This first guy is probably my favorite so far out of Jane Eyre. He just stands out in terms of build and fleece quality. Nitro is his sire. Jane Eyre's two year old Spinning Fineness (SF) this year was 18.3 microns, which in addition to being similar to last year's, is also the finest we have in our flock. Jane's father, Canterbury, has similar numbers. That happens to be another factor in why I like this lamb so much. Here we have a great grandmother (Pearl), a great grandfather (Khan), a grandmother (Florence), a grandfather (Canterbury), a mother (Jane Eyre), and a father (Nitro) who are less than or much less than 24 microns as adults. I could go back one more generation and both Pompey and Bond were also less than 24 microns as adults. That's a lot of generations of the best genetics I've been able to assemble over the years.
I believe (and I have been wrong before) this lamb will be nicer than all of them, even if he isn't finer.
Elizabeth Bennet is another excellent ewe out of Canterbury. Her two year old SF was 23.4 microns this year. We have finer, but for a moorit, that's pretty good. This year, she had a ram (moorit) and a ewe (moorit and spotted). I like both of these lambs out of Nitro. Both were born outside on a cold rainy day when I wasn't home. The ram had a faint pulse and was ice cold when I found him. The ewe was in surprisingly good shape. I milked the ewe and fed the ewe to warm her up. The ram seemed like a lost cause. I did, however, try feeding him with a bottle, and was quite surprised he took to it (albeit weakly). I gave him two ounces, covered him with some towels and then went back to work, fully expecting the worse when I got home.
Wouldn't you know it, when I got home, he had shed the towels and was jumping around like nothing happened. It was another first for us. If I had found him 30 minutes later, it would not have turned out so well. It was also interesting in that the mother rejected both lambs at first because they got separated and were wet from the rain. That's the first time I was able to get a ewe to unreject lambs, but it was the second one this spring. Anyway, I like both of these lambs.
This ram out of Emma and Nitro is also growing on me. I liked him at birth but thought him to be nothing special. A few week's later, he's looking to be quite nice. Emma's two year old SF was 23.0 microns. Emma is a Canterbury daughter that I was lukewarm on at birth also, but who has grown into a nice spotted ewe. This ram might end up having a spot here come fall. Sometimes you don't know which ones can help you and which ones are just sentimental favorites. It really comes down to how they grow and whether their fleeces bring us something we lack. All three of the lambs behind him are nothing to sneeze at either.
Once I get more pictures, there are a lot of other really nice lambs that are worth mentioning. As I said previously, all of the rams our superb. There are several noteworthy ewes also, however, and I will post them when I have good pictures.
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