Stories from the Farm

Over at Patchwork Fibers, she has started a “why” club – as in why was that ewe bred to that ram?  I love reading about why people make the decisions they do and hope other breeders join in.

We bred 30 ewes this year and some of the decisions were based on past performances – some crosses just work.  Other decisions are based on what doesn’t work because sometimes no matter how nice each parent is and how nice the pedigree looks – the results aren’t good!

For producing ram lambs – I wish everybody was like this girl.  This is Maverick Marloe and she is amazing in her ability to produce high quality ram lambs – no matter who she is bred to.  They all have amazing horns, consistent/soft fleeces, great structure, and luckily they don’t inherit her nasty temperament 🙂  Here are some of her boys…

Jaq

Wrangler

  Nitro

Torrent – currently for sale

Unfortunately, she doesn’t produce very many or very nice ewe lambs.  I chose Julian this year for her to improve fleece quality and they both have impressive horns and nice structure.  I am going to keep my fingers crossed for a nice girl.   

For Infiniti, I also chose Julian…

The fleeces should be incredible and they both have nice clean/clear black spots.  He has a nice nose patch and I know there are leg spots in the background, so will hope that they carry forward.

For Rae-Ann, I chose Junior…

This is a combination that looks great on paper (pedigree) and I hope the lambs are as promising as I think they will be.  There is a slight possibility that Rae-Ann is a lilac carrier, so I can’t wait to see if she is or not.

For Petunia, I chose Reno…

He has really nice leg color and they both have great lateral horns.  They are both black and white, but have lilac in their backgrounds, so it will be exciting to see their lambs.

This is our 8th year in breeding jacobs and I have definitely learned that it can be unpredictable 😉  From now until lambing starts at the end of January, I’ll feature a few more pairs and why I made the decision that I did.

Breeding Season is an exciting time of the year – anticipation of what’s to come and hope for the future.  Once all of the groups are decided upon and sorted, the excitement quickly fades…  Chore time is doubled/tripled as I wheel the wheelbarrow from pasture to pasture doling out the food to my screaming adoring fans. 

The groups have been together for 5 weeks now and most everyone has been bred, so I decided to pull the rams and put all of the ewes back together.  This was also in anticipation of being gone this weekend, I wanted to make chore time easier for my husband.  I also noticed that a couple of the boys were getting bored and restless because all of their ewes were bred. 

Not naming names, but one in particular was very naughty yesterday morning…

I put Junior and his girls in the barn because I knew I could walk through there with hay and not have to worry about him.  Unfortunately, he took his frustrations our on the poor gates and lambing jugs.  I was not happy and I told him as much!

We sorted the rams off and put their halters on and into the small pen they went.  This is my absolute least favorite thing about owning sheep and using multiple rams.  If we were to simply turn them all out together in a pasture, then we would run the risk of one of them getting seriously hurt.  So, we put them in a very small pen, one tied in each corner to prevent them from ramming and hooking each other with their horns.

They stay this way for about 24 hours.  We then turn them out with several piles of really yummy alfalfa, in hopes that the food will be more enticing than causing each other bodily harm.  We then stand back and hold our breath and hope all is well.  We are at the ready with Kate to herd them back into the pen if it doesn’t work and we try again in another 24 hours.  Hopefully they behave themselves tonight.

Julian is the lucky one at the moment because we are using him as a clean-up ram, which means he will hopefully breed any of the ewes that did not get bred the first time around. 

He has proven to be quite the ladies man and it looks like a couple of the girls were saving themselves for him.  He has been funny to watch – he is a wine ’em and dine ’em kind of guy. 

The girls were happy to be reunited and could be heard most of the night catching each other up on what has happened in their part of the world for the last month. 

Chore time was drastically reduced this morning, but we now have gates and fence to fix and 3 very unhappy boys.  Hopefully all will be back to normal in a few days.  I hope everyone behaves themselves while I am away!