About us

Our sideline business is run by Rudolf Düvel.
He receives strong support from his son André and grandson Louis.

Rudolf and Andre Düvel both work full-time in construction: Rudolf as an accountant and Andre as a master carpenter.

We used to run a successful breed of Romanov sheep.
The Russian country sheep, which is one of the world´s most fertile races, brought us much joy and success, and in 2002 and 2006 the national winners at the Green Week in Berlin, winners at the Ram show in Nordhorn 2004 and numerous 1a rams on the association shows. We sold breeding animals to almost any German federal state, as well as to Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, Bulgaria and Latvia. One day we decided to import a top breeding ram from France. At Montmorillon we met Mrs. Brachet, who offered to us a very typical Romanov ram.
Mrs. Brachet called our attention to the outstanding hybrids of Romanov x Berrichon du Cher and that there is a unique race in France from the hybrids RO Berri x = F1 and F1 x Berri = Inra 401. We then consulted the sheep breeder´s calendar 2004 and found Berrichon breeder Axel Pistol.
After a telephone call, the first breeding animals have been ordered, followed by two served ewes from France to enlarge the breeding.
At first we bred both Romanov and Berrichon du Cher (both races recorded in pedigree) but it turned out that the Berrichon would prevail, because the sales of breeding and slaughter lambs has been very easy.

When we came across the internet site of the British Society of Berrichon du Cher, Andre Düvel made contact with Emma and Calum Hillhouse. After some e-mails the English invited us to "Builth Welsh Ram Sale" in September 2006. Rudolf and Andre Düvel accepted the invitation and were joined by Axel Pistol, his wife, former breed warden Karl Heinz Hanselle and his wife. At first we inspected Emma and Calum Hillhouses offspring breed, then went to Builth Welsh Ram Sale. There were 6000 rams of various different races on display, including about 100 Berrichon du Cher.

After all we decided to purchase three rams from Emma and Calum Hillhouse´s breed, because at an auction sale there is a too long quarantine period. The first import in Oct. 2006 was followed by another in July 2007 (6 ewe lambs) and June 2008 (3 ewe lambs), all from Emma and Calum Hillhouse. In May 2009, we received visitors from England: Calum Hillhouse with their familie and Ian with his wife. They were impressed by our breeding and praised the quality of the animals.

Emma and Calum Hillhouse chose a well-developed ram lamb and two typical mother lambs from our offspring. The harvest of their selection unveiled in spring 2010, because almost everyone of their successful show lambs comes from ‘our’ ram. Ram ‘Jackers’ got ‘Reserve Champion’ at the Devon County Show and weighed 40.8 kg as a 70-days-old, without much use of concentrates. Our latest import was in Nov. 2009, it was a 2-year-old ram from the known Berrichon breed "Sunnycroft”. The ram was the winner of his class at the Builth Welsh Show 2009.

We are always considerate of using fresh blood lines in our Berrichon breed, to bring Berrichon breed and quality lamb production forward.