'World's cutest sheep' bred in a Bloomington backyard

If you counted all the sheep at Plumpy’s Peaceful Pastures, you’d be asleep before you made it halfway through.

Besides the 14 rams, ewes and lambs roaming the meadows, there are dozens of sheep figurines inside the house. Even Webster, the round, white toy poodle, resembles a tiny sheep as he ambles through the halls.

Kelly and Rich Weddle, owners and breeders of the "world's cutest sheep," have lived in Bloomington for 30 years. They only started breeding Valais Blacknose sheep — a rare breed from Switzerland known for its curly, shaggy hair — a few years ago.

This spring, photographer Randal Ford visited Plumpy's Peaceful Pastures to take pictures of the Weddles' lamb, Kipply, a purebred Valais Blacknose. The photographs will be featured in Ford's third book, which comes out in fall 2024. The breed is rare, especially across the U.S., so after Ford found the Weddles on Facebook, he flew here from Texas to capture the shots.

Rare sheep in a Bloomington backyard

Valais Blacknose sheep are valued for their personalities, their wool and meat, their unique features and their rarity. Breed-up programs like the Weddles' use artificial insemination to achieve pure-bred status in their lambs.

Until 2021, it was illegal to import Valais embryos into the U.S., so the Weddles ordered frozen Valais semen from New Zealand. Reproduction Specialty Group in Lebanon, Indiana, laparoscopically inseminated surrogate Scottish Blackface ewes. The Blackface breed has similar features to the Valais Blacknose, so it's the best option for beginning a breed-up program, the Weddles said.

When the first lambs were born five months later, they were 50% Valais Blacknose and 50% Scottish Blackface.

Those cross-bred lambs were used as surrogates next. After five cycles, a ram is deemed purebred. It takes only four for ewes.

In March 2023, one of the Weddles' ewes gave birth to two purebred lambs, one male and one female. Kipply, the male, is the sheep that Ford photographed and will feature in his next book. He has since been sold to an Arkansas breeder, Rich said.

"That was a sad day," he said. Both Rich and Kelly cried when they said goodbye to the lamb. But the female Valais, Klover, is still at Plumpy's Peaceful Pastures, and they expect to have four more next spring if the embryos take.

The world's cutest sheep. Really?

In the Weddles' pastures, the sheep frolic and graze and gather under trees on sunny days. Some look like the mental image evoked when you think of sheep: big and white, with thick, rough wool. "I call those ones generic sheep," Kelly joked.

Others are a bit more standoffish, with longer fur and curly horns. These are the Scottish Blackface.

One lamb stands out among the others. She's got curly white fur — resembling the crimped hair of the '80s — that hangs over her eyes. Her face, ears, feet and the front and back of her knees are black.

Most noticeable is her playful demeanor. When Kelly approaches the gate outside the barn, Klover, the 5-month-old Valais Blacknose lamb, rushes over. She props her front hooves up on the railing and stretches her snout toward Kelly. This breed is dog-like, friendly toward humans and eager to be petted or scratched.

Plumpy's Peaceful Pastures, day to day

Kelly spends a total of five hours each day tending to the 14 sheep. The meadows are usually quiet (except at feeding time, when refrains of "baa" clamor for Kelly's attention). She's a retired registered nurse, and the animals are plenty of work. But it doesn't feel like a chore to her.

"I don't have children," she said. "This is nurturing. They’re like my babies."

She administers vaccines and shots and tends to minor wounds. She trims their hooves and shears the sheep. Their Facebook page is full of pictures and videos of the animals, including a video with more than 2,000 views of her bathing Juno, a lamb born in 2022.

The Weddles don't sell their sheep for meat. After she shears the wool, Kelly decides whether to sell it or keep it. She's got bins and bags full of wool in a workshop in the garage. The setup includes a picker machine, drum carder and weaving loom, which allows her to turn the wool into yarn.

She doesn't get to spend much time working with the wool, since the Weddles tend to the sheep themselves.

Neither of the Weddles grew up on farms. Kelly's grandparents had animals, though, and she has always loved them. A few years ago, a friend showed her pictures of what she called the "world's cutest sheep." Kelly knew then that she needed some of her own.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Valais Blacknose sheep at Plumpy's Peaceful Pastures in Bloomington