"WE are sheep, not goats", read the sign on the pen.

The pen of young Damara ewes and rams at last year's Seymour Alternative Farming Expo attracted plenty of attention.

But three out of four expo visitors had never heard of Damaras, according to breeder Leigh Esler.

"Many people thought they were goats, so we had to put the sign up," she said.

Small-farm owners at the expo were impressed by the hardy, low-maintenance fat-tail breed, snapping up wethers and breeding females.

Leigh and her husband Joe, of Table Top near Albury, in southern NSW, displayed stock again at this year's Seymour expo.

The couple run 475 ewes in their Damfattail Damara flock, on 100ha fronting Lake Hume.

They specialise in supplying wethers as "designer mowers" or killers, breeding females and rams to small-farm owners.

A teacher and social worker, Leigh had little to do with sheep until two years ago.

A New Zealander, she stopped off in Queensland during a round-the-world trip and stayed to complete three degrees in Asian studies, psychology and teaching.

Leigh met Joe, a qualified boiler maker, and together they embarked on learning about first-cross ewes and prime lamb production.

"It was costing us more to get the wool off the sheep than it was worth," she said.

"Joe began talking to staff at the National Environment Centre (at Albury) about their Damara flock.

"He also did some research on the internet and found a flock dispersal in Western Australia."

At the time, the Ryan family, of Ravensthorpe in Western Australia, were dispersing their large flock of Damaras to expand a cropping operation.

"We bought a semi load of 652 ewes, aged two to five years, and 20 rams, comprising F3, F4 and purebreds," Leigh said.

"We couldn't get big numbers of purebreds in eastern Australia at the time."

The ewes cost $40-$50 each, depending on purity, with transport from Western Australia costing $15,000. Several outcross bloodlines have been added since, from Tambar Springs and Picton in NSW.

"Joe had originally planned to turn off organic lamb, but I discovered there was a good market for breeding ewes," Leigh said.

"Now we sell every single ewe as a breeding female.

"In the first year, 160 wethers were sold for export while 70 went to hobby farmers for the table.

"This year, almost as many of our May-June drop wether lambs were sold as designer mowers."

The wether lambs, aged nine to 10 months and 40-45kg, are sold as semi-finished and two months off slaughter weight.

Colour is one of the top selection priorities for hobby farmers.

Damaras come in all shades and patterns of white, black and brown.

"We make people aware that colour is only one thing, and body type, conformation and the tail are just as important," Leigh said.

"Last spring we sold out of ewes and did get pre-orders for young maiden ewes."

Five to 10 per cent multiple births is common in older ewes, while maiden ewes have less.

"Lambs are tiny, birthing difficulties are rare and ewes give birth quickly," Leigh said.

"Over the past two years, we have only had one out of 500 breeding ewes have a difficult birth."

Being a self-shedding breed, the Damara doesn't require shearing, crutching, mulesing or tail docking.

"But they are still sheep and people shouldn't get a false idea that they can be simply chucked out in the paddock," Leigh said.

"They still require good food, shelter and drenching.

"The Damara is known to be hardy, but we found last summer they suffered from barley grass seeds in their eyes.

"I brought in each flock twice a week to inspect their eyes."

Being relatively new to the sheep game, Leigh has learnt from trial and error.

She now offers support to other newcomers to the industry through her website - www.damfattail.com - which she developed with the help of family members.

The website was updated over the summer with common-sense tips and advice on sheep husbandry, and it provides links to agricultural organisations so new sheep owners can do their own research.

Inquiries for sheep come from almost every state.

"Most of our sales are to hobby farmers and they know little about sheep," Leigh said.

"They generally buy from three to 20 animals.

"These are to eat the grass or for home meat, while pets are extremely popular.

"I cannot get enough bottle-reared lambs - the ones I have left I could sell 10 times over in a blink of an eye.

"Other customers are farmers running cattle and not interested in shearing sheep, but they want something a bit different."

Although the family have 2km of frontage to Lake Hume for grazing, the drought did force them to set up stock-containment areas and hand-feed grain.

"Damaras don't do well on our ryegrass and clover pastures, so it is crunch time about what to do with the pastures," Leigh said.

"We are also changing our management practices to control black-scour worm.

"We are running more mobs than we did with first-cross ewes, so more internal fencing and troughs are planned."

The Eslers have found that the sheep readily eat capeweed, hairy panic, blackberries, Paterson's curse and most summer weeds.

Apart from the sheep, Leigh also keeps busy raising free-range Wessex Saddleback pigs, listed by the Australian Rare Breeds Trust as critically endangered.

She also breeds Silver Laced Wyndotte and Rhode Island red poultry for backyard buyers.

"Sheep can still annoy the heck out of me and if we only had sheep I couldn't do it," Leigh said.

"So I have a few pigs, chooks and cattle to play with.

"We are almost self sufficient here - most nights everything on our plate comes off the farm."