Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Whispering Pines Coloma

Well, I have a few more adult ewes to blog about, but I lack good pictures, so they'll have to wait. So, on to the lambs.


This is Whispering Pines Coloma out of Wintertime Itasca and Winter Sky Khan. I have blabbed on enough about Itasca's attributes, but I haven't shared anything on Khan. Khan is a very fine, moorit ram out of Black Forrest. His two year old micron test was 22.5 with a low CV. When I say low, I usually mean around 20%. I often don't share all of the micron statistics, because a lot of people either don't care to read about math or don't understand what all of the numbers mean. I've written several articles on the importance of micron data on fiber animals, and I'll no doubt do that again on this blog at some point, but for now, trust me when I say he is super fine (which is a relative term used by some of us Shetland folk).

Sorry, no fleece pictures on the lambs. I just haven't had time.

Oh, I was supposed to be talking about the lamb wasn't I? Itasca has produced some nice ewes, and I like this one as well. She isn't going to be super fine like her parents, but she has a nice fleece that is very uniform with nice density. Overall, I think she is a keeper. It'll be hard to hold onto all of these lambs come next spring because I like all of the adults a great deal, and I expect nice lambs next year as well. We ran into that problem this year as well, and ended up selling ewes that I probably should've kept. Next year, I might not be so quick to pull the trigger on ewe sales. Still, I'll probably have to come up with 10-12 to keep our size manageable.

Plus, I'd really like to keep some high quality moorits if at all possible. Overall, I'd probably rank this lamb at or near the top of this year's lamb crop, however, which means I'll work hard to try and keep her. Given the bloodlines, I'd be surprised if the majority of these ewe lambs don't end up producing lambs that are finer than they are.

2 comments:

Kelly said...

She's a lovely ewe lamb and my personal choice for body style and type. I do like to mix up the types a bit in my breeding ewes, but if I had to choose, this is what I gravitate towards continually.
I'm enjoying the tour of your flock!!!

erica said...

Beautiful!