Jacob Sheep

All posts tagged Jacob Sheep

Such form and grace

Posted by kenleighacres on March 8, 2010
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep. Tagged: , . 7 Comments

Remember Chance from this post?

She has almost run out of Chances and will be looking for a new home soon.

This is what she does for fun…

Doesn’t she have beautiful form?

It is a little hard to appreciate it when she jumps from here to there just because she can.

She is awfully cute and I love her horns, but I don’t know how long she is going to be welcome here.

I was teaching a herding lesson a couple days ago and she jumped 3 fences just to come say ‘HI’.  Once she saw what we were doing she jumped all the way back to the barn.

We are in the process of putting a few more fences in, which will give us more pastures to rotate the sheep through – she just laughs 🙂

Post lambing wrap-up

Posted by kenleighacres on March 4, 2010
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Lambing. Tagged: , . 5 Comments

I have been waiting for Dolly to lamb to do this post…waiting and waiting!

  The rest of my girls spoiled me by lambing within 18 days and I guess Dolly wanted to stay true to herself and be ‘special’.  She is actually my son’s ewe and the most anticipated lambing of the year for him and he was really hoping that she would have a boy for him…

well she lambed last night and gave him a very cute boy

and a beautiful girl!

He has been very attentive to Dolly for the last couple of days and even more so today.  Dolly deserves the best food, the cleanest pen, and the freshest water 🙂

Dolly was wise to wait and not lamb in the middle of the chaos – we had 23 lambs in 4 days!!!  With her lambs, we have a total of 48. 

Here are the stats –

172% lambing rate

58% girls/42% boys

Average weight for the lambs – 7.5 lbs.

Here are some of the traits that I was breeding for and am happy with in this year’s lamb crop…

Pretty, consistent fleeces

Coloring – The ideal Jacob should have 40% black/lilac and 60% white.

Spotting pattern – big bold spots.  (I love the spot under her tail)

Structure

and mothering ability.  I hope this lamb is as good as her mom, Bronwen.  All of my first time moms were EXCELLENT!  I have retained several daughters from lines that have particularly good moms and it is amazing how similar the mothering styles are.

A little surprise is all of the blue eyes we have this year.  None of our rams have blue eyes and just a handful of our ewes have marbled eyes – blue and brown swirled.

The first born lambs are already getting big! 

Paisley is still the cutest lamb 🙂

and this is my favorite picture!

Naming theme for 2010 Lambs

Posted by kenleighacres on February 5, 2010
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Lambing, sheep. Tagged: , , , . 13 Comments

It started in 2003 with our first lambing season – what were we going to name them???  That particular year we named the boys after trees and the one lone girl after a flower.  I had so many flower names that I didn’t get to use, so I used the same naming theme in 2004. 

Violet

Birch

The theme for 2005 was cartoon character names – kind of obscure ones 🙂 

Rafiki

 2006, 2007, and 2008 were the years for car names – very fun! 

Lancer

Last year was a year we all needed a little inspiration – so we had Hope, Joy, Bliss, Grace, Dignity…

 

and Serenity.

I had a really hard time with a theme this year – how could we have lambs with no names???

Luckily inspiration hit days before the first lamb arrived – Cities in Oregon!

So far we have Sublimity, Echo, Amity, Wren, Unity…

  

and Paisley the cutest lamb EVER 🙂

I’m looking forward to some boys so that I can use – Ironside, Granite, Dundee,  and Gaston.

Then there are the names that I will know who they belong to as soon as they are born – ZigZag, Rufus, Dufur, and Boring! 

The lamb stealer

Posted by kenleighacres on February 3, 2010
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Lambing. Tagged: , , . 7 Comments

We are up to 5 ewe lambs and most of the lambings have been uneventful.  Tess decided to throw a little twist into the smooth sailing when she tried to steal Dusty’s lambs yesterday afternoon.  We have dealt with ewes trying to steal lambs in the past, but not to this extent.

We went to the barn to check on the girls and found Dusty and Tess cleaning a lamb – they were both very close to lambing that morning so it took a little detective work to figure out who it belonged to.  Dusty was very hollow in the hip area, so she was determined to be the real mother but Tess was positive it was hers.  The other issue was that there was only one lamb.  I was sure Dusty was going to have twins. 

I scooped the lamb up and moved her and Dusty to a smaller pen – fighting Tess the entire way.  She slammed herself through the gate twice trying to get to ‘her’ lamb!  During this craziness I heard a small baaing coming from behind/under a feeder.  I had my son go check and sure enough there was the other lamb!  She must have been hiding from the fighting moms.  We reunited her with Dusty and her sister and all was well.

Say ‘hello’ to Unity and Wren.

Tess continued to talk to them for the next 4 hours until she finally had her lamb…

meet Amity.

Poor Tess will forever be known as the lamb stealer to my son 🙂

A good start

Posted by kenleighacres on January 30, 2010
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Lambing, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , . 6 Comments

We had our first lamb yesterday and  I couldn’t be happier with the Greenwater Julian x Zettle’s Harley cross.

Isn’t she pretty???

Harley is going to be 9 this year and this is the 2nd ewe lamb she has produced that wasn’t ugly 🙂  Unfortunately, I sold the first one and was starting to think she may not produce another one for me.  Her ewe lambs are usually very light in color and have very little color on their faces.  Her boys are always marked nicely and are very handsome. 

This little girl will be staying here.  She looks to have a very pretty fleece, just like her mom and dad.

It looks like 4 more will be lambing this weekend and there won’t be any rest for me because it is a steady stream until the 18th. 

Some of the girls are getting pretty big!

Kenleigh’s Aurora – she comes from a line that always gets BIG.  I’m sure she just has twins, but my son says she has 5 in there 🙂  

Kenleigh’s Ellie is the loud mouth of the group and has been complaining for a week now.  She still has a week and a half to go.  Poor girl!

Rolling Hills Veronica is the biggest of the girls this year.  She isn’t just wide…

but deep as well.

Stay tuned for more lamb photos!

The best helpers a shepherd could have!

Posted by kenleighacres on January 26, 2010
Posted in: Border Collie, Dogs, Farm Life, Llama, sheep. Tagged: , , , . 5 Comments

Status update – still no lambs… 

So, I’ll write a post about the best helpers ever!

Kate and my son make an awesome team!

Most of the time I can just open a gate or two and have the sheep go where I want them.

Moving through a pasture of lush green grass, can be a little difficult though.

Time to call in the first part of the team.

I love this dog!  She has so much power, but knows when to use it and she is so gentle with my very pregnant ewes.

She has tremendous work ethic and wouldn’t leave a sheep behind, but I have to remind her to get the llama 🙂  Here she is after I told her to ‘look back’.

She obediently heads back to get him, unfortunately he doesn’t have a lot of respect for her.  I know from experience that he will finally move for her, but sometimes it is better to call for back-up…

 

there, that got him moving!

Kate’s got his back just in case he needs it.

I would be remiss to not mention Magoo in my list of helpers.  He often makes catching the sheep a little more difficult than it should be, but I am very grateful that his watchful gaze is always watching over the flock.

Thanks guys!!!

It’s the little things…

Posted by kenleighacres on January 23, 2010
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep. Tagged: , . 6 Comments

that make me happy 🙂

Such as a swinging, lockable gate at the back of the barn!!!  There has been a hog panel back there for longer than I care to say.  To shut it, I had to wedge it between the barn wall and a huge stump and hope the ewes didn’t push it open while I was putting hay in the feeders.  As far as locking the sheep in the barn – well that is just laughable!!!  I was so happy when this went up I felt like doing a happy dance.

Also, notice the nice footing?

This wasn’t such a small task, but oh so nice!

This is what the back of the barn looked like.  With lambs due shortly I was having nightmares of going out and finding lambs stuck in the mud up to their bellies.  So, I had a load of hog fuel delivered and spread it really thick behind the barn.  I swear a few of the ewes smiled at me when I let them out of the barn 😉

We also set up the maternity ward!  Now comes the waiting…  

The girls in the background

Posted by kenleighacres on January 18, 2010
Posted in: Felt Scarf. Tagged: , . 3 Comments

We are on the final countdown for 2010 lambs!  Only 7 days left…where did the time go?  I still need to get a few supplies! 

I was looking at the 2009 Breeding page to refresh myself as to who was due first and who everyone was bred to – I have an official list out in the barn.  It dawned on me as I looking at the girls that some of the ewes are very good at being in the front of the flock – first out of the barn, first to the food, first to get into trouble, etc.  Then there are the others – the ones that I sometimes forget about.  They are always in the background.  Not freaky and not friendly – perfect right in the middle.   A few of them even have their spot at the feeder and they will patiently wait until I have given them their food.  Unlike Dolly who likes to climb up my legs as I am carrying hay 🙂

This is a special post for the girls that make my life easier!

Liberty

Legacy

Symphony

Rae-Ann

and last, but certainly not least, one of our first lambs and my special girl Holly.

The birds and the bees…

Posted by kenleighacres on January 10, 2010
Posted in: family, Farm Life. Tagged: , . 3 Comments

according to our 6-year-old son 🙂

We were in the barn feeding and he wanted to hand feed one of the sheep.  I told him that Holly would probably eat out of his hand, so he grabbed some food and started feeding her.  Pretty soon Holly’s son, Dreamer, came up and started eating as well.  My son started asking questions about who he was and if he was going to be a daddy?  I explained to him that he is a wether and is a boy that can’t have babies.  He processed this for a little while and then asked, do we have any boy sheep that can have babies.  I didn’t think about this question ‘literally’ and said, well yeah, remember Reno is going to be a daddy.  For which, he quickly asked – you mean he is going to have babies?  I understood what he was really asking and reminded him that only the girl sheep can have babies.  I was trying to not go too deep in this conversation 🙂  His reply was better than anything I could have come up with – he said, you mean that god takes the babies from the daddy sheep and puts them in the mommy sheep!  I very quickly, said yes, that is exactly what happens and for right now that is all he needs to know 😉

Only 2 more weeks until lambs start arriving!