2016 Lambs - Final Installment

Last Sunday, White Pine Reawick had this really nice grey katmoget ram out of Mr. Darcy. I don’t know that this helps us much, but when things settle down, I’ll take a closer look at the genetics and come to some sort of decision. We obviously were looking for white, but we only have two grey katmoget rams, so we’ll need to think about what this one brings to the table from a genetic standpoint. Reawick’s two year old SF is 23.4 microns, which is quite good. I also like that she is an F3 Jericho.

This is going to be a tough year trying to sort out all of this. We have more top quality sheep than we have space to house them, and the heavy ewe year that we are having is going to force some really hard decisions.

Mustang Sally was the last ewe to lamb this year. She is one of those two year old ewes I keep running on about. I don't have my cheat sheet in front of me, but I believe she is out of Khan and Pearl. These lambs are out of Mr. Darcy.

The moorit is a ewe, and the katmoget is a ram. I like both of them pretty equally, but the ram is in the top three this year in terms of overall quality. He is probably second behind Venice's and very close to Rosanna's. All three are fawn katmoget's though, so we'll have to keep an eye on their development. I said I would not keep anymore fawn kats, but now I am strenuously objecting, so I will have to reconsider. It's funny how quickly you forget how good last year's lamb crop was because it was so yesterday.

Biggify the bottom picture of the ram if you want to see what a Shetland lamb fleece can look like.

2016 Lambs - Third Installment

April 27^th was a sucky weather night and not much fun for lambing either. Just after midnight, Rosanna had this fawn katmoget ram out of Canterbury, which used up all of my pens. I had to head out to the back 40 in the rain and drag one of our 10 foot wide pasture gates into the barn to fashion a makeshift lambing pen. Not something you really want to do at 2 am on a cold rainy night. As distracted as I was, I did notice that this is going to be one heck of a lamb. I've already nicknamed him velvet. He is also unusually light for a fawn katmoget. He's easily the lightest one we've had in a while.

Just as I got the pen rigged up, Venice had this fawn katmoget ram out of Rosewood. It’s always fun to put all that effort in at 2 am for two fawn katmoget rams. Yeah. On a positive note, I personally think this ram is one of the nicest lambs so far this year. Since he is a dark chocolate, he actually might have a role here in the future. What was odd is that he is one of the darker katmogets we have had here, and Rosanna’s was one of the lighter ones. I still find it interesting how different the colors can be in katmogets. Sometimes they are very light tan, and other times they are milk chocolate.

One's memory fails to recollect all of the small differences in lambs from year-to-year, but I think this one ranks in the top five certainly. I like him even more now that I see him running around side-by-side with the others. Since he is out of Rosewood, this one gives me options for the future.

 

We had a little bit of a break after Venice before Sarah (AKA Picasso face) had a fawn katmoget ewe out of Canterbury at 4 am on 4/28. Picasso face is out of Stonehenge and Kiyah and has a 22.6 micron SF. Picasso face is two years old. She is noteworthy in that she has a really nice fleece and is spotted. Those two things don’t usually go hand-in-hand on our farm, but it's awesome when it does.

As I completed this post, I realized I have no picture of this lamb, so I may have to rely on our friend Hannah to help us out with that, sice each day now seems busier than the last. In the meantime, this is Picasso face as a lamb two years ago and then last fall.

 

 

Okay, here is Picasso face's ewe lamb:

 

Mustang Sally and Reawick are up next and then we are going to call this a wrap for 2016.

2016 Lambs - Second Installment

Kelly Kelly is one of our two year old moorits that we like a great deal. She is a smaller ewe (which is a new goal that we added last fall), and she has a Spinning Fineness of 21.2 microns, which is outstanding for a two year old Shetland. She is out of Stonehenge and Kahlua. Last fall we put her in with Mr. Darcy in hopes of tapping into his genetics, and his yearling 18.7 micron Spinning Fineness. I was happy when I discovered Kelly was pregnant, and more excited when I saw this grey katmoget ewe lamb. It matters less to me what her micron ends up at than the fact that she is the type of lamb for which we are breeding. This lamb wins the prize for prettiest lamb so far this year.

It took two years to get offspring out of these two year olds, but it seems to be paying off. Also, not a bad start for Mr. Darcy. Sometimes when a lamb is born, you are already thinking about what is next and who we might pair him/her with in a year. That's the tough part - knowing we'll be waiting for two year's before we get the next generation out of these lambs. Then I realize that we have a bunch of last year's lambs that I thought the same thing about, and they are on deck for next year's lambs. Speaking of last year's lambs, here is the lineup in solitary confinement:

Sure, they look innocent enough, but these yearlings (AKA "Raptors") earned this with their mischief and general horseplay. They are like rebellious teenagers. I could also call them the dirty dozen. Every day they run and frolic with the flock, and every night I have to put them in solitary to restore order.

Whispering Pines Florence was the second ewe to go on 4/24, giving birth to this really nice fawn katmoget ram lamb out of Canterbury. Last year, her ewe lamb Lydia was the prize, and although it’s tough to get excited about ram lambs (especially fawn ones that you have a lot of), it’s nice to see that she produces consistently, which is rare for a Shetland. They so often throw back to garbage many years in their past.

Blue Sapphire then had two fawn katmoget ewes later on that evening to close out the day. These lambs are out of Rosewood. Good looking lambs that are very similar in appearance and quality. It always amazes me when twins are born that look so similar. I would say that Rosewood is proving himself this year as well. This is the first year we have used him, and it’s a bit of a trial balloon for this fall. Rosewood is two this yea r and has an impressive Spinning Fineness of 20.2 microns. More importantly, his fleece is very consistent from front to back, which is also a goal of ours.

 

Things started up again the next morning on 4/25 as Siena had two very nice lambs. The moorit is a ram, and the fawn katmoget is a ewe. These lambs are out of Canterbury. Canterbury has a Spinning Fineness of 19.4 microns, which is fantastic for a three year old Shetland. That gives us two moorit Canterbury ram lambs this year to evaluate. I think last year’s Siena lambs were some of our best (Fanny and Knightley), but I think these two might be their equal.

 

Kyrie put us on lamb watch all day, but didn’t give birth until 10 pm. Kyrie is a moorit out of Egyptian King and Pearl and is another two year old with a nice SF (22.4 microns). She was also bred to Mr. Darcy with the goal of adding nice black-based sheep to our flock, and that’s what we got here. This black ewe looks to be very nice. Mr. Darcy is out of Canterbury and Genoa, two Superfine Shetlands, and of course, Kyrie is out of two Superfine Shetlands as well. Lots of promise here.

 

 

 

 

This gave us a break until 6 AM the following day (4/26) when Pamela gave us two excellent ewe lambs out of Mr. Darcy. Pamela is out of Egyptian Autumn and Frangelico, two Superfine sheep that we sold last year. I like both of these lambs pretty equally, which is a surprise given that the katmogets are generally nicer than the moorits and blacks. We’ve had a good crop of moorits this year. For comparison purposes, Pamela is a Superfine two year old ewe with a 22.9 micron SF.

 

Kahlua had these twin moorit ewe lambs early afternoon the same day. These lambs are out of Canterbury, and look to be super nice. Kahlua has a fantastic handling fleece and I’m hoping these two inherit that.

That'll do for now. We had quite a run on ewe lambs for a while there, but it's been mostly rams since then. At least they are good ones. You never have a 100% success rate with lambs, but we always track that pretty closely to see how we are doing with our breeding program. I figure we are on track if 80% of our lambs meet our lofty expectations. The last two years, I estimated that we were around 85%. Even the "bad" 15% were pretty darn good, to be honest. But when most of our adult flock are Superfine with fleeces that we are striving for (looking at all the fleece attributes holistically), the lambs have to be really good to force me to move out some of the adults. In our program, a keeper lamb typically means an adult has to move on to make room in the barn. That's the part of this that I don't like. Success means getting rid of ewes I want to hold onto. Of course, who am I to say that any of these lambs will be better than the 12 raptors we kept from last year or the amazing crop we had two year's ago. It's a good problem to have I guess. At least that's what I keep telling myself when I am lying awake at night fretting about it. It seems like each lamb has me labelling it as a keeper as it is born, not realizing we have 17 such keepers so far and another 12 Raptors from last year that I am really high on still. The math doesn't quite work.

 

2016 Lambs - First Installment

Vogue got things rolling for us this year with an excellent moorit ram out of Canterbury. We currently have a grand total of zero moorit rams, so this one doesn't bother me at all (in spite of the fact I said I didn't want any rams this year since I have so many from last year that are about as good as it gets).

I will say this often, but you never know how well these young lambs will develop, but this one has promise. He appears to have very long legs in this picture, but I'm already seeing his proportions shaping up as he grows. You like to have a proper length to height ratio in rams, so we will be watching this one grow. Lambs are always out of proportion at his age anyway. Always lots of leg.

 

Genoa was next on April 13th (one day later) with a moorit ewe lamb out of Canterbury. We were surprised to start things off with two unpatterned lambs, but we'll take it. We always use katmoget rams it seems, and are never surprised that our lamb crop is so katmoget heavy. This ewe lamb is close to the quality of Vogue's ram, if not better. I think she will be a good one.

 

Itasca broke our consecutive year string of ewe lambs last year when she had twin rams. This year, she had twin ewe lambs out of Whispering Pines Rosewood. The first one was moorit, and the second a black. We're always excited to get black sheep, especially nice ones like this. Rosewood is a Superfine fawn katmoget out of Stonehenge. We have several generations of Superfine sheep behind these lambs, so we'll see how they turn out.

 

Caramel Mocha was up next on 4/22 in the early AM with a pretty fawn katmoget ewe out of Canterbury. Caramel Mocha is out of Khan and Genoa, which I think bodes well for this lamb. It took a few days but we had our first katmoget of the season. One thing I'm noticing this year so far is the consistency of the fleece from front to back in addition to the tightness. That is something that we breed for, so that is encouraging.

 



That was pretty much it for the leisurely portion of lambing as they came fast and furious after that starting with Whispering Pines Sherrie at 3 AM on 4/23, the first of two lambings that day. Sherrie is one of our two year olds that we have been waiting two years for. She is out of our Blue Sapphire, so lots of fantastic genetics we have been waiting to use. Canterbury is the sire of both of these ewe lambs.

 

 



Turin waited until 11:30 in the morning to give us these two ewe lambs out of Canterbury. Turin is a producer, I'll give her that. I'm finding that to be the case in the Pompey Magnus daughters. All of them have produced consistently well, which is why we still have so many of them. Again, great fleece uniformity and crimp. We are getting a lot of moorits this year, which is a good thing.

 



That's it for now. Tomorrow I'll get through April 24th, which was notable for the fact that it was the first time we had three ewes lamb on the same day, and only the second time we had two lamb at the same time. As stressful as that sounds, I actually prefer it.