Whispering Pines Blue Sapphire

This wonderful spotted ewe is actually a grey katmoget. She's been one of our favorites for a long time for a lot of reasons, but her fleece is quite lovely and probably her best feature. Her two year old micron was 25.0 with a really low CV. The handle and luster are outstanding as is the density. She is one of two Sheltering Pines Blues Clues daughters that we own. I've always said that Blues Clues had one of the nicest Shetland fleeces I've personally seen. It wasn't the finest, but it just had a lacey quality that best resembles my ideal. Sapphire's fleece has similar properties and so far, it has held its fineness nicely. Her yearling and two year old micron tests were nearly identical (certainly within the measurement error of the test).

Blue Sapphire has had two really nice rams for us - both with really nice fleeces. As much as I like her, it would be nice if she had a ewe with the same qualities or better. She carries moorit as well, which is a nice bonus.

Wintertime Itasca

Our only black ewe, and one that we like a lot for many reasons. She has a very fine, dense fleece that is very uniform from front-to-back, and wool on the cheeks and poll.

 

She has a nice Shetland conformation, and I would say she’s of average size. She is one of our top producers as well. I like most things about her. I also like the bloodline a great deal because it’s different than others that we have. She is out of Wintertime Landslide, who is out of Winter Sky Sandstone. Nice ewe.

Whispering Pines Irish Rose

This is another really nice ewe out of Bond and Constantinople. Great conformation on this ewe, to go with a super fine, consistent fleece.

 

She’s finer than her mother was at this age, but only time will tell whether her fleece holds its fineness over time. As I've said before, most of them don’t. When we are able to find spotted sheep like this one, we generally hold onto them because they are so rare. This one has luster to go with the other properties that we like. And when I say "like", I mean this is what I like to see in a Shetland. You don't want a flock of coarse, straight fleeces. Those are not Shetland traits. We don’t have many spotted sheep, but we like this one. Rose also has a fantastic bloodline to go with her outward appearance.

Irish Rose is also a good example of the type of Shetland that Constantinople throws. Her lambs always exhibit fantastic conformations with fleeces that have nice length and fineness. This one also happens to be very silky.

Whispering Pines Pearl

This ewe is out of Wintertime Itasca and Wintertime Bond, and is clearly our finest ewe. Her two year old fleece tested at 22 microns with an even lower CV.

 

I would characterize her as a medium- size ewe, with a fleece that is very crimpy, fine, and dense. I have always liked Bond’s head, and this ewe has it. Just a gorgeous ewe. She’s a little petite for my liking, but it’s a very elegant look. Shetlands are supposed to be fine boned, and she is. This is another ewe with a fantastic bloodline to go with her visible characteristics. That’s very important to me because I feel a solid bloodline increases the odds of producing outstanding lambs. You might get lucky now and then with a crappy ewe throwing a really nice lamb, but you can’t build your program around that. And if you don’t have an outstanding ram, you can pretty much forget about that strategy. But sometimes, the second generation lambs are better than their parents if you know what you are doing.

Ewe Flock - Sheltering Pines Constantinople

We have been doing our ewe-a-day posts for many years, and I find it useful because it forces me to write down exactly what I like about each flock member. Each year, our ewe roster has improved, and I think this year’s is better than last year’s. We still haven't produced exactly my ideal Shetland, but we've come close enough to leave me encouraged and excited about the future possibilities. The more high quality sheep that we have, the better our odds.

So without further adieu, here are our ewes for this year.

This grey katmoget is our largest ewe at about 100 pounds. She’s a little taller than the rest of our flock as well. But proportionally, she is absolutely perfect. She has a nice, long body that she has passed on to her daughters and granddaughters, which is why we keep her in our flock.

Conformation-wise, she is dead on. I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating; she looks a lot like Sheltering Pines Salicional, who is her mother. Salicional was the Grand Champion Shetland at the 2011 WSWF, which was an incredible honor given the competition there that year, and the fact it was one of the few times Shetlands in this country have been judged by certified Shetland Sheep Society Judges. Not to rail on the Shetland judging in this country, but it’s bad. When you take a breed from the UK and change both it and the rules around what it should look like, you shouldn’t be surprised about what has happened to the breed in this country, but some people still seem to be. Anyway, I found the 2011 WSWF to be a good way of calibrating myself against what the breed is supposed to look like, and what it does look like in the UK. Constantinople would not win in a show against Salicional because her fleece is not as fine, but you would instantly recognize that they were related.

In addition to her conformation and overall appearance, I also like Constantinople’s head. To me, it is very Shetland, and a trait that I want to reproduce. You can see the wool on both the cheeks and poll, and that is probably a small thing, but it is the ideal we are striving for.

I also like her fleece, but on the surface, it doesn’t stack up to the rest of our flock. It would probably rank dead last in terms of overall quality, but it is still very nice. Her fourth fleece averaged 27 microns, which is exactly where it tested as a lamb. Most Shetland fleeces do not hold like that. So, given that we want to produce Shetlands with fleeces that hold their fineness well into adulthood, it seems logical that we would make her a building block for our flock to see if we can develop this.

Overall, she’s one of the better ewes in the country even if she isn’t the finest. But her overall type is outstanding, and her fleece consistency and uniformity is excellent as well. A top notch ewe for sure.

Lambing Concludes

The latest lamb to report is out of Whispering Pines Siena. I rarely hope for ram lambs, but if there was one ewe that I was sort of hoping would have a ram it was Siena. Again, she is on our short list of keeper ewes this year because she has many of the Shetland qualities that we like. She has a nice frame without being too heavy in the bone, and her fleece is both dense and super fine. When she was born, I thought she was the nicest overall lamb that we have ever had here. She is out of Pompey Magnus and Cor de Nuit.

This lamb is the result of careful planning and the crossing of several bloodlines that I think a lot of. We bred Cor de Nuit with Pompey because we thought they complimented each other pretty well. Not to mention the fact that I like the way both lines produce. Siena was the result of that work, and also the first ewe Cor de Nuit gave us. I hadn't planned on breeding her last fall, but elected to do so late. So, to get a lamb at all was a nice bonus. To get one like this is a double bonus.  I think this guy is…the nicest lamb we’ve had born here.

He looks very much like Siena did as a lamb, but given that my expectations increase each year and I still feel that way, that tells me he could be something special. Maybe or maybe not, but he’s as promising as any that we’ve had this year. He should be fully polled as well, which is something that he has that Blue Sapphire’s ram does not.

Another thing I like about some of these lambs (including this one) is something pretty unique, but that probably only matters to me. Some of them have a little horizontal wrinkle across their nose. We’ve never seen that before, but their father has it as well. I like this ram’s father a lot and I think, if nothing else, he’ll have his head. I’ll take that.

Lambing Almost A Wrap

We brought in Sommarang Idelle last fall for three reasons: her structure, her fleece, and her bloodlines. But mostly, I liked her structure. Her conformation is right up there at the top of our flock. As I’ve said before, I won’t bring in sheep unless I’ve seen their parents and I think they are nice. I’m not one for sheep that are aberrations in their bloodline. In my experience, those sheep don’t produce well. Well, Idelle’s mother might be nicer than she is, and her father was nice as well. So, when I see a Shetland that is 20 microns (as Idelle was last fall), I want to know what she is out of. Idelle passed that test.

What I had hoped to do with her was breed her to a super fine ram and see if we could get her great conformation with a fleece that we liked even more. Her moorit ewe lamb this year has that potential. It’ll take some time to determine what she will look like, but she looks promising. Sorry about the pictures, but her mom just doesn't like her near humans when they are out on pasture.

What I can tell you is that she is moorit and spotted. I don't know how fine she will be, of course, but she is quite soft.

It’s no secret that Wintertime Itasca is one of our favorite ewes because: she has a very nice fleece, has nice Shetland type, and throws exceptional lambs. We had her on our initial sales list this year because we had to sell something to get our numbers down, and we felt that we have enough good ewes now that we could do without her. Well, this little moorit ewe lamb is making us think twice about that. When you breed Itasca to super fine rams, she produces. I just love this lamb! She is very feminine and refined. I especially like her head. I think most of our ewes have typey heads, but this one is just what we are after, and it's an attribute that we continue to refine in our program.

Just a beautiful beautiful lamb, who I think will only look better when she fills out.