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.