Fall Flock Update

In the last post I was introducing new lambs, not even having finished lambing for the season, and now I'm anticipating next year's arrivals. Our 2014 lambing season concluded with nineteen lambs out of nine ewes sired by two rams, Winston and Nelson. Yesterday we began our 2014 breeding season and will be exposing twelve ewes, in two groups, to two rams. We'll give Nelson the year off and swap in Jacob, our yearling musket out of Kira, sired by Cedar.

Group 1: Jacob's Ladies
Jacob is a yearling musket out of a Kira-Cedar breeding. He was a triplet and has excellent horns and a kindly fleece. His sister will be bred to Winston and move on to a new home at the end of breeding season, and while I already have his mother and two half-sisters, I simply love every lamb descended from Kira. I'm hoping he will pass along his mild temperament and a shorter staple length when crossed with the following long-fleeced ewes.

As it is his first breeding, he will only get a handful of ladies "just in case". All four girls are Xavier daughters and were among our first batches of lambs. Maggie, Edna, Annie and Claire have all produced wonderful lambs. I'm very excited to see their 2015 lambs, and I'm predicting a true Shetland assortment of brown fleeces.

So far this group doesn't seem very interested in Jacob. I saw him chase Claire around the big pine at least a half dozen times before he gave up. I guess it just wasn't his day. I'm sure we'll have lambs in April, but I guess I better leave him in there for the whole month to make sure. 




Group 2: Winston's Ladies
Winston is our senior ram. Very correct, with a perfect Shetland tail, Winston has more a primitive fleece. His long locks are probably his weakest characteristic, which is why most of the ewes in his group have much shorter staples.

The 2014 lambs he sired were a bit of a disappointment, but that had more to do with a shortened breeding season and the ewes he was with. Lambs out of Edna were the exception, being spectacular in both conformation and color. I'm anxious to see what other ewes will produce when exposed to this wild card. With Winston's genetics, it seems almost any color and pattern can appear, which makes using this ram well worth it.

Ewes in Winston's group are both veterans and first-timers. Poa, Kira, Madeleine, and Ella will all be lambing again this year. It will probably be Poa's last lambing before retirement. Mary, Myra, and Martha are all Cedar yearlings, and our two-year-old Cali will also be a new mom this year. Martha will move to a new flock after breeding, leaving us with seven ewes bred by Winston.

Winston was a gentleman at moving time. When he got to the ladies' pen he ran in after them, only to watch them all disperse in the opposite direction. He followed a few of the girls around for a bit and the younger ewes cautiously sneaked in for a sniff. No one was terribly excited to see him, but that's to be expected.

As for other flock news, our numbers will be increasing slightly going into the winter. We had nineteen lambs, but we sold ten sheep this year and will be slaughtering at most six lambs. I plan to hold two of the five ram lambs over, one by Nelson and one by Winston, to see how they progress. I also plan to hold on to Edna's ewe and Claire's ewe, with the possibility of holding over Annie's twins. It's always hard to know just what to do with those beautiful, if crazy, ewe lambs.

Wacky Weekend of Lambs

It's been a long weekend of lambs, but it all started last Monday when Bel birthed twin four-pound ewes prematurely. I say prematurely because she was so tiny and barely had an udder. The moorit ewe didn't make it, but the grey ewe is holding on just fine. 

We had to wait until Friday morning before any more lambs arrived. Claire had twin moorit lambs - one ram, one ewe. They each have one prominent white mark, the ram's on his forehead and the ewe's in the corner of her eye. These two are very fine-boned.

Friday afternoon Maggie had a standing ewe and a just-born ram she was cleaning off when I got home from work. The ram is fawn and the ewe is moorit. Maggie's lambs are solid little lambs with stockier builds and are very square.

Just as Maggie was cleaning off her ram Clover was in early active labor. By five o'clock three lambs were born and cleaned.  The two katmogets had horn buds so I assumed they were rams. The moorit was clearly a ewe. Upon closer inspection the runt seemed to have no male anatomy and not quite familiar female anatomy either. I suspect this little one is a hermaphrodite. 

Saturday afternoon temperatures reached the mid-50s, and once again Wynona decided to lamb outside in the paddock. I had to rescue the little ewe from the dangers of the big girls whose unwelcoming head-butts were at very least frightening for her.

And before bed another ewe was in early labor. Tail-head raised, Edna stood star-gazing chewing her cud. I shut off the barn lights, closed the doors, and much like a little kid at Christmas, fell asleep anxious for the morning's surprise. And what a SURPRISE!

Edna seemed to have lambed the ultimate variety pack: an almost solid grey ewe with a few small white spots, a musket speckled ram, and a yuglet ilget grey ewe. All three are doing quite well.

So far this brings our tally to:
14 lambs out of 6 ewes
4 rams and 10 ewes 
6 lambs sired by Winston and 8 by Nelson

We still have three more girls to lamb. My guess is Madeleine will triple first, Ella will twin second, and Annie will twin last. I'm hoping for seven rams!

One week until lambing...

One week until the ewes are officially due. Here are the ladies as they appeared a week ago. Udders are definitely larger this week.

Wynona - Is she pregnant? Maybe she'll single.

Edna - She must have at least two.

Bel - She's definitely bred but there may be only one in there.

Madeleine - She tripled last year and was smaller. Maybe she'll triple full-term this year?

Clover - Two or three. She's wider than she's been in the past.

Ella - I'd say one but both her sister and mother have consistently had triplets.

Claire - Small twins.

Maggie - A safe set of twins.

4 Weeks Until Lambing...

Yesterday I was finally able to get some pictures of the girls post-shearing. It has been two weeks since their wooly coats were removed and the weather has not been kind to the poor sheep. We've had several nights of below-zero temperatures and today's snow storm combined with tomorrow's cold temperatures have me a bit concerned about the coat-less flock.

This year we called the spinnery and set a date for dropping off the fleeces. We spent six hours on Saturday skirting 25 fleeces. Two of the girls have fleeces with staple lengths longer than the maximum 8-inch length that the spinnery can handle, so those fleeces will have to find a hand-spinner's home or some other use. The yearling lambs have beautifully crimpy, soft even-lengthed coats, which is what most Shetland breeders are aiming for. I'm excited to see what the finished product will yield when we get our yarn back in a few months.

Winston and his ewes.

Last fall we decided to set up two breeding groups - a first for us. All was going well until a fence broke and ram lambs ended up in the wrong pen. Luckily the girls had been with the desired ram for a few weeks and I'm hoping those girls go early so I can safely say who their sire is.

Breeding Group 1: Winston was exposed to six ewes. Wynona was only with him for two days and then when we finally moved the group out into the back field she refused to follow, so I'll be surprised if she was bred. Of the other five ewes, I can only say for certain that Bel and Edna were settled. Franny and Cali don't show any signs of being bred and I'm not sure about Ella, but I think she may be. So my guess is we'll have between four and eight lambs sired by Winston.

Left to right: Ella, Edna, and Bel.

 

Breeding Group 2: Nelson was exposed to five ewes. I saw him settle Madeleine, Clover, and Maggie in November and all three are certainly bred. The twins, Claire and Annie, also seem to have been bred, but Annie is so skittish that I can't really tell. If anyone was missed it was Annie, and she did seem to be hanging around the ram near the end of their time together, so she may have just been missed. I would guess we'll have between eight and twelve lambs sired by Nelson. Madeleine had triplets last year and Clover looks huge, so there is the potential for triplets again this year. 


 Left to right: Clover, Maggie, Claire, and Madeleine.

Last night when I drove up to the barn the girls were sunbathing. Can you guess who's related in this picture?