purplequeenvt Lambing 2016

[norseofcourse]

Congrats - they're both beautiful!

 

[purplequeenvt]

One more ewe down! Myrtle lambed this afternoon. She had 2 boys, a solid moorit and a moorit Gulmoget/Katmoget.


2 more ewes and the goat to go and all of them are due now. It's the goat's "due date" today. Myrtle was 2 days early and the other ewes are due on the 19th and 20th.

 

[Hens and Roos]

Congrats! Like the coloring

 

[norseofcourse]

Congrats! I love the solid moorits.

 

[purplequeenvt]

And lambing is over for Spring/Summer 2015!

Eloise had her boy/girl twins yesterday evening. I found them when I got home from work.

Black (he will turn gray) spotted boy.


Gray Katmoget ewe. She will keep most of her facial markings, but her body color will fade out.


The final ewe was Signe and she lambed just a few hours after Eloise. She also had a boy and a girl.

The girl is a beautiful dark gray Katmoget


Signe's boy is solid black (most likely will NOT be gray) with white on his head.


Now we just have the goat to go. The 3 Shetlands all went 2-3 days before their "due" dates, but the goat is currently 2 days AFTER.

 

[Ridgetop]

Congrats on your lambing - just found and read the whole thread. Losing 2 ewes from prolapse was rough, although you made the right decision to cull. Sometimes we have to be tiugh to be kind. I am not familiar with your breeds except Southdown so who sired Eskimo's lamb? Can you tell since you identified the color pattern? Do you use the wool for hand spinners? Other than a show flock do you sell locker lambs? I am interested in hearing what others do with their lambs ands wool.

 

[purplequeenvt]

Congrats on your lambing - just found and read the whole thread. Losing 2 ewes from prolapse was rough, although you made the right decision to cull. Sometimes we have to be tiugh to be kind. I am not familiar with your breeds except Southdown so who sired Eskimo's lamb? Can you tell since you identified the color pattern? Do you use the wool for hand spinners? Other than a show flock do you sell locker lambs? I am interested in hearing what others do with their lambs ands wool.

It's always rough to lose any of them. I try to cull hard, but that is difficult at times due to our smaller numbers. We don't keep sheep with chronic or genetic issues.

Border Leicesters are a "dual-purpose" breed. Long wool and hardy. The rams are known for their gentle temperaments (we have found this to be very true after 15 years with the breed).

Shetlands are a small primitive breed. Adults are around 80lbs. Not good for meat due to their small size (I usually butcher the culls or extra rams to feed to the dogs). There is a lot of natural variation in build and color in the breed, but they are all supposed to have really soft fleeces. Their personalities are very different from more "commercialized" breeds.

We've also recently added Lincolns to our flock. They are a large long-wool breed.

I puzzled over Eskimo's baby for a long time, but every way that I looked at it, she could still be from either ram. I'm waiting for DNA results to come back. I'm not as concerned about it though. It shouldn't be hard to sell her as an unregistered ewe. At this point, I'm probably not going to keep her. I have several other choices now that I may end up liking better.

We sell our sheep as pets, breeding stock, and meat lambs. In the past, we've grown out all the extras and gotten the butchered in the fall. Problem is, we end up putting a lot more time and money into them and we start running short on grass before we are wanting to bring them into the barn for the winter.

This year we decided to sell most of the lambs early in the year. Assuming everyone shows up when they are supposed to, I've sold all of the lambs (except the Shetlands, haven't advertised them yet) plus an aged ewe.

Our wool is either junked (depending on the quality/condition/time of shearing), sold as a raw fleece, or saved to be made into wool blankets. Sometimes we will clean, card, and spin a fleece ourselves.

 

[Ridgetop]

Wow - that's very interesting - you must have a lot of pasture acreage. How do you make the wool into blankets?

We have no grass pasture, just brush forage. We keep a tiny herd of Dorsets - 1 ram, 6 ewes, and 4 lambs (3 due to go to slaughter, 1 ewe lamb we will keep) on 5 acres. They are used to clear all the brush since we are in a bad fire area in southern CA and have to maintain clearance of 200 feet around all buildings, fences and roads. Not a problem on a tractor, but since we are perched on extremely steep hillsides we can't use a tractor or mower. We are older and retired and also can't get up and down easily anymore. Our kids are grown and grandchildren are too young to clear for us. It became cheaper to feed hay half the year, have lamb in the freezer and for sale, than hire a crew to cut every year. We are going to try the fleeces with commercial processing and then spinning. If they turn out well, we may have a small market for them. I made my husband take the spinning class with me and he loved it - he is better than I am! LOL I was surprised you sheared in the winter in Vermont. I used to shear several times a year when I was young and we didn't want the fleece. Those sheep were 4-H sheep and tame. These sheep are not tame, although they are trained and pretty docile. I have had Hamps that lived to kill you! I also get lambs every 7-8 months year round which is nice, since I don't have to find meat buyers (or freezer space) for a lot of lambs at once.

Peta is alive and well here in the area and just shut down a youth livestock auction at a local FFA high school program. What they expect those poor kids to do with the animals they bought and fed for 3 or 4 months I don't know. But I am sure the Peta members were celebrating as they gobbled their hamburgers at the local fast food place!

 

[purplequeenvt]

Wow - that's very interesting - you must have a lot of pasture acreage. How do you make the wool into blankets?

We have no grass pasture, just brush forage. We keep a tiny herd of Dorsets - 1 ram, 6 ewes, and 4 lambs (3 due to go to slaughter, 1 ewe lamb we will keep) on 5 acres. They are used to clear all the brush since we are in a bad fire area in southern CA and have to maintain clearance of 200 feet around all buildings, fences and roads. Not a problem on a tractor, but since we are perched on extremely steep hillsides we can't use a tractor or mower. We are older and retired and also can't get up and down easily anymore. Our kids are grown and grandchildren are too young to clear for us. It became cheaper to feed hay half the year, have lamb in the freezer and for sale, than hire a crew to cut every year. We are going to try the fleeces with commercial processing and then spinning. If they turn out well, we may have a small market for them. I made my husband take the spinning class with me and he loved it - he is better than I am! LOL I was surprised you sheared in the winter in Vermont. I used to shear several times a year when I was young and we didn't want the fleece. Those sheep were 4-H sheep and tame. These sheep are not tame, although they are trained and pretty docile. I have had Hamps that lived to kill you! I also get lambs every 7-8 months year round which is nice, since I don't have to find meat buyers (or freezer space) for a lot of lambs at once.

Peta is alive and well here in the area and just shut down a youth livestock auction at a local FFA high school program. What they expect those poor kids to do with the animals they bought and fed for 3 or 4 months I don't know. But I am sure the Peta members were celebrating as they gobbled their hamburgers at the local fast food place!

We participate in a wool pool that collects wool from breeders with the same breeds (Border Leicesters, Romneys, Coopworths, and crosses of those breeds). We get it washed and deliver the clean wool to the mill that spins the yarn. From there, the yarn gets sent to the mill that does the weaving. We pay a certain amount and put in a certain amount of wool per blanket that we want. We have throw size all the way up to king.

 

[purplequeenvt]

Hetty, the goat, finally kidded on the 19th. She had 3 little hooligans. #1 and 2 got pulled right away because they have a home as bottle babies. #3 was left on her.

#1 - buck


#2 - doe


#3 - doe (Nora)