Rare Breeds Farm on Kangaroo Island in South Australia

Travel along the North Coast Road on Kangaroo Island and you're more than likely to come across a local cocky moving his flock of sheep between paddocks. It's often said Australia rode on the sheep's back but head to William Marshall's Rare Breeds Farm near Stokes Bay and you get slightly different perspective. It offers a glimpse of how Australia might have looked had Australia's forebears made different choices and imported other domestic farm breeds from the Old Country.

On a former mixed farm William has been mixing and matching Black Head Persian Sheep, Ronderib Afrikaners, Dexter Cows, the impressive Nadudana, and the Damaras of Angola and northern Namibia.

"They are still kept by the tribes up there today," said William. "They're a desert form of a meat sheep with a very odd looking tail. Their tails are left on intentionally because they store fat in their tails. It works on the same principle as a camel's hump - if they hit a time of stress or a drought they actually draw on the energy reserves in their tails and that helps them survive through the tough times."

The meat from the Damara is considered a delicacy in Africa and it's fat content is a little different to the lamb roast we eat at home.

"It may have a different cholesterol composition - so it may even be on the healthy list soon."

William also has a type of sheep was that on the First Fleet.

"The are a very big part of Australia's history. They are the Ronderib Afrikaners... otherwise known as Cape Fat Tails. I believe there were about forty on the First Fleet. There's less than a hundred and fifty in Australia and only six hundred left in South Africa so they are on the brink of extinction."

There are currently four thousand breeds of domestic farm animal and on average two a week are becoming extinct. That's a frightening decline in genetic diversity. That's why William Marshall, whose interest in rare breeds began while raising exotic poultry as a lad at Moonta, has carved out his own piece of bucolic bliss on KI.

From Black Head Persian Sheep to African Geese, the farm is a veritable Noah's Ark of rare and endangered domestic animals.

In a world of global food production on massive farms with increasing technology and fewer breeds this is a return to the domestic farmyards of the past. But it's one which is still on show to the public. The Rare Breeds Farm is two kilometres West of Stokes Bay along the North Coast Road.

The Rare Breeds Farm
2 kilometres west of Stokes Bay
Follow the North Coast Road
Open Daily
Noon until 5pm