Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Shetland Sheep Sales List

Coming Soon!


       Sir Nigel is finally weaned and I have my life back. We had some rough spots w/ the vet out a few times but he's doing great now.

Nigel will be wethered and kept as a fiber pet. He's super soft and crimpy with the sweetest personality.Of course I'd say that ~ I'm his "mom"!

Time to concentrate on selling most of this years lambs. We have a total of 49 sheep (how did that happen so quickly??) and don't have enough pasture to accommodate more than 25 adequately.
This is our best lamb crop to date with a nice variety of markings, good conformation,perfect tails(yay!) and lovely soft fleeces.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Riggwelter and Sox

Jenny Wren had two ram lambs   ~ a dark moorit krunet and a katmoget sokket

Still using the suggested names from Shearing Day I decided to give the dark lamb above the name Riggwelter~until today I had no idea that is a dark ale from an English firm called The Black Sheep Brewery. Hey, he even has some foam on top! Wonder who made that suggestion...





Duet always gives us the sweetest lambs!

This dark moorit yuglet sokket is a girl
This little boy looks white but w/ the dark spotting I understand that can't be right... besides yuglet what is he??

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

This Little Lamb thinks He's a Puppy

Nigel is now 10 days old and thriving. This past weekend my parents , brother and sister-in-law came for Mother's Day.Little Nigel entertained everyone with his adorable antics. In this photo my mom is watching him nuzzle up to Misty, my dad's Golden Retriever. We're all quite smitten with him. The night-time feedings are taking their toll on my brain but I know it will over soon enough and well worth the effort.



Faye finally delivered her twins: boy and girl kat yuglets~ Emma and Gavin






Tuesday, May 3, 2011

More Ewe Lambs this Year!

Stunning ewe lamb~ Morgan Inverness~ out of Persephone
Katmoget,smirslet  ...what about the body markings of white ,black and tan? She has a very soft fluffy fleece.


This is Krystal (white speckle-faced katmoget) and Krista, whose fleece is two-toned above with a rosy hue to it and the dark underneath of a katmoget.These fleeces shimmer in the sunlight! Twin ewes out of Joy, who has a fabulous fleece.


And this is the now infamous Sweet Gum With her darling FIRST lamb,Grace




Nine days after delivering Grace we found Sweet gum with afterbirth hanging out her back end and this little guy standing alone in the middle of the pasture baa-ing his heart out...
No one would claim him. No one else had signs of a recent birth so we  forced S.G. to give up some colostrum,hopefully, she had some but she fought us terribly. This little guy went from ewe to ewe only to be butted away. Well, you all know the rest of the story, of course, he's in the kitchen nice and warm and being fed by THIS  mama every few hours. We were hoping one of the other girls would deliver soon so we could try to graft him on but no one is obliging and as each day goes by I'm sure that will be much more difficult. 
Has anyone else ever had this situation before ? Is this a separate conception or a late ejecting twin? Grace, the first lamb was 6lbs. Sir  Nigel (the rejected ram lamb) was barely 3lbs. Any ideas??

2011 Lambs Continued

Luka is a charming smirslet ram lamb out of Zephyr

Rosamund  gave us  a black krunet ewe lamb  Odile



 Bryn is a dark brown ewe lamb with a few white flecks on the top of her head that will most likely fade~out of Tasha Tudor.
Rosie had this grey katmoget ewe,Sarah, soon afterward. I had hoped for a white lamb,but with Shetlands you just never know.
Sweet Gum and ewe lamb Grace~ more about her later...

Sunday, May 1, 2011

It's been an Exciting Week!

Our lambs were not due until Easter Sunday(earliest possible date according to a chart that I have used for years). So the Thursday before we planned to move the girls down to the "Nursery" close to the house in order to keep an eye on them.We're old pros at this now so I wasn't even anxious like I used to get those first few years. I knew we'd probably be waiting for quite awhile before anyone went into labor and I was NOT going out there every five minutes, no way.I had just returned from shopping for all the last of the Easter menu items and ready to move the girls when Lou got home. Glancing up the pasture I see all the ewes running or should I say waddling fast to the sheep shelter. Odd, I thought, looks like what they do when there's a birth. A birth??? No way! Dropping the groceries on the counter I pick up the ever present binoculars, and oh my goodness! A pair of tiny yuglet eyes are staring back at me!Zsa Zsa's ram lamb was all cleaned up,dryed off and hopping around when I got up there. We named him "Early".We gave them the "suite" all to themselves and moved the others down to the thankfully freshly prepared jugs~just in the nick of time! No waiting around this year.

Soon after Una delivered another ram lamb,Anatole, without us even knowing it... we turned around and there he was .

At our Sheep Shearing Day last month we had a "Name Our Lambs" sheet out for all to sign. We have 37 names listed. All of the names,except Early, are from that list.


Hours later Sweet Gum delivered a beautiful light grey yuglet,katmoget~ Grace.

Two days break enabled me to prepare Easter dinner for 10, get the house cleaned and even relax and enjoy our company. Easter morning was glorious with sunshine !
Lou made a very realistic tomb out of cardboard for the childrens' Easter Program. It was a big hit. Many families had they're photos taken in front of it.
Nana and Kylie Joy witnessing the empty tomb.


Monday we woke to find Bella presented us with twins~ ram and ewe katmogets~ Colin and Clothilde.



I'm being pulled away from the computer by my dear husband who wants to take me out to dinner. So I'll have to continue the saga later . Sorry, Donna, I'll get to today's adventure soon ,I promise.