Fun with Sheep

Cute, fuzzy runt.

It's the first year for selling lambs, so I've been busy taking pictures for potential buyers. I have one woman potentially interested in a ram, which would mean that one of our seven ram lambs could be temporarily saved from the freezer. It's been hard not to be biased toward the cute little fuzzy runt, who probably should have been wethered; he'll make neither a good ram nor a good chop - too small. But I think I've selected two or three of the boys that could make fine breeding stock.

Potential Rams for Sale

 

Kira's ram just had to be chosen. After all, he is already harassing his sisters non-stop, showing he certainly has the instinct to do the job. He is squarely built and our first grey ram. While his horn tips do point inward, they are growing outward nicely from the base. His fleece is especially crimped, and it should be softer than his mother's downy fleece.

Kira's Ram

Of course crazy Wynona's rams had to be part of the selection. She simply has the best conformation of our ewes and has easily trained her boys to stay clear of humans. Bred to Cedar, she produced two lovely ram lambs. Both have strong Shetland tails, masculine faces, nicely curved horns, and square conformations. If you remember from previous posts, one was born blettet (with spots on his head) and the other is solid. Because Wynona is solid brown and Cedar is solid black, both are heterozygous black, meaning they could produce brown or black lambs. The more I look at these two, the harder it is to decide which is the better ram. (I think this picture is of the same ram.)

Wynona's Ram

The more important but less flattering side.

And then there are the ewes for sale... 

Annie shows off her nice tail and long legs.

Molly stands square...

...and shows off her fluffy neck wool.

Franny was so cute a week ago,...

...and now she's looking more and more like her mom.

 And then there is just Madeleine...

 

She's supposed to be for sale, but I'm not sure I can part with her. 

Yes, she paws at my legs to demand scratches. Yes, she jumps on my back to get grain. Yes, she pushes me over to scratch her head, especially when I'm sitting on a rock! 

She can be such a PAIN! 

But who could be mad at that sweet face?

So I'm sure the flock will be changing in a month or two. Then I'll have to decide which ewes get bred, and how many to breed. There's always something new on the farm!

Shetland Sheep for Sale

Our first ever year to sell sheep is here. We simply have too many sheep for the winter, so it's time to make some difficult decisions. In an attempt to reduce genetic repetitiveness, we've tried to either offer adults and keep their ewe lambs or sell ewe lambs and keep their dams. We're primarily selling moorits to increase our fleece colors.

The two ewe lambs for sale sired by Cedar are both moorit based with nice conformation and comparable fleece. Franny (left) is a solid fawn out of Maggie, who is out of Wynona, so we felt that line would be reasonable to start thinning. Both Wynona and Maggie are excellent, attentive mothers who lamb without assistance, and each have strong Shetland features with nicely shaped tails. Maggie twinned her first year lambing, and Wynona successfully lambed triplets this year. Molly (right) is a spotted fawn out of Poa, who has given us twin ewes for the past two years. There are only so many ewe lambs I feel I should keep from one ewe, so this was another reasonable starting point.

The registered yearling ewe that will be offered is Annie, another ewe out of Poa but sired by Xavier. She is a spotted moorit who has held her spots and her color well. A nice ewe, but we really felt we could only keep one ewe lamb from each breeding out of Poa. Claire ('11) and Hannah ('12) will stay here, and they were primarily chosen over the other two for their fleece colors (mioget and black, respectively).

The hardest decisions were regarding adult ewes. Since we were able to get two nice ewe lambs out of Crystal, we've decided to see if we can find her a nice home in a smaller flock where she can hopefully get more scratches than we can currently give her. I may regret this sale, but it really isn't practical to keep a ewe and both of her twin ewe lambs. Nettie will give us the potential to get a horned ewe or more HST lambs, and Cali will be our token spotted black ewe.

Mocha will also be for sale, and we're considering selling Madeleine. Hard decisions, but to improve our flock and increase diversity it is a necessary component of shepherding.