Bright Sunday

It is 43 degrees F outside today.  Unreal!  Hardly a trace of snow.  Not a typical December...but Clancy is  getting lots of outdoor work done.  Sort of the winter equivalent of "make hay while the sun shines."

Because it has just been too long since I've taken any sheep pictures, here are a few.  Sorry about the harsh lighting...

River Oaks Lana.

Lana's ewe lamb by LittleRedOak Ash: Penelope.  I still can't touch Pen.  But she is coming in much closer now, as long as other sheep are crowded around me.  I think this eweling is so beautiful and correct...it just drives me nuts that she is not tame yet.  I so want to get my hands on her fleece again.

The last two pictures are of Sian's twins by Ash.  They have scadder around their necks like their dam and grand-dam, Rachel, did.  None of the other lambs this year had it.  I don't mind it...though I wouldn't select for it.  When I get back into breeding again, I will see if aiming for finer fleece and/or the polled gene eliminates this trait.  I'm really hoping these two girls got some polled genetics from their sire.  Sian had horned genetics...but she had a non-fading fleece, a nice shape, good feet, and a hardiness about her that I liked.  I'm fond of my original Rachel line...so these little sweety pies will hopefully carry that forward into a polled generation.

Jane

Francesca

TRANS AM: SOLD!

Thank you to Lorie and Lance K. of Nebraska for giving Trans Am a great home.

I hope he gives you many terrific lambs!

I had Trans Am earmarked for a particular situation, but that did not come to fruition.  I know it is last minute, but TA is available as a breeding ram lamb immediately.  I am not overwintering any male sheep for the next two seasons...so I can't keep him.  And I DO have a butcher lamb customer waiting for him if I can't sell him for breeding.  The processor date is October 25th...so not much time.

Trans Am is a spotted (head,two socks, tail) black katmoget that carries moorit and solid. 

S'more Courante x RiverOaks Hannah.

Can be registered.

He has absolutely excellent conformation, tail, wide hindquarters, and super terrific soft crimpy fleece.  His parents micron data can be found on my Fleece Page and my Flock Page.

Trans Am has round profile horns that clear his head.  He very much has a British look to his horns...I am guessing he carries a poll gene from one of his parents.

Mouth and testes are very proper.

Just an all around super ram lamb.

October Morning

The weather has been so mild...and the morning light is just golden with all the trees decked out in Autumn colors.  It has been a while since I posted...but it has been just too nice to stay inside!

I have news about the sheep and the new Great Pyrenees dogs...but it will have to wait.

I need some sleep!

Sudden New Friend

Penelope

 (LRO Ash x RiverOaks Lana)

Thanks to a mad flock-wide rush to the grain treat being served, I was able to catch this wary little ewe lamb and get her coat on her.  She is incredibly soft.

This is Penelope's dam, Lana.  Lana came to live here about a year ago, and I have never had such a flighty ewe in my flock before.  I couldn't tempt her to come near me.  She kept the flock between herself and me at all times.  She was shy about coming up for grain.  She would climb the walls when I entered her lambing jug this spring.  Nothing seemed to ever reassure her that I wanted to be nice and gentle to her.

Then Clancy and I caught all the girls a few days ago to put coats on them.  Lana freaked out when we caught her diving in at the grain pan, and she struggled while we wrestled with her coat.  But we didn't just let her bolt as soon as we finished.  We held her gently and rubbed her chest and scratched her ears for a moment while we softly let go of her, and then she trotted off as soon as she realized she was free. 

Later that day, I visited the pasture to take some pictures.  Without any sort of warning, Lana walked right up to me and put her head in my lap.  I was stunned...even more so when she didn't flinch as I raised my hand and began scratching her ears.  After a nice long lovey session, I was the one to move away first.  And ever since then, Lana has come straight up to me for pets as soon as I enter the pasture.

I treasure miracles such as this...so unexpected and precious!  It might be only a matter of time now before Lana's bewildered, flighty eweling, Penelope, decides to come in close enough with her mother that I can pet her too.  I'm hoping.  :) 

Late Summer Ram Lambs

Ta-Da! The inspiring Trans Am!

I never get tired of photographing this boy.

Tucker's head.  Just minutes before he broke off one of his button scurs.  Wish all my ram lambs had so little horn material!  Tucker has improved in his attitude.  He is seldom even interested in me anymore, and when he does come forward, he sniffs and walks away again.  I never did get him banded.  So I am impressed that he seems to have outgrown his shenanigans.  Tucker is my second largest ram lamb, recessive for moorit, and carrying solid.

 

Nhu's twin ram lambs, Gwilym & Ian.  Both have gorgeous fleece.  I'm showing their back ends because the moorit was born with what appeared to be a long hairy tail.  It was so out of line with his parentage.  But look at him now...a very small and proper tail!  How these lambs can surprise me.

Here is Nhu's moorit, Ian, from the front.  One of his scurs broke early on, the other is it's original length.  This boy had a spotted forehead at birth.  And I'll be coating him as soon as I get out the needle and thread to repair one more C coat.

August Already...

...how can that be?

Boston Lake Esyllt ('10) & Sextant ('11)

(both wearing size D coats)

We have been having a hot and humid summer with ample (too much!) rain so the pastures have been as lush as can be.  It has almost been hard keeping up with them, but the sheep are doing their best.

Boston Lake Lyneth

Yesterday, Clancy helped me put coats on the ewe/lamb flock.  I wish it hadn't taken me this long to get that accomplished.  At least they have been on pasture since shearing this spring.  No hay feeding without the coats on is my rule around here.

RiverOaks Hannah

All of the ewes are looking good except for Nhu.  She still has her twin ramlings with her, so that might be part of it.  She also tends toward the thin/narrow type.  But I gave her some Valbazen de-wormer anyway.

Boston Lake Trans Am

(S'more Courante x River Oaks Hannah)

Even the lambs were coated.  Most are in a size C coat now.  But Trans's twin, Justina, is still in a B; and Sextant is in a D!  He will be a nice butcher lamb this fall.



Ramling Update

As promised in the comments section of this recent post, I managed to catch all of my ram lambs this morning to inspect their "masculine equipment."  And I have very good news to report: 

I was mistaken about Tucker having two testicles with the one being only partially descended!  He definitely has two, fully-descended testicles, of equal size.  I checked twice and I am absolutely certain about this.

I also inspected Sextant again and I am very certain that he only has one descended testicle.

The wonderful point here is that there is NO indication that the cryptorchid comes from any particular line because there is only this SINGLE instance here on my farm.  It does mean that LRO January and S'more Courante produced a cryptorchid/monorchid.  But that is the only incriminating fact in the matter.  Those two sheep will not be paired again, and I will also carefully monitor all future ram lambs for the same problem and publish any faults I come across in my breeding.  It would be easier to not talk about it...simply send cryptorchids to butcher...but no one will learn anything from that.  And I would like to think of my efforts as being helpful to the breed as a whole.

The other bit of good news is that my other three ram lambs, Trans Am, Gwilym, and Ian, all have proper equipment.  I am so glad of that.

Penelope

Still haven't been able to tempt little Penelope (LRO Ash x RiverOaks Lana) to come near.  But I did get an eartag and coat on her friendly look-alike, Justina (S'more Courante x RiverOaks Hannah).  So now I can tell them apart from distance.  When I was petting Justina a few days ago I was amazed to find her hairy birthcoat had become a super soft fleece  What a transformation!  I am hoping Penelope's similar birthcoat has changed for the better as well.
MORNING UPDATE:  I caught Penelope this morning and she is lovely soft...but still not tame.

Question...

LittleRedOak January with her great big ram lamb, Sextant.

While I was handling Sextant to deal with his broken scur, I gave him a "once-over" and realized that only one of his testicles had descended.  I grabbed Tucker and gave him the same inspection to find that one of his was completely descended and the other was only partially so.  These two rams are completely unrelated... out of unrelated ewes and two, separate, unrelated rams.  Sextant was scheduled to leave in a week to become flock sire at another farm. 

So... is the 11 week old mark the normal time for testicles to start descending in ram lambs, or do I have a couple of cryptorchids?  (I haven't had a chance to inspect the three other ramlings in the flock yet)  I DON'T want to sell a flawed ram lamb to anyone.  But is it worth it to give the lamb more time to descend or is that hopeless? 

Any thoughts or info on the matter would be appreciated.

Horn Report

Trans Am. 

His scurs or aberrant horns continue to grow.  I do believe he is a half-poll, since full-horned rams usually have much bigger horns by this age.  He is still a beauty and developing well in every other respect.

Ian

He has just the tiniest fragile little spikes.  I expected them to break off by now, but I never see the ram lambs butt each other.  I know it happens, but nothing like the way it used to with the full-horned ramlings.  Ian is turning into a nice lamb.  His facial spots are less noticeable now, though.  His tail used to have long hair on it, but it seems to be falling out or being grown into, so it is nice and proper now.  He is very soft.

Gwilym

Kind of an odd-angled photo, but Gwilym is turning out very nicely too.  Too bad his scurs have to be so significant.  He is also wonderfully soft!

Sextant

Sextant broke off a scur the other day and it bled quite a bit since it seemed to rip right at the base.  We had to clean it out once and put fly repellent on it for a few days.  It is healing up just fine.  This lamb is so chunky and burly, I just love it.  I don't know if it is because he was a single or what, but I wish all my lambs were built like this one.  :)

Tucker

Tucker (gray lamb, center) is built just like Sextant (he's also a single).  And he seems to have given up being such a pest and spends most of his attention on eating now.  Occasionally he comes up... but I wonder if flipping him once might cure him for good?  This is a cropped, long distance photo, but I can report that Tucker has the least horn material of all the ram lambs: one tiny point smaller than Ian's, and one little flat button.  He is also my only LittleRedOak Ash ramling.

Mid-Summer Group Photos

With one thing and another, I have been too busy to take photos of the sheep.  And when there is a spare moment, the mosquitoes and deer flies and horse flies are so horrible I don't want to stand out there in the long grass!  The poor sheep!  They have to deal with it 24/7.

Tonight I was determined to take a few shots.  Not many pictures turned out since both the shepherd and the sheep were trying to keep from being devoured by bugs.  And that meant a lot of movement.  Oh, well...

The entire ewe/lamb flock.

Full sisters, Vianne and Lyneth.  My AnnaBelle daughters.

Vianne lost her first lamb to pneumonia a few days after it was born.  But it was a beautiful ewe lamb...so I have high hopes of another just as nice next spring.  Lyneth is 3 years old and has not produced a lamb yet.  I don't really have breeding hopes for her anymore.  Thankfully, she is friendly and has lovely fleece.  I also just think she is a pretty girl.  For the time being, I have room for her.

Some lamb tails...left to right:

Jane, Trans Am (white), Justina.  Sextant's head up front.

The only good photo I could get of Francesca, who is so friendly she is usually crawling on me.

Gulmoget, RiverOaks Lana on the left, and Fran's dam, Sian, on the right.

3 of 4 Ewe Lambs

I wanted to post about all of my ewe lambs, but I could not get Sian's black daughter, Jane, to pose for any photos.  Here are the other three ewe lambs...

Justina (Courante x Hannah) 

My only Courante ewe lamb...but she proved that Courante carries solid, so I'm pleased.  Justina carries moorit and spots - as evidenced by her tiny white head spot at birth.  She is twin to Trans Am (Mr Spotty).  Justina is also the lamb I thought might be modified.  She still has an odd black color compared to the other black ewe lambs, but I can't see any color change at the base of her fleece.  So maybe not.  This little girl is super friendly like her dam.  :)

Penelope (Ash x Lana)  (left), Trans Am (right)

Penelope and Justina look a lot alike.  I need to get ear tags into them soon.  However there are some differences... Penelope's poll wool comes down to a point on her forehead while Justina's is an oval shape.  Penelope is also skittish like her dam and won't come up to me yet.  I'm tempted to wean her at the end of summer in a barn stall for a few days to tame her down.  Having friendly sheep is so much more convenient than having skittish sheep.  This little girl is lovely in every way.  Perfect tail, great conformation, and the genetics and promise of great fleece.  So glad she is in my flock.



Justina (left) & Penelope (right)

Francesca  (Ash x Sian)

Fran is just the sweetest little ewe lamb.  Friendly, lovely color, terrific tail and conformation.  I'm very excited to finally have a home-bred moorit ewe in my flock!  Please excuse the mineral on her nose.  :)

I am so tempted to breed my ewe lambs to Courante this fall... in case I decide to sell him so I can be ram-free the year my twin sons graduate from high school.  (I know that their grad party is going to be a lot of work to prepare for so I'm trying to think ahead.)  But I'm not a fan of breeding ewe lambs... So I guess I'll be hashing that idea back and forth till fall.  Leaning away from that choice at the moment...

Trans Am

Even though Trans Am has horns/scurs growing, I still think he is just such a nice looking ram.

Square, with a good tail.  The tail still has some baby hair on the tip, but that will disappear as he grows.

Love that face!

Lots of presence.



Sextant

Sextant (Courante x January)

I was able to feel his fleece the other day and it is so nice and soft.  Just beautiful.  This boy is the biggest ram of the season.  He is scheduled to leave for another farm after weaning...hopefully to sire nice big unregistered Shetlands with lovely fleeces.  I think he will be perfect for the job!

Pardon the mineral all over his nose.  :)

Handsome Fellow

Liking this boy more and more each week! 

This is pic from 5-30-11 though.

Significant Changes

A while back I mentioned that I would be taking a few years off from breeding Shetlands.  I had very good reasons for making that choice.  But I have been re-evaluating my situation... I've always run 2 or more rams on the farm.  This year, instead of nothing, I'm going to run just one ram.  That should ease stress and work load quite a bit while still allowing me to make progress toward my polled and fine fleece goals.  I came to this decision after a fellow breeder asked to buy my last ram, S'more Courante.  I did have him for sale.  But I was already rethinking that notion when the offer was made.  With the pressing reality of Courante actually leaving, I decided only one ewe lamb from him was just not enough of his genetics in my flock.  And the breeder was kind enough to accept my removing the ram from my sales list.  So Courante is staying for another season at least.  And hopefully next spring I will get some more ewe lambs from him that are as impressive as his ram lambs are.

I also decided to sell 4 adult ewes this year to make room for the four ewe lambs I am retaining.  Three of these ewes are reserved now, and it is hard to imagine that they will leave, as they are all friendly girls.  But their bloodlines are well represented in their lambs, and even improved upon with regard to the polled gene... so there is no regret... just a wistfulness at not being able to keep them all.

Below are Sian's two ewe lambs that will be staying, while she and her other daughter, Leil, leave for a new home.

Francesca (Ash x Sian)

Jane (Ash x Sian)

Horn Growth Report

All the ram lambs, except for Trans Am, are 6 weeks old today.  So I took photos of them to record their horn growth.

Above is Gwilym (twin Courante x Nhu).  He has the biggest scurs so far with these little wiggly points.  His face looks exactly like his sire.  His twin, Ian, is in the background.

Ian (Courante x Nhu) ties for the least horn growth.  You can't see any horn material unless you look straight down at the poll.

Tucker (Ash x Leil) is the other ram without any real scur growth.

Sextant (Courante x January) is the biggest lamb of the year.  He is so aloof I rarely get a photo of him.  This pic is more of a "place holder."  From what I can see, Sextant has a little more horn material than Ian and Tucker, but his scurs are not as long or pointy as Gwilym's.

Trans Am (twin Courante x Hannah) is only 4.5 weeks old today.  He has the most horn material of all the ram lambs.  His horns are still substantially less than a full horned ram's would be...but I have no idea what his scurs are going to look like.

Trans Am

photos taken 5-15-11