Monday, October 18, 2010

Sheepy Plans

So I've finally got my plans solidified with the sheep breeder over at Queso Cabeza Farm. She has been so amazingly helpful and I feel confident that her sheep are high quality, well bred and well cared for.
Some time in December I will be bringing home three sheep. Yes three. Laura was concerned by my original plans because I wanted to bring home a ram lamb and a ewe lamb as my first breeding endeavor. The problem with this is that ewe lambs really benefit from having another ewe to watch and learn from, and they often only produce a single lamb, or they don't produce at all. If she were to have a single lamb it would have nobody to play with. She has offered me an awesome package of two ewes and a leased ram lamb to get me started.
The first ewe is an eight year old ewe named Ingrid. She is older so she has lots of experience with lambing and she makes a good role model for the new ewe. According to QC she has a nice thick fleece too, and her bloodlines are traced directly back to Iceland rams Flekkur and Skreppur (still learning about bloodlines!)
Ingrid is black, carries spotting and is polled (has no horns). Icelandic sheep come either polled or horned. While the horned sheep are really something impressive to look at, I have apparently fallen for the polled sheep since after I discovered them I pretty much only looked at them as possible sheep for purchase.
The other ewe I will bringing home is as yet unnamed. She is a solid moorit with great fleece and apparently her dam was a great mother. She's super cute, and as I'm a total sucker for anything moorit (red brown), she's the ewe I want to start my breeding program with.
Along with these two beautiful babes I will be bringing home a leased ram lamb. QC isn't sure yet which ram I'll be bringing but they're pretty sure it'll be either a solid moorit or a black badgerface (like the little lamby in the post previous to this one).
I'm happy with either one. I love the moorit color and would like to keep moorit in my flock, but at the same time the badgerface gene is gorgeous and produces a beautiful creamy fleece color that I really want to get my hands on as a spinner. Badgerface is dominant show unless both parents carry solid. Since solid is the most recessive of the marking genes it's a pretty good chance he'd produce badgerface for me. Then again moorit plus morrit equals moorit so that's cool too! :)
Anyway, I'm excited to get this rolling. I need to finish putting in my fence this month so that it has time to settle. I have my posts marked out and I have all of my supplies for my electric. I'll be putting up woven wire fencing with two strands of electric, one at nose height to deter nosey little sheep considering the greener grass on the other side of the fence, and one at the top to deter nasty predators considering the sheep on the other side of the fence. If I have enough I may do a third strand at nose height on the outside of the fence as well to deter any predators with the notion of digging.
On top of all this fence building, I have to get my deer fence up around my raspberries asap. In fact, It just occured to me that since my charger is a 5 mile charger and I really only need a mile or two I might actually put an electric wire around the raspberries to really deter the deer.... Hmm..

3 comments:

  1. This is all very exciting! I've been quite enjoying reading your backlog on sheepy prep. Denver is lovely but I'm totally longing for a small farm like yours. So for now I'll keep up on your posts and sigh wistfully. :)

    ~A

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  2. The sheep are lovely! Will they be for milking/cheese purposes? Or lambs for meat? For just for fun and cuteness?

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  3. Ashley - You'll have to stop in and visit sometime when you're back out this way. Will you be in the mitten for the holidays at all?

    Kristen - The sheep are for all of the above! I chose Icelandics because of their color genetics and their high milk production, hopefully so that I can make cheese (and icecream!) I'll have two ewes lambing in spring and if by some terrible chance I end up with rams I will post them for sale. If they don't sell before they reach market weight, I'll send them to slaughter for meat. If I end up with any ewes that are improvements on their mothers, I'll be keeping them to breed next winter. I can't wait to officially begin my breeding program!

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