Saturday, January 29, 2011

Sheep know best

Sheep know best-they always eat dessert first!

On a more serious note-the lamb prices are incredible! Finished market lambs are going from $1.55-1.75 and feeder lambs are $1.80-2.00. Even culls are up with cull ewes going from $0.70-0.90 and cull rams going for $0.75-0.85 a #. That's almost lamb price from other years! Equity Livestock (WI) has a website and on the website they have market reports for each sale yard (bottom of page) and after each sale they update it with the new prices. http://livestock.equitycoop.com/market_reports/?vm=r I'm planning on taking my lambs (that I haven't direct marketed-sold quite a few direct so far) to Johnson Creek (that's the best sale yard in the system price wise for sheep and goats due to a strong buyer base) in two weeks. I hope to get a good price!

I have four kids that will go to market, but I'll keep them for a while longer so they can grow more mohair before I sell them (I'll shear them before they go.)

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Size Comparison

I thought that since I had time/daylight yesterday when I started doing my chores that I'd take some pictures of the Shetland ewe lambs side by side with the Shetland cross lambs.
From the left two Shetland X Coopworth ewe lambs, the biggest Shetland ewe lamb that I have (Sabbath Farm Swan X PS23 Fife) and the Shetland/BFL X Corriedale ewe lamb.

From the left again two Shetland lambs (one wether and one ewe PS23 Daysong X PS23 Fairlight) and then three Shetland X Coopworth ewe lambs.

A close up of two Shetland lambs (white ewe is PS23 Daysong X PS23 Fairlight) on the left and two Shetland X Coopworth ewe lambs on the right.

On the left and in the background are three Shetland X Coopworth ewe lambs and the grey one is a Shetland ewe lamb (PS23 Emrald X ShelteringPines Justinian.)

Monday, January 24, 2011

Few more fleece shots



A Shetland X Coopworth ewe lamb
Grey Katmoget wether-unfortunately he is a wether not a ewe! I'm going to use his sire PS23 Fandango next fall in hopes of getting some nice dark grey katmogets.
White Shetland ewe lamb out of Windswept Lime and PS23 Fandango
Black/charcoal Shetland ewe lamb out of PS23 Emrald and SheltringPines Justinian
Shetland X Coopworth ewe lamb
White Shetland ewe lamb out of Sabbath Farm Silvia and PS23 Fairlight.
Shetland X Merino ewe (Shetland sire/Merino dam) This one is a bit blurry and the tiny crimp doesn't really show up. This is more matte than Shetland, while the Shetland X Coopworth is much shinier. (Coopworth lamb is more matte than adult Coopworth so these Shetland X Coopworth lambs' adult fleeces should almost glow!!)

A couple fleece shots


The other day I snapped a few fleece shots of some of my ewe lambs...

Musket Shetland ewe lamb out of Sheepy Hollow Sienna and PS23 Drummond.
One of my Shetland X Coopworth lambs. Nice bold crimp and very shiny. (This picture turned out a little blurry.)
The Shetland/BFL X Corriedale lamb. Vey soft and silky.
One of my favorite ewe lambs. This is a musket out of Sabbath Farm Sawn and PS23 Fife.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Replacemanet lambs


When I walked down the driveway to get the mail the ewe lambs all lined along the fence hoping to be fed. (The lambs are Shetland and Shetland crosses, a few are wethers destined for market in the spring.)


Tuesday, January 4, 2011

A Scare


On Sunday when I went out to feed I saw that one of my ewes was stuck on her back out in the pasture. She was not moving- "my heart leaped"- and I knew exactly who is was. Silvia, one of the ewes who was AI'ed this fall, a nice older ewe (9) who still had lots of milk and really nice lambs last summer. I ran over to her expecting her to be dead (I had one one year that got stuck and died) but she wasn't! I righted her and she could barely walk. She stumbled and held her head to the side. Oh no! I thought (I know some people who's sheep have died after being stuck if they were stuck for too long) then she staggered over to where everyone else was eating their hay. Ok. So then I waited to see if she would eat any hay. She simply lay down. I made her get up again and she lay down again. I also noticed that she was quivering so I decided to take her temperature, it was 101-within the normal range, and I gave her some keto drench (it has propylene glycol and vitamin B in it.) I took her back to the barn and put her in a temporary pen next to some doe kids that are staying in the barn. She showed interest in her hay and ate a small handful of grain (a treat for the ewes as they don't get any grain except at lambing and breeding.) I left her in the barn and then last night she was baaing at me and was wanting to get out. I put her out with the other girls and she was very happy and ate some hay!
Here she is waiting impatiently to get out.