Woodbury Ranch
Leo & Jo Woodbury
Joleodorpers

For over 50 years, ranching and producing quality livestock have been our trademark. Through those years we have produced rodeo, performance and cutting horses, Hereford and Angus cattle, Border Collie dogs and full blood and percentage Dorper sheep.

In the '50's, '60's and '70's Leo ranched in Nevada, Montana and Idaho. Running 1000 head of mother cows and 300 heifers required a lot of riding, roping and branding, and a lot of horses. Those activities lead Leo to the PRCA arena where he and his horses excelled. As time progressed, Quarter Horse show folks wanted Leo to ride their horses in AQHA registered performance classes to finish Championships on their breeding stock. The show world opened the door for Leo to hone his skills in reining and cutting. Since cutting combined his love of a well-trained horse and cattle work, the focus became raising and training cutting horses - for themselves and for others. It soon became apparent, if one were in the cutting horse business, one needed to be in Texas, so Texas became a temporary home for the Woodburys.

Riding and training cutting horses requires a lot of fresh cattle. Keeping "fresh" cattle is every trainer's challenge, and Leo soon found the use of Border Collie dogs facilitated that end. As customers came to watch their horses, it didn't take long to see there was as much interest in watching the Border Collies work as there was in watching the horses work. (Actually, it wasn't even close.) While Leo trained the cutters, Jo found a niche in the showing of cutters. Eventually, though, the love of the dog out weighed the thrill of the cutting pen, and Jo focused on training and trialing the Border Collies.

There were many natural work situations in which to train/work dogs ... and, a good demand and a good price, for a finished dog. To lessen the risk of a cow injuring a young dog, sheep became a necessity to establish the basics. The Texas heat and humidity are not kind to woolen animals. "Hair" sheep can better withstand the hot, muggy weather, but are typically smaller framed animals than wool sheep; consequently, they didn't have as much value on the meat end of the market scale. As long as sheep were part of the Woodbury's "ag" program, the sheep needed to pay their way. Enter the Dorper sheep. They stood up to persistent "dog work", gained weight while being stressed, held their own in the sale ring, yielded a better carcass than a wool sheep and did not require shearing.

Whether the summers got hotter and longer or whether the longing for places where one was reared grew stronger, the Woodburys began to summer in Wyoming. The summers began to stretch into more months spent in the north country, until it resulted in a permanent relocation to Buffalo, Wyoming.

Today, we raise and sell "naturally" grown sheep and cattle, along with raising horses and dogs.

We purchased our first purebred Dorpers in 1996 when a large number of embryos from South Africa were implanted in ewes housed in Canada. We started with two purebred rams and 10 purebred ewe lambs. We already had a large number of St. Croix ewes, a natural hair sheep smaller framed than a Dorper, but exhibiting the many other Dorper qualities. With this core group of ewes, we began our Dorper upgrade program. We currently run a 400 head flock of full blood and percentage Dorper and White Dorper ewes. When we're not counting or sorting sheep, we're checking our Angus cattle that have been selected for their ability to finish on grass and for their maternal qualities.