B. C. P. Journal

[purplequeenvt]

Huh?

Sugar lips = gray/silver hair on the sheep’s face. It can look like a dusting of sugar around the mouth.

 

[KellyK]

I will have my guy available if you are interested. He'll be old enough to wean on the 18th, but I normally leave the Shetlands on their moms longer than 8 weeks. He's solid moorit, no gray so he should stay dark. His horns are looking good so far (his dad had one of the nicest sets of horns I've ever seen). His fleece is looking like it is going to be an intermediate type fleece. Not a ton of crimp, but should be soft.

I forwarded the picture to my husband. He has the final say on the next ram. We are delaying registering any of ours until we are sure of who we are keeping and who we are selling.

 

[KellyK]

Been a while since I have been here. Still looking for a registered ram for two of my girls as we found out the one's grandsire is the ram's sire.
Currently, we are raising a variety of critters

• Registered Shetland Sheep
• Pedigreed American Rabbits (Blue)
• Faverolles
• Ancona Ducks
• Pilgrim Geese
• Royal Palm Turkeys

I have an incubator full of eggs due to hatch over the next several weeks. May have to add guineas and quail to the mix at some point.

 

[purplequeenvt]

I have a fawn gulmoget/katmoget ram lamb that will be available this year. He’s going to have a finer fleece and may be polled/scurred. Really pretty little guy.

 

[KellyK]

We lost Yang and Ruby this past fall. We have sold all the ewe lambs but Primrose. She will be staying with our flock. Primrose and Heather are looking for a new Ram. We may also be looking for unrelated ewes in the next few months as well. We will see

 

[KellyK]

I have a fawn gulmoget/katmoget ram lamb that will be available this year. He’s going to have a finer fleece and may be polled/scurred. Really pretty little guy.

Not sure what direction we will be going with the herd. We have to be sure that they are not closely related as that is the current problem we ran into with our ram's sire being the grandsire of one of the ewes

 

[KellyK]

The first two lambs arrived this week. March 29, 2021

The girl is mostly white with a black spot on one leg

The boy is looking to be an interesting one. His legs are dark-colored, his body white and he has face markings.

Not going to name the colors/markings just yet. I will be taking a ton of photos over the next several weeks to document the colors, markings and changes.

Waiting on two more ewes to lamb.

 

[purplequeenvt]

I actually like to determine the lambs’ colors/patterns at birth vs a few weeks or months old. In my opinion, what is important is the genetic color/pattern instead of the visual one. Birth is sometimes the only time that you can actually see what you’ve got.

White, Gray, Solid, Katmoget, and Gulmoget are your pattern genes. Each sheep has 2.

White is dominant and covers up everything.

Black and Moorit are your color genes. Every Shetland is either genetically black or moorit, how that color presents is determined by patterns and other modifying genes. Moorit is recessive to Black.

Spots/spotting have their own set of genes.

There was a time when Shetland breeders didn’t care so much about the genetics of the colors and just named them based on their fleece. I had a ewe registered as “white” who was in fact, a mioget (modified Moorit, the sheep ends up a honey color).

I can’t make a guess on your lambs genetics without pictures of mom and dad.

My 3 Shetland lambs will be registered as follows:
Fiona - gray katmoget/gulmoget. She got the gulmoget from her dad, katmoget from her mom. The “gray” is not because she has the gray pattern, but because the katmoget pattern turns her black body wool gray.

Farr - Musket. Musket is literally just a Moorit Solid/Gray patterned animal. She got the Solid from mom (I know her mom is Katmoget/Solid based on what she’s thrown crossed with other rams) and the Gray from dad. Her wool is already an oatmealy gray color. Her face and legs will stay brown, but her face will probably get a lot more gray as she ages.

Oban - fawn katmoget/gulmoget. He’s fawn because he’s Moorit with that katmoget pattern.

This website was extremely helpful to me when I first got my Shetlands. https://www.shaltzfarm.com/shetcolgen.html

 

[KellyK]

I actually like to determine the lambs’ colors/patterns at birth vs a few weeks or months old. In my opinion, what is important is the genetic color/pattern instead of the visual one. Birth is sometimes the only time that you can actually see what you’ve got.

White, Gray, Solid, Katmoget, and Gulmoget are your pattern genes. Each sheep has 2.

White is dominant and covers up everything.

Black and Moorit are your color genes. Every Shetland is either genetically black or moorit, how that color presents is determined by patterns and other modifying genes. Moorit is recessive to Black.

Spots/spotting have their own set of genes.

There was a time when Shetland breeders didn’t care so much about the genetics of the colors and just named them based on their fleece. I had a ewe registered as “white” who was in fact, a mioget (modified Moorit, the sheep ends up a honey color).

I can’t make a guess on your lambs genetics without pictures of mom and dad.

My 3 Shetland lambs will be registered as follows:
Fiona - gray katmoget/gulmoget. She got the gulmoget from her dad, katmoget from her mom. The “gray” is not because she has the gray pattern, but because the katmoget pattern turns her black body wool gray.

Farr - Musket. Musket is literally just a Moorit Solid/Gray patterned animal. She got the Solid from mom (I know her mom is Katmoget/Solid based on what she’s thrown crossed with other rams) and the Gray from dad. Her wool is already an oatmealy gray color. Her face and legs will stay brown, but her face will probably get a lot more gray as she ages.

Oban - fawn katmoget/gulmoget. He’s fawn because he’s Moorit with that katmoget pattern.

This website was extremely helpful to me when I first got my Shetlands. https://www.shaltzfarm.com/shetcolgen.html

Wrangler is "White" but he has dark spots we discovered last year when he shaved him. Mom is Grey. I take pictures every few days of the lambs. At about 2 months it is weekly until they are 4 months old. At that point, the pictures are every other week and at 6 months they get a monthly picture.

I look to go back to what the colors and markings mean. I had one registered Grey Katmoget that was visually fawn katomoget. Being I have Spotting and greying genes in my herd the colors most definitely do change from birth to about 6 months old

 

[Baymule]

What fun, figuring out what colors you have! My hair sheep don't change colors as they grow up.