers very much appreciated it when lamb came on the menu.
"Unfortunately we need one whole sheep to feed the stock camp, so it doesn't last very long," she said.
"We probably kill about six sheep a year, some we give to friends, so we don't eat them all ourselves and we quite enjoy watching other people eating their meat too."
