'Pin-up of the sheep world': Yorkshire Valais Blacknose flock brings unbridled joy

“I’d never dreamed we’d do so well,” says Scott, whose parents had a smallholding at Sessay, where as a young lad he’d shown Anglo Nubian goats.

“Sadly, we lost my dad when I was 14,” says Scott. “We moved from our smallholding but I’d always wanted to go back to having animals which is what Victoria and I did seven years ago when we moved to just out of Thirsk and have three acres of land.

“We have two sons, Harry and Seth, and having the responsibility of feeding and looking after animals is a good thing. We took on pigmy goats, which all have silly names, and our twenty chickens are Partridge Wyandottes that are good layers. The sheep started arriving five years ago.

Victoria says it was finding a sheep breed that was family friendly that was most important.

“Having a young family brought us to the decision that we needed something more of a simplistic life. We just wanted a really lovely sheep breed and that’s what they are.

“Now they have become our obsession and we rent additional land. We only have around sixteen at present as we’ve just sold some, but we’ve certainly moved on from when we started with Scott and Harry picking up three lambs which proved slightly hilarious as well as mildly stressful.

“We had gone to the Blacknose Beauties Show & Sale in Carlisle in August 2018 and we just fell in love with them. A girlfriend had bought me a book on starting a smallholding and the Valais Blacknose were in there too.

Scott travelled to the New Forest to buy and bring back two ewe lambs and a tup lamb in February 2019.

“Scott drove down thinking these little lambs would fit cosily in back of my Discovery but Valais Blacknose lambs are still huge or these were. He had no trailer. Somehow they managed to get them home.

Scott talks of the importance of getting the right bloodlines into the flock and went north next.

“Jamie Wood based in the Cheviot Hills of Northumberland is one of the best Valais Blacknose breeders in the UK. I talked him into selling us two shearling ewes and we used General our ram, on them.

“All we were thinking was whether we could breed anything good enough to show to the breed standard set by the Swiss. We now absolutely love breeding them, researching and finding out what goes with what and looking at success rates.

Scott says their first real success came very quickly and at the show and sale that had set them on their way.

“The first Blacknose Beauties Show and Sale that we took stock was in 2022. We took breeding tups, one of which was called Jackpot. This is where it gets quite surreal because when you get there your sheep get graded and if you get maximum points you’re absolutely laughing because that’s the best of the best.

“Jackpot hit just that, getting maximum points. It was our first ever time there and I just thought it was unbelievable and shouldn’t really happen. There were people there with far bigger flocks and who have been in the game far longer and we got a maximum first go.

Buoyed by that success the Taylors have continued to achieve great things in a short period and Scott is delighted that some of their stock is now helping fellow breeders and show people achieve their own success.

“Jackpot went on to do really well at shows but we recently sold him to a local lad called Connor. I’m really bothered about where our sheep go and had kept bumping into him at shows and knew he loved Jackpot.

“His mum came to me and said Connor’s birthday was coming up and she’d like to buy him a tup. I knew he liked Jackpot and his mum was amazed that I might sell him. It was a real surprise for his 16th birthday. Jackpot and Connor have been formidable in the ring this year and have won five supreme championships. I’m so happy he’s gone to a good home and that one of our homebreds is doing well elsewhere, it all adds to your reputation.

“We always have success with our tups,” says Victoria. “And we do sell tups to others because of that, but we also retain a lot of our tups because sometimes you’ll show a tup lamb one year and it does very well, but you know that next year as a shearling it may do even better.

This year’s show season has been the Taylors’ most successful yet, and this year even backed by Swiss judges.

“As well as the Great Yorkshire Show success we also went to the Royal Lancashire Show,” says Scott. “This time there were three of us in the ring for the tup lamb class as Harry came in too. We had Langver, Longshot and Loki and we had second, third and fourth in the tup lamb class. Victoria also took Laura in the ring and got second place ewe lamb, named after our vet.

“But at the Blacknose Beauties this year the Swiss judges came across and graded them. We are all trying to get to where the Swiss are with theirs and they judged Langver champion in the tup lamb class. Longshot was fifth, Loki sixth, Laura fifth in hers, and our shearling tup Krooz second in his class.

The Taylors have been to Zermatt in Switzerland, home of the Valais Blacknose and Scott says it is now their sons’ favourite holiday spot under the shadow of the Matterhorn.

“We went two years ago and we’re going again next month. It’s skiing country but we go for the sheep. We went to Miss Visp a massive show just for ewes, held in the bottom of valley where all the sheep come down from the mountains. It was incredible.

Scott is also now a qualified Valais Blacknose show judge. Quite a full circle he’s completed in a short space of time.

“It’s the most expensive hobby known to man,” says Scott. “The fleeces are only really any good for felting and there is no call for the meat yet over here, but that will come. In the meantime we are loving it as a family.