Fall Rush

I've been busy lately-I got coats on my boys (they are eating hay already), got my Angora goats separated from the sheep (I need to shear them soon and they will need shelter after they are shorn.) I also have a few pens and sheds to fix up before winter. Yesterday we picked as many veggies as we could as it was supposed to freeze.



Here is a late pumpkin flower that I took pictures of with different settings on my camera.
This pretty flower is on a sweet potato plant.

Beautiful sunrise a couple days ago.

Breeding groups planned

I am planning on putting my teaser ram in with the ewes in Oct. 10th. The real rams will go in 2 weeks later on Oct. 24th for March 21'st lambing start. This year I planned groups based on strengths and weaknesses both conformationaly, tail and fleece rather than color (I actually ignored color.) I've also thought long and hard-since before lambing about not breeding ewe lambs. I had several ewe lambs who did not lamb out this year and they are so much bigger and healthier looking than the ones who did lamb-EVEN if the ones who did not lamb were a lot smaller to begin with. So at least this year I'm not breeding ewe lambs.

PS23 Drummond-(F1 Brent)a musket carrying solid moorit with a long silky intermediate fleece. He has nice wide horns and great conformation.

* UnderTheSon Sorelle-(100% Dailley) a moorit a fine double coat with great conformation.

* PS23 Dove-(F2 Skeld/Jericho) a very silky intermediate white carrying musket. She is slightly cow hocked, but her lambs should be nice as I did this breeding before and loved the results! (Edelweiss)

*Sabbath Farm Fonteyn-(F2 Greyling/Holly) a very crimpy, single coated, horned, fawn katmoget. Her only flaw is a shorter staple length (about 3-3 1/2 in.), but Drummond should improve that.

*SheepyHollow Sienna-(F3 Timothy/Minder F4 Jaimie) very crimpy and fine single coated, horned, moorit. She is slightly cow hocked, and has a shorter staple (about 2 1/2 in.) and I hope Drummond fixes that.



SheltringPines Justinian- (F1 Dillon) a big black gulmoget. He is polled and has good conformation. His fleece is not quite as silky as I like and is shorter stapled so I picked ewes with silkier and longer fleeces and 3 happen to be katmogets!

*PS23 Edelweiss-(F2 Brent F3 Skeld/Jericho) a musket katmoget with VERY silky, shiny, soft fleece and great conformation. She is a bit smaller, but I bred her as a lamb and Justinian should improve that anyway!

*PS23 Emrald-(F2 Jericho) a gray katmoget with very soft intermediate/double coated fleece. She is slightly hocky but hopefully Justinian improves that.

*PS23 Ely Cathedral-(F3 Jericho F4 Dillon) a fawn katmoget with long silky fleece and excellent conformation.

*PS23 Easterlilly-(F2 Skeld) a white with a fine, silky single/intermediate fleece. She is slightly cow hocked, but should improve. Her lamb (out of WalnutRise Trevor) this year is very nice!



PS23 Fandango-(F2 Greyling F3 Orion) a gray katmoget ram lamb with a crimpy single coated fleece and great conformation. So far his horns look good.

*Longshadow Amber- (100% Dailley) a dark seasonal color changing musket. She is a very soft intermediate girl. (She is Drummond's dam.) She has great conformation.

*Windswept Lime-(F2 Jings) a white silky intermediate. She has great conformation, but her tail needs work and Fandango has a good tail. Her ram lamb from this year out of an unknown sire has a nice tail and beautiful fleece.



PS23 Fife- (F1 Orion F4 Timothy/Minder F5 Jaimie) a very single coated crimpy moorit with super wide horns. He is a little finer bodied (not as meaty) than some Shetlands.

*PS23 Essex-(F2 Jericho) a fine, soft intermediate moorit with great conformation.

*Sabbath Farm Swan-(100% Dailley) a very silky and soft musket intermediate. She has great conformation.

*PS23 Elsie-(F2/3 Skeld F3 Jericho) a silky, soft single coated white. She has good conformation, but is pretty small. Hopefully Fife improves that.



PS23 Fairlight-(F1 Jings F3 Greyling/Holly) a very single coated white with bold crimp, very soft. He has great conformation, is solidly built and polled/scurred.

*PS23 Daysong-(F2 Jaricho) intermediate grey katmoget. Good conformation, but a bad tail. Hopefully that improves as Fairlight has a nice tiny tail.

*Longshadow Brownie-(F5 Timothey/Greyling) and a soft intermediate musket. Great conformation.

*Sabbath Farm Silvia-(100% Dailley) a dark AG grey with soft curly, intermediate fleece and great conformation.

*Alice the white Merino ewe. (I decided to do the Shetland cross rather than a different cross as then at least all my crosses with be 1/2 Shetland and I think Shetland/Merino fleece is very nice.)


These ewes will go under the Corriedale ram lamb-Windham and I may also be getting Coopworth ram. They would go 50/50% under the two sires.

*MacEwen Kelly-light gray double coat

*UnderTheSon Clarmori-fawn/mioget intermediate

*Bramble Jocelyn-age faded moorit double coat

*PS23 Bluebell- sheala iset double coat

*PS23 Cinderalla-black slightly iset double coat

*PS23 Dingdong- fawn intermediate

*PS23 Early Spring-mioget intermediate

*PS23 Evening Primrose-solid sided black gulmoget intermediate

*PS23 Ewe Won-mioget HST double coat

*PS23 Eastwind-emsket HST intermediate

*PS23 Elm-light gray intermediate/double coat

*PS23 Ewe Two-moorit single coat

*5 unreg. Shetland ewes. (3 light gray, 2 musket intermediate and intermediate/double coats)

*Eco-grey katmoget Shetland/BFL mule

*Eve-white Shetland/BFL mule (I don't want to get a terminal sire yet as 2 ewes are not enough)


I'm planning on keeping several crossbred ewe lambs for commercial ewes. The crosses should have very nice fleeces and I will cross them to a Texel ram as Texels have better wool than Suffolks.

For goats:

Danbury the pure white Texas buck wins out and gets them all

*China-black (more charcoal sheala)

*England-black (more emsket gray)

*Pearl-faded red (cream like musket)

*Belle-white color carrier (threw a silver (light gray) kid when bred to the faded red buck)

*Eden-pure white Texas doe

I expect all white kids, but use and sell more white mohair than colored. I can also breed the white color carrier does back to a colored buck and ( hopefully) get better colored mohair. The colored goats get medullated fibers mixed in and the fleece weights are lower than in the pure whites.

Ram Lamb Fleeces on the Hoof

Fife is an F1 Orion out of SheepyHollow Sienna. His fleece (looks more red in real life) is very very crimpy, but not quite as silky as I like. He is a tall Shetland, not as stocky as I like, but he is still a lamb so may fill out more. I'm going to breed him two couple ewes though.

Fandango (2 pics to show colors) is an F2 Greyling/F3 Orion ram lamb out of Walnut Rise Trevor and Ewe Two. His fleece is very soft and a big improvement over his dams (her fleece is crimpy, but kind of Dorset like.) He has really good conformation, but his horns are really small. I wasn't going to use him this fall, but I think he can get a couple girls. His fleece changes colors and will be a great handspinner fleece!
This is Falkirk an Orion F1 out of SheepyHollow Sienna.(The fleece color is different more red tones and a distinct color change line.) His fawn fleece is super fine and very soft, but his back legs seem weak. I noticed early on that his tail was crooked and just thought that he may have broken it, but as time went on I noticed that his back legs kind of wobble when his walks. I've never had this before and he is not cow hocked (at least not like the other lambs who have been cow hocked.) He may have spina bifida? I don't know if I should keep him over winter or cull him this fall.
Fairlight my polled/scurred F1 Jings boy. He has a very nice bold crimped fleece! His build is a little different than my other lambs. He is heavier than he looks, before I weighed them I thought he was about 10# smaller than his is! He is very stocky and square conformationly. He is definitely getting some ewes!


These two are Fetlar's an Orion F1 out of Claremori. (The fleece color is a little different in real life.) His fleece is crimpy/wavy and then halfway down changes to strait and is longer. He does have really nice conformation (he did grow horns, but they are still smaller than the other two Orion boys' horns) so I think I'm going to keep him over winter to see how his fleece turns out. What do any of you think about his fleece?

Fleece's on the hoof

Fine double coated sheala ewe lamb. Her fleece color looks a little different in real life.


Multi colored Shetland x BFL wether. His twin's fleece has the same colors, but is longer and not as crimpy. Their dam is fawn.

Merino X Shetland ewe lamb. Very fine fleece, her twin is even finer.
F1 Jings Shetland ewe lamb. She is the finest or second finest Shetland lamb. (The Orion boy I'm keeping is also very fine. Her brother is also fine, but not as crimpy.)

I got all my ewe lambs, wether/market lambs and ewes and does dewormed and CDT shots are now done. I forgot to take a picture of my favorite white ewe lambs' fleece. She is so shiny and curly-so much like kid mohair!

The dewormer pk. says "muzzle foam may be observed" and that it should clear up in a few hours. Well one of my does got foamy and was sitting and laying around and just acting sick when the other sheep and goats were walking around trying to graze (the pen they were in had hardly any grass.) So then when I let them out to pasture she stared eating. I guess animals like to scare you! The goats are also snots about getting dewormed and spit it out and then have to get more groaning and moaning the whole time! The sheep just take it with out a fuss.

I still have to deworm and vaccinate the boys. More fleece pics to come.

New sheep and WI sheep and Wool

I bought two ewes from Theresa Gygi and she brought them to the WI Sheep and Wool Festival for me. Thanks Theresa!

Sabbath Farm Swan is a nice musket ewe with a fine primitive/intermediate fleece that is very silky. Sawn is also super friendly and wags her tail when getting patted.

Sabbath Farm Silvia is a gray with a nice wavy fleece and it is a nice blue color underneath. Silvia is pretty tame too.

Both ewes have great conformation and are well proportioned. Both are bigger than most of my ewes and I hope to improve size with them. (I had a ewe who was 55-60# after weaning her lamb a big 65# BFL cross, but I culled her as I don't think she could do two lambs. Most of my ewes are bigger than that, but that is an example.) I'm going to pure breed them both, but did not decide who to yet.

I had a good time at Jefferson and got to see Angora goat friends, Shetland friends and fiber friends. I sold more than last year so I'm happy. Sales were really good on Friday, but slower on Saturday-which is weird as Saturdays are normally the best. I'm buying some new sheep coats (to replace the ones that were beyond repair) and I'm going to try jacketing my goats. I threw out a lot of mohair this spring :( . I'm also going to get my winter hay (at least some) with the money I made.

I'm kind of sad I did not save any fleeces to show as the fleece show was way down in number from last year and I don't want the fleece show to die out. I'm going to show several fleeces next year!

WI Sheep and Wool Festival

WI Sheep and Wool Festival is this weekend. There are lots of events going on, there are sheep shows, sheepdog trails, shearing demos by David Kier-a great shearer, auctions, fleece shows and more! The County Store hours are Friday 10-7, Saturday 9-6 and Sun 9:30-3:30. For more info go to http://wisconsinsheepandwoolfestival.com/index.html

I have a vendor booth this year and have dyed and natural colored roving, mohair locks, lock yarn, and a few Shetland fleeces. I do not believe in selling on Sundays so will only be selling on Friday and Saturday. I do have a friend who is going to sell from my booth on Sunday. She has Lincoln and Romney and few other breeds of wool in both natural colored roving and raw fleeces.