old Autum and # 162

 I had no intentions of breeding Autum any more as she turned 

10 years old this spring and I feel she had done her duty.

But Fergus and she made other plans. Friday afternoon Autum

delivered these twin moorit katmoget rams.

All three are doing well and spending some time in a lambing pen

before being turned out with the flock.

 #162 a moorit yearling ewe, who I have not registered yet was

also bred to Fergus and delivered this moorit katmoget ram lamb

this afternoon.

 His first close up.   All that superfine crimpy wool.

I believe we are now finished with our lambing.

I've been touching up hooves, checking body condition

and worming.  I need to trim up some of the ewes fleeces since

shearing in March and I know that I will have about 

12 adult ewes for sale.

I have several adult proven rams and one

black ram lamb with good horns, these guys 

are listed on the Nassa Sales page.

If interested in ewes shoot me an email, I haven't had time 

to go through and get pictures yet.  All my stock can be registered

if so desired.

 

#168 Yearling ewe

 I check on this yearling last evening and she just wasn't ready.

This morning she was in the same location in the barn with her 

new white ram lamb. 

Fergus is the sire.

I've penned her so they can bond and he doesn't get lost in 

a sea of sheep.  Usually five to seven days of time together

will give him a chance to get familiar with all the sites, sounds and smells.

I know I have two more ewes that will be delivering soon,

hopefully no more.  Fergus was a busy guy.

another Surprise!!

This yearling ewe delivered her carbon copy of a ewe lamb

last evening.  I didn't notice that she might possible be due

until two or three days ago and only because she had

started to udder up.  She was a fairly thin ewe and I didn't have 

the slightest idea that she was bred until a couple of days ago.

A side note: please excuse her terrible looking fleece,

she was roo-ed and then clipped were the fleece was not ready 

to be roo-ed.  She will be trimmed up one the fleece has had

time to grow out some. 

This yearling is also another RR - scrapie resistant ewe.

 So is Fergus, he is RR also.

So these  two little ewes (half sisters through their Sire - Fergus).

Will both be RR - scrapie resistant ewes and they both

have tight curly wool, a good indication of a fine wooled sheep.

So as of now I still have one more ewe (my old girl) that is expecting.

I didn't pull Fergus out until after we sheared on March 9th.

So we could potentially have lambs through August 3rd...

I really, really, really  hope not.

Washing wool and July surprises

This past weekend was a great time to get some wool washed.

 I was able to get about eight fleeces washed this weekend.  Yeah!!

Now on to carding it :/  So much to do and so little time, 

I will manage ... I always do!

On another note, in our flurry of activity, we sold all of our

market lambs two weeks ago, holding back one smaller stature

border cheviot/shetland ram lamb to use in the future.

Cross breeding our ewes and selling those lambs as market lambs

helps to keep our venture paying for itself.  When these lambs sell

it helps to pay for any hay, grain and supplies that I need to 

maintain the whole flock.  Come festival time or any additional

craft show or event that I can participate in to sell additional 

products made from the wool or the locks or roving I have 

it all helps to support the sheep.

I can selectively breed some of my shetland ewes to my shetland rams

for more purebred stock.  Of which I keep or may offer for sale.

So, this brings me to my July surprise!

I intentionally bred one of my ewes late and she lambed in June -as planned.

The little bugger ram lamb that I used, was turned out with my 

ewe flock in March.  I really didn't think that any of my ewes would 

cycle this late ..."generally" a shetland is seasonal breeder "usually" 

between September and February.

This evening when I called the ewes in from the pasture I 

noticed one ewe still in the pasture and somthing small beside her...

The little ewe lamb below is what we have.

 I was completely surprised.  I didn't even notice that she was expecting.

 This is a precious little ewe lamb, of which I will have to make room 

for her too.

 Her mom is a yearling and has been very attentive.

This yearling ewe is one of my scrapie resistant ewes, she has 

been tested and is RR.  Fergus, the ram that bred her is also 

RR.  So we our pretty pleased to have this little ewe lamb in the flock.

I didn't inspect her too closely yet, we'll save that for another day.

and, just this past weekend we were discussing that I have an older ewe

that I didn't breed, but we noticed that she appears to be uttering up

so we will see.  That little guy Fergus did more than we intended.

Great weather to wash some wool...

Today I heard from Sue Szary of Twin birch products.

She is a shetland "fleece fan" and has informed me that she 

always buys a fleece of mine while she is a vendor

at the Great Lakes Fiber show.

and yes,  Today was a great day to wash wool, I think this next 

week would be a great time to get wool wash with all this heat we are having.

Sue is in Siler city North Carolina and has a wonderful

brick and mortar store with handcrafted birchwood fiber 

art tools and much more.

Sue is also on Facebook at Twin Birch & Teasel.

Check out the link above to see the goodies that are available.

Wait! ...were did May go?

What happened?  I've had alot going on and really intended to get a post out in May 

and missed it.  We had the Great Lakes Fiber Show  -Which was awesome! 

I didn't get one picture!  I think I really need to take the whole week off

away from my day job to prepare better.

So lets catch up...

 We had a new white ewe lamb born this morning.

I've never lambed this late.  In January I decided to put a #61 Andrea

in with a white polled ram lamb.  I didn't breed her earlier in the fall 

because she had become ill and was already stressed.

But she has come through with the gorgeous lamb.

 The shetland lambs are growing by leaps and bounds.

The ones at the feeder are shetlands, two blacks a grey and moorit.

Those in the back are border cheviot / shetland crosses.

 My two spotted shetland lambs, on the left a ewe, the right a ram

are both loosing their spots :(

 Another gorgeous white shetland ewe lamb.

 The white lambs in this photo are all border cheviot / shetland crosses.

They are gaining quickly.  I haven't had time to weigh them

but I believe I will have a group of them ready to go soon.

Three more of the crosses.

 Back in March when we had the sheep sheared I held back about 

10 sheep that we would hopefully be able to roo.  

Well half of them did roo and we found that some didn't roo at all.

So while I've been working on shearing them by hand I have found

a why that is working quite well for me.  Which I will share.

This is one of my newest rams, which we really got him hoping to

get this pattern, but he doesn't roo.

 Isn't he pretty? and he has a good disposition.

 So what I have found is that if I part the fleece as shown above

then working from the back to the front I slide my hand shearers

into the wool as shown below.

 Holding the shears in the angle shown I can get close to the skin and 

not cut the skin. Continuing across to the front.  Taking small 

bites so you can see what you are doing and it really goes pretty fast.

 I can get the prime part of the fleece off in one piece.  I leave 

the britch and underbelly to take off afterwards.  Because these

are pieces that I would skirt off the fleece anyway...for a handspinner.

The britch still have a useful purpose, this just makes it easier for me.

TA DAH!!  A shorn ram in under 30 minutes!

That's all for today!

growing lambs

 Center of this pic. shows one of the first lambs born here, with his

Dam at his side.  He is six weeks old today and is almost as tall 

as his Dam.  He carries spots and is scurred.  He has a very 

gentle personality.  Anyone looking for a new ram?

 This little spotted ewe will be staying here.  She and her twin were

the last lambs born here.  She is now three weeks old.  I'm sure that

she will lose all of her body spotting, but her face and legs spotting 

will stay.

 This little spotted ram lamb with his Dam.  He is about 3 1/2 weeks old.

I think I may have to hold onto this guy and see what happens with

his spots.  He will be horned.

 Below, a short clip of how these lambs get their exercise every day,

morning and night.

 Below, another cute little black ewe, 5 1/2 weeks old that will be staying here.

Those fine black fleeces sell....must keep another one.

Above, I had to share the pink moon that we had last evening.

Although you cannot tell the color here, it was quite beautiful

and appeared quite early in the evening.