Psalm23Farm

Pure Breeding Group

2011-12-08T19:29:00.000-08:00

Everest (the teaser boy) went in yesterday and in about 10 days the real rams go in.

Sommarang Gilroy-linebred on Greyling. Nice horns and conformation. He is black, fine fleeced (more on the matte side) and carries spots, he will get:

PS23 Dingdong-fawn, silky double coat ewe who may carry spots

PS23 Eastwind-emsket HST, silky double coat

UTS Aran-sheala, very soft fleece

UTS Jelly Drop-emsket, silky double coat ewe who may carry spots

PS23 Funzie-grey katmoget (F1 Jings), very fine and crimpy fleece; horned

PS23 Gloria-white, fine, silky and crimpy

PS23 Glitter-white, fine, silky and crimpy ewe who may carry spots

PS23 Edelwiess-musket katmoget, very silky and wavy, throws extremly fine fleeced lambs

PS23 Daysong-grey katmoget, med. fine and crimpy ewe who may carry spots and modified

PS23 Craigrothie-F1 Skeld. He is white with a pearly, silky, soft fleece. He has aberrant horns and has thrown polled rams. He may get (if I have space):

Sabbath Farm Fontyen -fawn katmoget, med. fine and crimpy; horned (if I don't use Craigrothie she will go to Hector)

Sheepy Hollow Sienna-moorit, very fine, silky and crimpy; horned (she will go to Gilroy if I don't use C.)

PS23 Hector-F1 Jings. White very fine, crimpy, silky, very soft fleece. This ram has a wild streak and is very aloof. He has great conformation and is fineboned with nice horns. He will be getting:

PS23 Flourance-white with a soft, silky, wavy fleece. She is a very petite ewe and may be for sale next year.

PS23 Goldenrod-musket (who I think is also mioget), very soft, silky and crimpy fleece. Nice size on this girl.

PS23 Humphry-F2 Jings. Fawn katmoget with color. Very soft, crimpy and cushy fleece. Nice horns. This little guy is calm. He will be getting:

Sabbath Farm Silvia-grey, silky fleece

PS23 Gardenia-grey gulmoget/katmoget, very silky and very soft fleece. Milky ewe line.

PS23 Easterlilly-white, fine and crimpy fleece

PS23 Huckelberry-F1 Ram (Black) med. dark grey katmoget. Crimpy, silky and fine fleece. Nice horns. This boy is very tame and friendly. He will be getting:

Sabbath Farm Swan- musket, silky fleece. Milky ewe line.

PS23 Ferndale-(F1 Gordon) black/sheala. Crimpy, dense, med. fine fleece

PS23 Forsythia- light grey, very fine and crimpy fleece.

These are the girls about a month ago. Everyone has coats on now.

Crossing Group

2011-10-26T16:51:00.000-07:00

The Corriedale and Coopworth rams went in on Mon. so in five months I'll have lambs!

The ewes are all on the hay field near St. Nazianz

The girls who are getting crossbred are:

14 commercial ewes (7 Coopworth X Shetland, 3 Merino X Shetland, 2 BFL X Shetland, 1 Corriedale X BF/Shetland and 1 Shetland X Corriedale/Dorset)

21 Shetland ewes:

Longshadow Amber-musket

UnderTheSon Claremori-fawn

UnderTheSon Hopi-dark brown

PS23 Dove-white

Windswept Lime-white

PS23 Elm-light grey

PS23 ElyCathedral-fawn katmoget

PS23 Emrald-grey katmoget

PS23 Early Spring-mioget

PS23 Evening Primrose-black gulmoget

PS23 Essex-moorit

PS23 Finch-white

PS23 Fairlie-fawn

PS23 Fiona-black

PS23 Gloxinia-musket

PS23 Grettle-white

PS23 Gwendolyn-musket

PS23 Gloss-white

PS23 Gem-black gumoget

PS23 Ginger-musket

PS23 Gentian-black

Ewe lambs and fleece shots

2011-10-25T05:23:00.000-07:00

Keeper ewe lambs-I have nine on the keep list. One black, two moorits, two grey katmogets, two whites, and two fawn katmogets. I had another black that I was going to keep, but am not sure I like her fleece. If I do change my mind again then it will be ten lambs.

Update on the sick ewe lamb: she is not any worse, but not really any better. She still eats and the vet thinks she may have had pneumonia (sometimes they get a "mini stroke") and the two things may or may not be related.

Hollyhock's fleece. She is out of PS23 Eastwind and PS23 Campbell, F1 Jericho. (Darker in real life)
This fleece is Hyacinth's, the grey katmoget out of PS23 Fiona and PS23 Campbell, F1 Jericho.
This fleece is Hummingbird's, the black ewe lamb out of PS23 Ferndale, F1 Gordon X PS23 Campbell, F1 Jericho (Black not modified in real life)
This is Harmony's fleece. She is out of PS23 Edelweiss and PS23 Fife, F1 Orion. She is a horned fawn fatmoget and is the finest fleeced lamb this year.

Sheep...

2011-10-22T19:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my only AI ewe lamb got sick. (I only noticed something was wrong with her when she tried walking and a lamb smaller than her butted her and sent her head over heals and then she didn't get up.) She has some weird sickness. She is not acting droopy or grinding her teeth like the typical sick sheep. She had a slight temp. and is having trouble walking especially on her front legs. Her front legs just seem to give out on her and she has trouble standing up. She also twists her head in a funny way. The vet (Joe who is really good with sheep and actually looks things up) said to put her on LA 200, banamine and Vit B. He said she could have meningitis or polio and that sometimes plain old pneumonia can cause thiamine (B) deficiency.

I hope she makes it as she is an AI (Skeld) ewe lamb and is a good sized twin out of a 9 year old (Sabbath Farm Swan) ewe who is very milky. Fingers crossed!

Today I had a failed attempt to sort the sheep who are on the hay field down the road. After spending 3 hours trying to sort sheep and then having lambs hopping over the hog panel it gets very frustrating. I got one group home and then just let every one out, as it was quite dark out, of the holding pen and will just sort them at home and bring the ewes who will be crossbred back.

I guess the bonus is I get to look at the purebreeding Shetland candidates more closely in a nice holding pen.

This year I am going to put the 35ish ewes who are going to have cross lambs with the rams (yes, both the Corriedale and the Coopworth rams will go in) I can tell the difference between the two crosses and even if I couldn't it doesn't matter as the lambs won't get registered. I sold my white Coopwrth ram and bought another so I don't need to worry about the Coopworth cross ewes this year. Maybe next year I'll buy more temp. fencing so I can have two or three crossing groups.

Then the 16-20 Shetlands who will have pure lambs and the 11 Angora does will be bred for May lambs/kids. (I had 10 does and then helped a friend with shearing and come home with another doe {and a black CAGBA buck kid} ! The doe is an AAGBA white with a super nice fleece. She is about 6 and still has fine neck mohair and great locks-she is nicer than the OR does and even the TX doe. The only reason she was for sale is because the has only half a working udder and Kris can't handle bottle babies right now.)

Now to get the sheep home sort them. Get the crossing ewes back, and then sort and pick out the lambs who will go to market vs. stay for replacements....

Keeper Ram Lambs and bucks

2011-09-23T18:06:00.000-07:00

I sent in papers for these ram lambs to be registered. I forgot what names I put down.
This guy is a twin out of PS23 Fairlight, an F1 Jings and Sheepy Hollow Sienna. He weighed 53#.
Perfect tail-it's flat too! Mid side fleece.
Fleece towards rump.
This white ram lamb is a twin out of Drum Jings and PS23 Forsythia, an F2 Greyling. He weighed 53#. His fleece is very soft and silky. (I couldn't catch him as he is shy.)
This guy is a triplet, raised as a twin by a nine year old ewe. He weighed 62#. (As much as a single ram lamb that I have!) His sire is Drum Ram (aka Black) and dam is Sabbbath Farm Fonteyn.His fleece...I like the color and crimp.This guy is also friendly.
Buck kid out of Belle, a color carrier white and Caspian a faded red who got culled last year (due to attitude.) I'm going to see what he looks like next fall. This is a very fine fleeced yearling buck out of Danburry (the AAGBA TX boy) and China, a black. He is a very pale red and should throw fine fleeced colored kids. I wasn't going to use him as he is related to all of my does, but I think I'm going to do some linebreeding anyways-I really want color!!! I am going to buy a black buck kid, but I've never had a kid breed. (So many of the colored goats available have poor quality, kempy fleeces. I was actually told at the sheep and wool festival that some mohair I was selling as "rug grade" was nicer than some other breeder's good stuff.) This guy will be for sale after I use him. He will be registered so I need to think of a name for him. He was born in the "G"year.
This ram lamb is a twin out of PS23 Campbell, and F1 Jericho and PS23 Ferndale, an F1 Gordon. He is the biggest ram lamb at 67#. His fleece is med. fine and crimpy. He is for sale for $250.Tail shot.

Lamb weights

2011-09-20T17:03:00.000-07:00

I finally ordered a scale! I had been planning on ordering one for several years now and decided last winter that I was going to get one this summer after trying to weigh lambs and ending up in muck with the lamb running away. I got the same one as Theresa Gygi, but without the cage as the cage was an extra $600. I just cut some hog panels and made my own cage. The scale arrived yesterday morning and (I had been planning to vaccinate and deworm ) I used the scale yesterday afternoon to weight all of the lambs and kids. (I have been weighing my lambs and kids at weaning with a bathroom scale for several years, but this is more accurate and much less back breaking!)

Coopworth X Shetland 30 lambs 60.50# ave. (colored Coop X Shet 12 lambs 52.83# ave., white Coop X Shet 18 lambs 62.22# ave.)

Corriedale X Shetland 10 lambs 66.60# ave.

purebred Shetland 29 lambs 52.13# ave.

Angoras 12 kids 38.4# ave.

All 84 lambs and kids 55.04# ave.

I weighed two Shetland cross yearlings and they were both around 120#. The one yearling Angora doe was 65# (and probably 6-8# is mohair!) I did not weigh any of my rams, ewes or Shetland yearlings. Just not enough time... it was almost dark by the time I got to the last lamb.

Interesting thing is last year I did not like the Corriedale crosses, they were small and I did not like the fleece. This year's ones are by the same sire, but most are whites. All of last year's were colored.

The Coopworth X lambs do have a different "look" than the Corrie X lambs. The Corrie X lambs are leaner and taller.

On another note. I have been thinking, the UK judges mentioned that a Shetland ewe who does not meet the standard is placed in a conservation grazing flock. The sheep are all bred to flockbook Reg. rams and after 3 generations (or was it 5?) the offspring are allowed to be registered.

So if we have a Shetland ewe who would not meet the standard/pass inspection (say her fleece falls of a bit or her tail needs improvement) and we get a stunning ram lamb out of her perhaps we should still send him to market as he may have a higher chance of passing on low quality sheep than one who is out of a line who has been bred to good rams without flaw for several generations.

I know I have gotten nice crimpy/med.crimpy fleeces out of a more double coated type ewe to a single coated ram in one generation and I have also fixed tails in one generation. I wonder if those lambs are more likely to revert back to the more double coated fleece or poor tail than a ewe who's sire, grand sire and great grand sire all were "perfect"sheep.

Fun At WI Sheep and Wool

2011-09-13T17:07:00.000-07:00

I had a great time at the WI Sheep and Wool Festival. The Shetland breeders had a potluck by a campfire and I got to meet several other Shetland breeders. It was also nice to be able to meet and talk to the two UK judges Kate Sharp and Alan Hill. Theresa Gygi has a lovely write up about the show and some of the talks on her blog .

A couple non-Shetland related things that Kate mentioned are all the rules and regulations in the UK. It is illegal to pick up a sheep to put it in a car or truck and open/soft top trailers are also illegal. The sheep have to have ramps to walk on but the ramps can't be too steep for loading on a trailer. It is illegal to hold or pull a ram by it's horns. Each animal needs to be tracked and if one has more than 10 chickens they also have to be in a government program.

This hansom boy came home with me. Right now he is hanging out with the boys, but he will get a nice group of girls this fall. Sommerang Gilroy is a fine fleeced black ram who can throw spotted lambs. Thanks Corinne!
http://www.mtn-niche.net/NASSA/nassa_pedigree.php?pregno=S29861

I entered 5 fleeces in the show this year. I showed a colored Shetland lamb fleece that did not place, a white lamb that got a fourth place and Fairlight's fleece got a third. The other two fleeces were crossbred fleeces and one, a white Shetland X Coopworth, did not place (it had gotten Champion at Greencastle) and the other, a variegated charcoal Shetland/BFL X Corriedale) got a second at both WI Sheep and Wool and Greencastle.

WI Sheep and Wool

2011-09-03T05:19:00.000-07:00

WI Sheep and Wool festival is next Fri, Sat and Sun. http://www.wisconsinsheepandwoolfestival.com I have a booth there this year and will be selling on Fri and Sat. I have a friend who has a hand-spinner flock and will be using the booth space on Sun.

I have a lot to do before then! My lambs and yearlings are on "vacation" and need to come home before Sheep and Wool. There return is scheduled for Mon.

There is an English man who had some grass/alfalfa he wanted grazed off so that is where they are. Paul, the English man had been a sheep farmer in Kent, England. He had 1000 Romney ewes (add in the lambs, ram and yearlings and the No. would be around 3000.)

I have some last minuet dyeing to do and the general "set up enough fence for the sheep while I'll be gone" and packing to do.

I am showing several fleeces this year and am quite excited ad the Shetland fleeces will be judged from a UK Shetland judge. The Shetland sheep this year also will be judged by the UK judge. I am not showing sheep as it is to hectic to do both a booth and show.

See you at WI Sheep and Wool!

Random Updates

2011-08-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

So far this summer has been very hot and humid. The first hot day we lost 7 (20%) of our butcher chickens-they just can't take the heat. The next day I found a dead goat. The doe, Belle, had been sick two other times (one time it was bloat) so it was not too surprising. (Also lost a sickly lamb. The lamb had never been "right" since day one.) This heat really will take out any sickly animals! So far everyone else is doing ok.

I found this guy in the pasture the other day. He is as big a dinner plate. Unfortunately he was dead (and had been for some time as he did not smell.) Poor guy!I finished this baby hat around the 4'th of July. (I gave it to some friends at church who just had a baby.) The top is Shetland and silk, the bottom is mohair locks which I spun on a drop spindle. The flowers are made from scraps of some of my millspun yarn.

This was an ice-cream cake I made for my brother's birthday. The bottom was chocolate chip cookies, then ice-cream, then chocolate chips melted with a little butter (so it would not freeze as hard) and then more ice-cream and lastly toffee sprinkles. It was on the rich side, but it is a lot cheaper (and tastier) then store bought ice-cream cakes.

Sales List

2011-07-30T05:12:00.000-07:00

I just updated my sale pages and have a few NASSA registered Shetland ewe and ram lambs and some older ewes available. I also have some Angora wethers and some Shetland wethers with fine soft fleeces for fiber pets. I have 3 or 4 crossbred ewe lambs that will be available this year as well.

Shepherding

2011-07-14T04:46:00.000-07:00

In a little house in Wisconsin, all covered in white siding
lived one shepherd girl and the rest of the fam(i)ly

As she lay down at night all curled up to sleep
one little Baa sounded not "right"

She went to investigate and much
to her horror, all hundred and more
Sheepies were out!

She ran and she chased to get them back in
before she could be retiring!

(I really am not a poet and don't know the "rules".) A couple nights ago at 11.30 the jerks flattened the fence by stampeding it. They were all milling around the driveway when I "caught them in their crime".

Chicks

2011-07-01T20:28:00.000-07:00

This is a "newborn" chick. When it is in the egg it's head is curled over to it's side and it's tiny wing is over it's eye. the chick starts hatching by pecking a pip hole. It is usually several hours before they hatch. Most of the chick cracked their eggs completely in half. Right after the chicks hatch they loose a little blood in the umbilical cord (not sure what it's called in a chicken) area . They are so exhausted that they just lay there. The tiny chicks also peep really loudly right after they hatch. After the little guys are dried off and fluffy out they go to the chick pen!

We had 14 hatch. 2 eggs were duds and 1 chick died in the shell. These guys are Black Australorps and Black Australorp X Americaunas

Close up of a chick! A couple days after the incubator chicks hatched a mama hen had 4 babies, 1 died the next day though. She is taking care of her 3 chicks and is so proud!
We are also raising 35 meat chicks. They grow super fast and only take 10 weeks till they are ready. Then we take them to the butcher and bring home nice, big frozen chickens! Home gown chicken is so much tastier than the store bought. Many of the store bought chickens are fed a very bad diet of old cookies (from factories) and recycled pig manure. Yuck! They sit in their own manure so bad their chest feathers get burned off due to the ammonia. Ours have a short happy life and get to go outside (once they are feathered out.)

Several Shetland Sheep Links

2011-06-20T05:39:00.000-07:00

I found another UK Shetland Breeder blog the other day.
http://www.purplehurdle.co.uk/blog.html also another UK breeder has a neat website with lots of Shetland sheep pictures (they also have Shetland X Poll Dorsets) and some wool pictures http://www.whaddongrove.co.uk/index.php .

Also a couple websites for related breeds (to the Shetland) sheep

North Ronaldsay http://nrsf.moonfruit.com/#

Soay http://www.soaysheep.org/index.html

Manx Loughtan http://vts2.dnsalias.com/manxbreeders/index.html

Cotswold Farm Park (rare sheep breeds) http://www.cotswoldfarmpark.co.uk/rare-breeds/

Turkey Trauma

2011-06-11T15:28:00.000-07:00

Sigh, our neighbor's wonderful dog attacked our "Tommy" (our tom turkey). "Tommy" has no tail and his back is chewed up really badly. (ie. no feathers and chunks of flesh gone.) I don't know if he's even make it. I gave him some banamine and he is acting a bit better. (If he's still acting bad tomorrow we'll have to put him down.) I think "Tommy"was protecting his feathered ladies. Poor "Tommy"!

To top it off one of the turkey chicks is dead. The weak one is the one who died.

Amazing Turkey Story

2011-06-08T06:30:00.000-07:00

We have three Bourbon Red hens and a tom. I had the suspicion that someone was trying to have babies as one of the hens had disappeared . Well last week the mother hen came out with one chick (poult). One. Sad sate of affairs to only have one baby! I wondered if some chicks may have gotten lost in the grass and found the nest. There was one empty shell and 2 eggs that had chicks in them, one of which had a hole pecked in it. 5 were very rotten eggs. (One can tell that they are rotten as they are light and there is liquid inside the egg.) I thought well maybe she know that those 2 wouldn't hatch (dead), but brought them in and put them in the incubator any way.

Oh, her one chick was not a "newborn" as he already had wing feathers.

Well the "dead" chick was alive after spending a couple hours warming up in the incubator. He was having trouble getting out so after leaving him for 2 or 3 hours with no progress we decided to help him. After he was out of the shell, dried and rested it was very apparent that he was not "right". He could not get up and kept flipping over and twisting when he tried. It is not very uncommon to have a chick with that kind of problem (it's caused by being in the shell in a funny way and a variety of other factors.) My mom and I did not want to put him down so we decided to wait and see what he was like the next day. (Chicks don't need to eat right after they hatch as just before they hatch the last of the egg yolk is absorbed by them.)

By morning he was still not "right". I have him a medicine dropper of sugar water and a tiny piece of boiled egg yolk in his beak (old farmer remedy for weak or stressed chicks. ) I would take him out and work with him several times a day. He still wanted to stand but, one of his legs kept going to the side and not working. I kept pushing his leg back to the right position each time. After two days he started getting weak and could not hold his head up. On Sunday morning I decided to give him propylene glycol in a medicine dropper. It worked he was stronger again . When we got back from church he was up and walking! Out to his mom who was locked up in a pen with her one chick he went. He was not sure what do do at first, but got the hang of it and at night both chicks were tucked up under her wing. I checked them on Monday morning and he was as wild as ever and fast! He hid under her tail when I came.

The other egg never hatched and was discarded after it started oozing.

Well all's well that ends well and the mom turkey has two babies! Yeah the hard work payed off.

Sheep on the Hillside

2011-06-02T16:13:00.000-07:00

I took a bunch of pictures of my sheep/goats on one of the hilly pastures. I love seeing sheep graze on hilly pastures!

Lambs and kids growing up

2011-05-30T18:58:00.000-07:00

Busy last couple weeks. Got everyone out on grass three week later than normal due to the cold weather. Dewomed in the rain-bad idea as I got drenched. Here are some of the babies. Sale sheep are for sale pending horns, fleece, conformation, and growth rate at at least three months.

PS23 Finch X PS23 Fife AI (Orion)-white, was born golden and still has a gold tone to his legs, tail and nose. Very silky and soft. He will probably be a smaller ram. He may be for sale.
White kid-I think this is the doe kid out of France and Danburry (TX buck)
PS23 Funzie X ??PS23 Fife?-Moorit horned ewe. Will need to do genetic testing if I want to register her.
She is a shy baby-here she is hiding behind mom.
PS23 Emrald X PS23 Fairlight-white ram lamb. Silky soft type fleece. May carry polled as his sire is a half poll/scurred ram. Twin sister is a keeper.
Windswept Lime X PS23 Fife-white (born with three small brown spots that faded) ewe. May be for sale.
Sheepy Hollow Sienna X PS23 Fairlight AI (Jings)- fawn katmoget/ghost katmoget? His dam is moorit and his sire is white. His sire sired one musket lamb last year (out of a musket ewe) and this year he sired this guy. All of his other lambs were white. This guy's marking have faded.

Color aside his is an excellent ram. His fleece is very fine and soft. He has great conformation and poll wool! A keeper for now.Close up of the previous ram lamb's face.
PS23 Ferndale AI (Gordon) X PS23 Campbell AI (Jericho)-fawn katmoget ram lamb. May be for sale.
Sabbath Farm Fonteyn X Drum Ram (AKA Black)- grey katmoget ram. He is a keeper! Very soft and crimpy fleece. Long and somewhat tall, nice build. He's freindly to boot!
PS23 Evening Primrose XPS23 Campbell AI (Jericho)-grey katmoget ewe. She has a longer silky fleece. A keeper for now.Just for fun a Shetland X Corriedale grey katmoget ewe.
PS23 Finch X PS23 Fife AI (Orion)-moorit gulmoget ram lamb. Very silky and soft. He will probably be a smaller ram. He may be for sale.
PS23 Forsythia X Drum Jings-grey ram. He has a white twin ram. (The white lamb in the picture is a crossbred lamb.) I haven't been able to catch him or his brother so don't know what their fleeces are like. I expect them to be soft and crimpy based on parentage. One may be for sale.Last, but definatly not least, is my bottle baby doe kid out of China X Danburry (TX buck.) She is a doll! Friendly, super friendly! (Most Angoras are shy.) She was born red with a darker red splash on her side. Very soft mohair. She is very vocal about her bottles. I got a video of her drinking just for fun.

All done kiddo. "I want more, please give me more!"

Interesting link

2011-05-16T19:13:00.000-07:00

This is a really neat article on some Angora goats and handspinners in another country, Tajikistan. The women there spin and sell yarn from the mohair for a living, somewhat like the women of other rural areas including the Shetland islands, did an era ago. There are some neat picture of the goats, women spinning, and the BEAUTIFUL yarn.

http://handeyemagazine.com/content/new-choices

Lambing/kidding stats

2011-05-07T05:40:00.000-07:00

PS23 Fife AI (Orion)-moorit very fine and crimpy
PS23 Essex (moorit)- 2 moorit rams
PS23 Daysong(grey katmoget)- moorit ram
PS23 Finch (white)-white/tan? ram and moorit gulmoget ram
PS23 Ely Cathedral (fawn katmoget)-moorit ram and fawn katmoget ewe

PS23 Edelwiess (musket katmoget)-fawn katmoget ram and fawn katmoget ewe

PS23 Campbell AI (Jericho)-fawn katmoget long fine crimpy fleece
Windswept Lime(white)- moorit ram and white with fading spots ewe
PS23 Dingdong (fawn blettet)-fawn katmoget ewe
PS23 Eastwind (emsket HST)-moorit krunet ewe
PS23 Evening Primrose (black gulmoget)-black ewe and grey katmoget ewe
PS23 Ferndale AI (Gordon black/sheala?)-black ewe and fawn katmoget ram, ram may be for sale
PS23 Flourance (white)-white ram
PS23 Fiona (black)-black krunet ewe and grey katmoget ewe

PS23 Fairlight AI (Jings)-white cimpy and fine, polled/scurred
PS23 Emrald (grey katmoget)-white ram and white ewe, ram may be for sale

Sheepy Hollow Sienna (moorit)-white ram and fawn "ghost" katmoget ram-this guy is super nice! May be for sale if I don't keep him

Alice white Merino-white ewe lamb

Fronzie white Shetland X Merino-white ram and white ewe

AI Jings (white)

PS23 Forsythia (grey)-grey ram and white ram

AI Drum Ram (black)

Sabbath Farm Fontyen (fawn katmoget)-stillborn fawn katmoget ram, grey katmoget ram and fawn katmoget ram

Sabbath Farm Silvia (grey)-grey ram

AI Island Skeld (white)

Sabbath Farm Swan (musket)-white ram and white ewe

UNK sire

PS23 Funzie AI(Jings grey katmoget)-moorit ewe. I think PS23 Fife is the sire, but will have to do parentage testing to register.

Garland (white Coopworth X Shetland/BFL)-white ram

Cooper-white Coopworth

Fuzz (white Shetland X Corriedale/Dorset)-white wether and white ewe

Febee (white Shetland X Merino)-white ram and white ewe

PS23 Bluebell (sheala iset)-white ewe and white ram

PS23 Cinderella (black iset)-2 white rams

PS23 Early Spring (moiget)-white ram

PS23 Ewe Won (mioget HST)-white ram

0364 (unregistered musket Shetland)-2 white rams

0367 (unregistered lt.grey Shetland)-2 white ewes

0369 (unregistered lt.grey Shetland)-white ram and white ewe

Windham-white (color carrier) Corriedale

Echo (grey katmoget Shetland X BFL)-2 white ewes

Fudge (charcoal Shetland X BFL)-white wether and charcoal ewe

PS23 Dove (white)-white ewe and grey katmoget ewe

PS23 Ewe Two (moorite)-white ram and white ewe

PS23 Felicity (white)- white ram

PS23 Easterlilly (white)-white ram and white ewe

PS23 Fairlie AI( Orion fawn)-white ewe with black dot on neck

Grant-colored (charcoal/grey) Coopworth

Bramble Jocelyn (moorit)-black ewe and black ram

UnderTheSon Sorelle (moorit iset)-black ewe and black ram

Longshadow Amber (musket)-2 grey rams and black ewe

UnderTheSon Claremori (fawn)-black ram and black ewe

PS23 Elm (lt. grey)-grey ram and black ram

0363(unregistered lt.grey Shetland)-black ewe and grey ram

Goats:

Albee-AAGBA white OR buck

England (CAGBA "black")-pale silver buck, cream buck, white doe

Pearl (CACBA faded red)-white buck, white doe

Eden(AAGBA white)-stillborn white buck

Caspian-faded red CAGBA buck

Belle(CAGBA white)-2 white bucks

Danburry-AAGBA white TX buck

China(CAGBA "black")-2 reddish bucks and a reddish doe with a darker spot on the side (they will look like white goats when they grow up)

Terra (AAGBA white)-white buck-died

Jade (AAGBA white)-white buck

Treasure(AAGBA white)-didn't kid

France (CAGBA white)-white doe

92 born out of 53 bred 174% lambing/kidding

182% with just the sheep, 220% for CAGBA does, 75% for AAGBA does (both kinds of goats together 133%.)

Out of 92 3 died/or were stillborn= 3% death loss

Summery: I really need to work on lambing percentages! The AAGBA goats do have an excuse for this year as 3 were from OR (one of the OR does is the one who didn't kid.) My goal is to get over or at least at 200%

Last year I had 166% lambing/kidding, so at least this year I did make a little progress (8% better.)

Lamb and kid pictures

2011-05-03T05:33:00.000-07:00

This is the youngest lamb-a single ewe. I love her! She is out of PS23 Funzie (F1 Jings). I don't know who her sire is as I thought her dam had settled to AI as I had put the teaser ram in and she didn't act like she came into heat. Haha to me she was in with everybody as I had stuck all the ewes and rams together when she did come in heat. I think PS23 Fife (F1 Orion) is her sire, but if I won't to register her I will need to do genetic testing. Or I can just keep her as an unregistered ewe.These are the youngest babies. Colorfield Farm Pearl had a buck and a doe out of Albee (the white AAGBA OR buck.)

This is the best black ewe lamb this year. She is out of PS23 Fiona and PS23 Campbell. She is keeper at this point.
This is her twin also a keeper.
PS23 Edelwiess'es ewe lamb (the other is a wether.) She'll probably be a keeper.

Thief! This lamb was caught in the act of stealing milk! She waited untill the opportune moment, when the ewe got up and was stretching to get a swig of milk. The moorit is her twin brother (a wether.) He had been born at night and his dam acted like she was done, but in the morning had a little "leftover" lamb! They are out of PS23 Ely Cathedral and PS23 Fife.

I have seen lambs trying to steal from does and vice versa this year. That looks funny when they do.

PS23 England had triplet kids out of Albee. The silver and pale cream are bucks and the white is a doe. The lamb in the background is out of PS23 Finch and PS23 Fife. He is a pale tan color. His twin brother is a moorit gulmoget.
Close up of the tan ram lamb. I'm guessing he is white genetically.
Moorit gulmoget ram lamb.

Greencastle Fiber Event

2011-05-02T16:12:00.000-07:00

Mud, rain, snow, rain and more snow. Were WI last month. Now it is May things can get sunny. The mud is starting to dry up and we have not had any rain yet this month. The grass is starting to grow, a little and I have enough hay for 3 more weeks now.

This year I went to Greencastle, IN Fiber Event for the first time. I've never been to the southern part of IN and the top part was boring, and flat. Greencastle area is really nice. It was somewhat hilly and there were quite a few trees. I don't think there were quite as many lakes and ponds as where I live in WI. I had a great time! I got to visit the Gygis and see all of their sheep. Wow, Theresa's "culls" are nicer or as nice as most of my "inbetween grade" sheep!! She has a very nice set up too. I showed a couple fleeces at the Fiber Event.

Shetland X Coopwoth (sire) lamb fleece

Shetland ewe fleece. This ewe is PS23 Funzie an F1 Jings, grey katmoget.

Shetland/BFL X Corriedale (sire) lamb fleece

Catching up

2011-04-26T04:55:00.000-07:00

The last babies were born yesterday! Yeah. Final lamb count and some individual pictures of purebred lambs to come on another post. I went to Stephenson County Fiber Event in IL on the 8'th and got back the 9'th late, then just enough time to repack and go to Greencastle Fiver Event in IN on the14'th early. I got back on the 17'th just half an hour before a doe had triplets. Someone did kid when I was gone, but the kid got stuck (both legs were back) and was stillborn. At least the doe is OK. She had acted "off" for a couple days. Now I just have to work on skirting and posting my fleeces and shear the rest of my boys. I got three done yesterday (plus the three yearling does), 11 to go!

A carpet of lambs! This year all of the lambs are tending to sleep in one or two big piles!More lamb carpet. I can't get the whole carpet in one picture. (There are both colored and white crossbred lambs and some colored and white pure Shetland lambs.)
This is what it looked like on the 19'th. 7 in. of heavy wet snow. A local farmer had a shed collapse under the weight of it. (These are my yearlings. The blue tarp is tied to a cattle panel and I locked all of the girls up as the snow was blowing right into their 3 1/2 sided shed, the tarp worked wonders!) It's raining today, again. This weather really is not good for anyone involved with agriculture. Normally farmers are plowing and starting to plant. They can't do that as the fields are pure mud. No grass for the grazers yet either. Now I just need to buy some more hay as I was counting on grazing after the first of May. That's not going to happen! Off to the hay auction...

(More on Greencastle later.)

Thoughts...

2011-04-02T06:01:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking...Next year I'm going to breed just 30-40 ewes and does to lamb/kid in the end of March. This group will have to be done by the second weekend in April. Then I will lamb out 20-30 more ewes in the second week in May. That should be enough time to get the first group out on pasture and get the second group shorn. This will give me more space. This year I had 53 ewes and does in the barn and it was way too crowded (I did use up some hay and kicked out 3 ewes and their lambs to the 3 1/2 sided shed. That did help a lot!)

The first group will be all the crossbred ewes as they don't get the rise and all of my Angora does. The Shetlands in this group will have to be the single coated ones as they definitely shear way better when not "ready". The first group will include the Shetland ewes bred to Shetland rams for purebred lambs. The Shetlands I will be purebreeding will mostly be single coated anyway as that is the fleece I need more of. (I'm thinking of doing around 12 Shetlands for purebred lambs next fall.)

The second group will probably be Shetland ewes bred for cross lambs and will include all of my double coated girls. I'm hoping they shear better at this time too. This should also give me an extended time to have lambs for sale for the ethnic market.

I'm also planning on direct marketing all of my lambs if possible. I have a truck now and if I have a full load I can drive down to Milwaukee and meet up will my customers. (I did not get a satisfactory price at all on my lambs that I took to Equity and I was given several different reasons why. My biggest guess is they don't like Shetlands #1 and #2 my LAMBS are bigger than many other breeders EWES. Reason-I fed my lambs well and they grew well. Some other Shetland breeders in my area don't feed their sheep enough or good enough quality feed and don't deworm enough-the result is a shrimpy, pot bellied, bony lamb. That is the kind of Shetland lamb that goes through Equity and when well fleshed, big ones come through they sell them as cull ewes.....I did sell 3 95# shorn Shetland/Coopworth lambs and they got a good price at Equity, but they did not look at all like Shetlands!)

I'm up to over 65 lambs and about 18 more to go. Lamb pictures soon!

AI lambs and others as of 3/26/11

2011-03-26T12:15:00.000-07:00

PS23 Essex had twin ram lambs out of PS23 Fife. The other looks just the same as this one.
Yesterday a ewe had some super tiny and weak crossbred lambs. One was only 3#5oz! The other was a couple oz. more. One could not even stand up until today. I don't know if they were early or what the deal was.
China had triplets out of Danburry (AAGBA buck.) This is the doe kid and she has a darker "spot" on her side. The other two are buck and are a pale red as well.
Sabbath Farm Fonteyn had triplet AI ram lambs out of Drum Ram (Black.) Unfortunately the first one was stillborn. He looked just like the grey katmoget except fawn katmoget and maybe a bit darker. The grey katmoget is darker in real life than in the picture.
Fontyen's fawn katmoget ram.
PS23 Eastwind had a moorit possibly fawn single ewe lamb out of PS23 Campbell. Eastwind is a HST (spotted) emsket so this girl should carry spots.
Eastwind's lamb again. She is hard to get a picture of as she was so bouncy and curious.
PS23 Forsythia had twin AI ram lambs of of Drum Jings. This one is light grey.
Forsythia's white ram lamb. I really like white Shetlands! These two both have the tiniest fluke shaped tails.

Hopefully the weather warms up soon so the snow can melt and the sheep can go outside. I also want to shear my ewe lambs and the boys....

Lambs and kids as of 3/24/11

2011-03-24T16:19:00.000-07:00

So far everyone survived the two day snow storm (this is not supposed to happen at the end of March. ) We got around 8 or 9 in. of snow and the ewes and does had to be locked up in the barn. I am so thankful that I did not get around to shearing my ewe lambs/doe kids or rams/bucks yet as they are in sheds and the snow blew in. They would have frozen! These are the little guys decided that it was time to come so far...

PS23 Dove had twin Corriedale/Shetland lambs. Both are ewes and have very crimpy birth coats. (Last years Corriedale/Shetland lambs had hairy birth coats, but were out of more double coated type ewes.)
Dove's white.
Dove's grey katmoget.
PS23 Ferndale had twin lambs out of PS23 Campbell. These lambs are F2 Jericho/Gordon. The black is a ewe. Yeah! as I need more blacks in my flock.
Ferndale's awn katmoget ram lamb. He should have nice wide horns.
Belle a white colorcarrier CAGBA doe had twin buck kids out of Caspian the faded red CAGBA buck that I got rid of last year. Both were chilled so warmed them in hot (not too hot to touch) water and then towel dried them and put them in a box with a hair drier for a homemade lamb/kid warmer. Angora kids are way more frail than lambs and the weather is not warm at all. Hopefully their dam takes them back... She should as she is the doe who's kid died last year and she took another doe's rejected kid before I tried any grafting tricks.

Shetland Lambs!

2011-03-22T05:46:00.000-07:00

PS23 Evening Primrose had twin ewe lambs out of PS23 Campbell. Campbell was a very nice long crimpy single coated fawn katmoget F1 Jericho. I had to send Campbell to market as he turned aggressive last year. I'm hopping these lambs turn out well! There are 6 more Campbell ewes to go.

Babies!!!

2011-03-14T05:38:00.000-07:00

Lambing and kidding is supposed to start on the 18'th...but the sheep had other plans. Three ewes had twins one the 9'th, 10'th and 11'th. That's what happens when my Coopworth ram jumps four fences to get in with the ewes and teaser ram. I didn't think he bred any, but I was wrong! At least these are all out of ewes who were to be crossbred. One of the ewes is 1/2 Shetland X 3/8 Corriedale/1/8 Dorset so her lambs are 1/2 Coopworth X 1/4 Shetland/ 3/16Corriedale/1/16 Dorset.

This little guy was trying to get comfortable and then figured out he can nurse laying down.
Fuzz the 1/2 Shetland X 3/8 Corriedale/1/8 Dorset (first time lamber) with her 1/2 Coopworth X 1/4 Shetland/ 3/16 Corriedale/1/16 Dorset lambs.
Sleeping Coopworth X Shetland baby.

I've been busy shearing my ewes and does before they start lambing. (I also deworm, vaccinate with CDT, and hoof trim them when I shear so I don't have to catch them twice.) After they are all shorn I'll start skirting their fleeces. I'd gotten behind this year a bit. First, I had some Shetland lambs who had to be shorn before going to market, and had to be kept in the barn until they went. Then I had to clean up the manure and get hay.
This is the barn after being sheep and goat proofed. The tarps are up so they don't try to get at the hay (what the can't see they don't want.) On the side is a pen make out of hog panels with the three ewes and their babies. I mostly do communal lambing pens, but can set up an individual pen if needed. Last year, I think only three needed a pen by themselves. One was a doe with a graftee kid, one ewe had triplets, and one had a weak/severely chilled kid. Yes, the barn does get very crowded, that is the biggest reason I shear before lambing (the other reasons are cleaner wool, drier barn as wet wool brings in a lot of moisture, and a cleaner udder area for the lambs.)

I have 41 more ewes and 9 does to lamb/kid. I hope, but some of my yearlings may be bred as a Shetland ram got in with them and that Cooworth got in with them on a different day. At least if any pure Shetland lambs are born from them I can register them as I'll know who the sire is. This year I have an empty three and one half sided shed and I'll put the first 10-12 ewes who lamb in there when things get crowded. (The yearlings are in the "cow shed" and the steer is in the freezer-where he belongs! He was very belligerent and would try "playing" with me if I had to go into his pen-not safe.)

Winter

2011-02-26T12:04:00.001-08:00

No, I didn't fall off the face of the Earth-yet. I've just gotten behind with things.

I sold all of my lambs (except the replacement ewe lambs of course.) Most were sold direct, but some through the system. I'll save that for another post though.

I took two of my biggest Shetland X Coopworth lambs to the butcher for my family and I got to compare carcasses with some of Wagners smalller purebred Coopworth lambs. (I do have pictures if anyone wants I can e-mail them, I just don't want to gross anyone out by putting them on here.) My cross lambs were quite a bit fattier (back fat and internal fat) than Wagners pure lambs (if I had taken them in a few weeks earlier they would not have been as fatty.) The carcasses were about the same size, but the pure Coopworth had a longer leg of lamb than the cross as they are taller animals. The interesting thing is even though my lambs were fatty the lamb chops were not fatty. If anything the lamb chops are actually less fatty than the pure Coopworth lambs.

Lambing will start at the end of March-the clock is ticking. I have quite a bit of spinning I want to do before lambing and I'll need to shear everyone as well.

On the fiber front, I started an Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/psalm23farm and can take Paypal now as well. (I still have my wool sale blog http://psalm23fibers.blogspot.com.)

I also am going to Greencastle, IN Fiber Event for the first time as a vendor in April. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. I'm nervous because I may still be lambing (my mom and sister will have to take care of my sheep and goats) and excited because I have never been to Greencastle before. Now I just need to wash and dye some more wool and mohair....

A New Guy and Some Visitors

2011-02-02T18:17:00.000-08:00

I was feeding my animals after the big snow storm we just had and looked over and thought "the horses are the wrong color", then "oh! the neighbors horses are here!" Two Norwegian Fjords, a donkey and a spotted horse came for a visit with my sister, Lydia's horses. While they were waiting for their "ride home" I served them some hay. (That was to distract them from getting into any trouble while their owner walked over.) Their owner got a halter on one and the rest all trotted back home.

The horses with sheep in the background.
A Fjord.

On Sunday a lovely kitten appeared. He/she is taming down a bit and is very cute. The two cats we already have are leaving ignoring at. They stay in the garage and it is in the barn with the chickens. The little guy slept next to a chicken last night. Now to think of a name...

To top off all that excitement I had a "blond" moment. This morning I had to dig trails and dig out gates so that I could feed everyone tonight. The flashlight that I keep in my coat pocket fell out. Then when I was almost done feeding tonight (it was twilight) I noticed that the snow was glowing. "Weird, why's the snow glowing?" I thought and then "ohh it's the flashlight." (I guess that's what happens when I stay up too late. My brothers were out with some friends and barely made it home. They got stuck three times and then gave up and managed to get a ride in a truck to our house and they all stayed as the rest of the kids lived farther away. Boys. Never. Think. Ok sometimes they do...)

Sheep know best

2011-01-29T18:02:00.001-08:00

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.)

Size Comparison

2011-01-25T05:33:00.000-08:00

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.)

Few more fleece shots

2011-01-24T18:04:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-24T08:47:00.000-08:00

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.

Replacemanet lambs

2011-01-05T18:41:00.000-08:00

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.)

A Scare

2011-01-04T05:41:00.000-08:00

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.

Winter Wonderland

2010-12-23T06:35:00.000-08:00

Snow covered trees are so beautiful.
Close up of a tree to show how much snow there is on the trees.

Driving down Lax Chapel Rd.

Shoe Lake, a lake down the road from us, covered in snow.
Sheep in snow. (These are Hidden Valley Farm's Coopworth ewe lambs and a couple "old ladies.")

Huge Snow Storm

2010-12-16T05:42:00.000-08:00

On Sunday we got a huge dump of snow. I had three sheep who were buried-only their heads and part of their backs were sticking out. One of those sheep was even standing up when she got buried! I had to run in and check my records to see how many I was supposed to have in that group and then count them all.

All the sheep and goat pens have huge drifts almost to the top of the fence. Yesterday I to had to dig the fences out as the night before a couple ram lambs and a buck kid jumped over their fence. All the feed and water tubs were buried and I had to walk around in the deep snow and find them with my feet hoping to step on them. I found about half, but will just have to make do. (The ewe lambs can get their oats and barley on top of their hay and the goats and market lambs get their tubs.) It's in the single digits now and last night it got down to 3* F.

Maybe on Saturday I'll have time the make Christmas cookies and spin!

This is a fence and a gate (hog panel) before I dug it out.

Here I'm standing on top of a snow drift looking down at the "cow pen" and steer- just a little strip is left for him to walk around on.

I'm looking down at a ram lamb from my mountain (snow drift) that I have to climb to feed everyone.
I'm viewing the goats from on top of the other side of the mountain. There also had been a big drift in front of their shed, but I had already shoveled it away.

At least some snow drifts are pretty!

Projects

2010-11-29T05:41:00.000-08:00

This fall after scrambling to get the "pre-winter" chores done I get to spin and crochet! (It gets dark early.) I still have to fix the ram pen aka the "jail" fixed. Between an aggressive Angora buck (now gone for slaughter) and an aggressive Shetland ram who is wearing a ram shield and will go to market soon, those two boys really smashed up the fence which is made of cattle panels- so time to rebuild. (Both those boys behaved last year, but then this year they turned naughty. Both were 4 years old.) I also need to fix the "cow" shed (cattle by the way a quite destructive-just for fun or maybe their just clumsy) and they knocked the boards down on the front side of their shed. (This is the last winter with a cow {actually a steer} in the "cow" shed, next year my Angora goats get it.) The last two "pre-winter" projects are to help my Mom put all the garden stuff away and fix the lambing pen fence. I just finished cleaning out two years worth of cow manure from the "cow"shed... last winter came early and that job did not get done.
This is a skein of intermediate Shetland lamb and mohair locks.
On the wheel is some short single coated moorit Shetland lamb and more mohair locks. Wow, the short wool spins so much better for this type of yarn (I tried it with some Coopworth, but that did not work at all and the intermediate Shetland was a lot more work to draft than the short single coated Shetland. Corriedale also works well for this yarn. I like longer wool for spinning plain yarn though.)

I just learned a new crochet stitch-broomstick lace. It is really easy and fun to do. The teal knitting needle is the broomstick. I'm using some of Craigrothie's (one of my Shetland rams) handspun lambswool. The scarf is very soft and airy. I also crocheted a scarf using some of the white millspun 67% Shetland/BFL lamb/33% mohair yarn that I sell. This yarn was space dyed/hand painted.

2010 Breeding Groups

2010-11-01T06:03:00.000-07:00

I've been really busy around here. Last week we had a really strong wind storm and the goats' shed blew away and got smashed with the goats in it. The goats are fine, but were cold when I found them. They are temporarily living in the cow shed. The steer is a lot tougher than shorn Angoras! Got to work on fixing that now.

Did AI on 5 ewes this past Sat. at Hidden Valley Woolen Mill. There were a total of about 35- 40 sheep done. Breeds done included Shetlands, Coopworths, % Teeswaters, % Gotlands, one ewe was bred to Racka, and one Dorset to East Frisian. It's always nice to see other sheep producers.

PS23 Campbell- fawn katmoget (F1 Jericho) fine, very soft fleece is getting 7 ewes

PS23 Dingdong- fawn, very silky soft fleece, may carry spots (100% Dailley)
Windswept Lime-white, bold crimped, shiny fleece (F2 Jings)
PS23 Finch- black, cimpy fleece (F2 Greyling, F3 Holly/ Jericho)
PS23 Ferndale-black, crimpy fleece (F1 Gordon, F3 Jericho)
PS23 Flourance-white, bold crimped, very soft and silky fleece (F2 Skeld, F3 Brent, F4 Skeld, Jericho) smaller ewe
PS23 Evening Primrose-sheala gulmoget, long silky fleece (some UK way back)
PS23 Eastwind-emsket HST (spotted), long fleece (some UK way back)

PS23 Campbell's fleece

PS23 Fife- moorit (F1 Orion, F4 Minder/ Timothy) very fine and soft fleece is getting 5 girls

PS23 Daysong- grey katmoget, soft crimpy single coat, may carry spots and modified (F2 Jericho)
PS23 Edelweiss-musket katmoget, very silky soft single coat (F2 Brent, F3 Skeld/ Jericho)
PS23 Ely Cathedral-fawn katmoget, bold crimped fleece (F3 Jericho as well as some other UK way back)
PS23 Essex-moorit, soft loosely crimped fleece (F2 Jericho)
PS23 Finch-white, long silky fleece (F2 Dillon, F3 Jericho/ Skeld) PS23 Fife's fleece

PS23 Fairlight- white (F1 Jings, F3 Greyling/ Holly) very fine, crimpy and soft fleece. Polled/scurred. He is getting 2 Shetland girls and the Merino.

PS23 Emrald-grey katmoget (F2 Jericho) very silky soft fleece
SheepyHollow Sienna-moorit (F3 Timothy/ Minder, F4 Jamie) very fine single coat. Horned ewe
Alice-white purebred Merino PS23 Fairlight's fleece

AI Group (not sure who I'll use as a clean up ram/s yet.) I picked this group based on size, fleece, production (and potential production for the 2 maiden ewes) and all around conformation.

PS23 Funzie-grey katmoget (F1 Jings, F3 Greyling/Holly) very fine, crimpy and soft fleece. Horned ewe (Fairlight's twin.)
Sabbath Farm Sawn-musket (100% Dailley) Very silky, soft fleece (she had twins and one of her lambs, PS23 Goldenrod, is the biggest pure lamb I have)

Both these girls were AI'ed to Island Skeld a very nice white ram.

PS23 Forsythia-light grey (F2 Gretling/Holly, F3 Skeld) very fine, crimpy single coat

She was bred to Drum Jings a nice white ram.

Sabbath Farm Silvia-light grey (100% Dailley) Very silky, soft fleece (her twins are both good sizes and have better fleeces than her.)
Sabbth Farm Fonteyn-fawn katmoget (F2 Greyling/Holly) crimpy single coat (she had triplets that grew fairly well without being supplemented) Horned ewe.

Both these girls were bred to Drum Ram a nice black ram.

Cross groups for commercial ewes and market lambs:
(All PS23 sheep are purebred registered Shetlands.)

Cooper-white purebred Coopworth ram is getting 10 girls
5 unregistered Shetlands (3 light grey and 2 musket)
Febee-white Shetland x Merino
Fuzz-white Shetland X Corriedale/1/8 Dorset
PS23 Elm-light grey, fine double coat (100% Dailley)
PS23 Early Spring-mioget, fine double coat (Some UK way back)
PS23 Ewe Won-mioget HST (spotted), fine double coat (100% Dailley) Cooper's fleece

Windham-white (color carrier) purebred (Australian style-smaller than the show type) Corriedale is getting 7 ewes.

Fudge- charcoal Shetland X Bluefaced Leicester
Eco-grey katmoget Shetland X Bluefaced Leicester
PS23 Easterlilly-white, single coat (F2 Skeld)
PS23 Dove-white, bold crimped, silky single coat (F2 Skeld/Jericho)
PS23 Felicity-white, single coat (F2 Skeld, F3 Jericho)
PS23 Fairlie-fawn (F1 Orion), fine double coat
PS23 Ewe Two-moorit, single coat (F2 Orion)
Windham's fleece

#267 (need to think of a name)-charcoal purebred Coopworth ram lamb is getting 7 girls. (I got him as Cooper does not carry color and I have a demand for colored fleeces.)

Fronzie-white Shetland X Merino
PS23 Bluebell-sheala iset, double coat (F3 Jamie)
Bramble Jocelyn-moorit, fine double coat/intermediate (100% Dailley)
UnderTheSon Sorrelle-moorit, double coat (100% Dailley)
UnderTheSon Claremori-fawn, fine double coat/intermediate
PS23 Cinderella-black iset, double coat (Some UK way back)
Longshadow Amber-dark musket, silky soft fleece (100% Dailley) Both photos are #267's fleece

For goats:

Caspian-faded red CAGBA buck is getting 1 doe (was going to breed him to Pearl, but found out she is his dam's full sister. Also too related to the other CAGBA does as two are his daughters and one is a cousin.)

Belle-white color carrier CAGBA doe (threw silver once)

Albee-white AAGBA buck from OR (kids out of CAGBA x AAGBA can be CAGBA registered)

Eden-AAGBA white TX doe
Pearl-faded red/taupe CAGBA doe
England-grey CAGBA doe

Danburry-white AAGBA TX buck

Terra-AAGBA white doe
Jade-AAGBA white doe
Treasure-AAGBA white doe
China-black CAGBA doe
France-white color carrier CAGBA doe

Next year I am planning on buying or leasing a black or faded red buck to get color back into the herd as all the kids will be white or very pale faded reds.
#267

YEAH!

2010-10-27T05:22:00.000-07:00

Three of my Angora does were not registered (CAGBA) and since one or both their parents were not registered they had to be registered by inspection. One can choose physical inspection or photo inspection. I chose photo inspection ( as I tried to do the physical inspection a couple years ago, but could to take the goats to the show in MI, due to WI state rules.) For the photo inspection one needs 12 pictures of the goats (shorn and full fleece) as well as the entire unskirted fleece. The fleeces/photos are mailed to a show where the the inspection is held. A goat has to pass three judges (they have a list of traits they check) to be registered.

I am quite pleased to say that all three passed! Now all of my goats are registered.
China's side shot in full fleece and then shorn.
England in full fleece and shorn.

Belle in full fleece and then shorn.

A Bit Of Fall Color

2010-10-23T05:34:00.000-07:00

We went on a walk in the kettle moriane on Sunday, here are some of the beautiful fall leaves. Most had fallen down already though.

I been very busy around here, I got my sheep jacketed and sorted the ewe lambs and AI ewes out of the rest of the ewes who will be bred. (I finished making the coats that I needed for the sheep, but need to finish the goats' coats!) On Monday I plan to break the sheep and goats into breeding groups, but before I can do that I need to set up electric netting to subdivide the pasture.

Ewes grazing and market lambs

2010-10-08T04:55:00.000-07:00

Ewes, replacement ewe lambs and a couple small (unshorn) market lambs enjoying some of the last grass. I am afraid that the grass will run out about a month earlier than last year. At leat I have some of my winter hay. Now just to keep working and the sheep coats I'm making...

I had decided to save money by making my own sheep coats this year. I can buy a coat for $15 each or make them for $3.70 each (not counting my time) so since I need about 50-60 coats that's quite a savings. Eleven done... (The rest are all cut out.)
The blacks are Corriedale X Shetlands and the whites are Shetland X Coopworth. The Shetland X Coopworth are defiantly bigger, but the two sets of Corriedale X Shetlands are out of first time lambers and they are black while all the Coopworth X Shetlands are white. In Paul and Carol's Coopworth flock the whites are always bigger so I don't know if that would hold true for the Corriedales or not. I will do the Corriedale cross again this fall (that will give me more to judge on) and he will get more than two ewes!
Shetland X Corriedale
Shetland X CoopworthThe Coopworth X Shetland fleeces are very nice. They are not kempy like the North Country Cheviot X Shetlands and they are heavier (by about 1#), shinier, longer and silkier than the Bluefaced Leicester X Shetlands.
Another Coopworth X Shetland. I am keeping seven Coopworth X Shetlands. They will not be bred this year. Next year I may get a terminal sire or use the Corriedale on them. (The Corriedale sired lamb out of the Shetland X Bluefaced Leicester is great-she is about 100# and has a wonderful soft, dense, bold crimped, silky soft charcoal fleece-I'm keeping her as well.)
The Corriedale X Shetland fleeces are great colors, but of the four two are kind of double coated (this is one of those.) I can pull of guard hairs out and they area different color, but it is not a typical double coat. The hand on these two is kind of like a down wool. One of the other two is crimpy and very soft and the other is very long, soft and is like an intermediate Shetland.

One other thing. The Coopworth X Shetlands are great to shear-the fleeces cut through like butter, while of the Corriedal crosses one was great to shear and the other three were like cutting through a brick. I could not get to the skin level on those three and I started to wonder if my blade shears were dull, but they weren't as I did some more Coopworth X Shetlands after them.

Good to be home

2010-09-30T18:28:00.000-07:00

I had to get a SVT (super ventricular tachycardia) ablation yesterday to remove extra electrical path ways in my heart which were causing tachycardia (fast heart rate). (I had an episode of some palpitations in the spring and after jumping through all the hoops and getting all sorts of tests done that's what they found out.) The scary thing is I was put on a monitor for a month and I had to send the reading through the phone for the NP to read and I only noticed the palpitations once or twice and there were five automatic readings a day that I had to send. Basically if I didn't find out or get it done I would have gotten heart failure.

So yesterday morning I went to the hospital (my Mom took me) and I got the procedure (technically not surgery) done. The cardiologist uses a wire and goes up through the artery in ones' groin to the heart and finds the extra pathways and ablates (kills) them. I was kept there over night for observation and now I'm home. It's so nice to be home. Now I can't lift more than 10 # for 4 days. The reason is they don't want the artery popping open and oozing or bleeding.

The couple days before the procedure I got my goats shorn and my 19 market lambs shorn-they look very nice by the way. I'll have to do a post on them. (I have 10 small market lambs that I decided not to shear as well as the 19. 8 are pure Shetlands and 2 are crosses who didn't grow well. They will be shorn in the spring and sent to the Easter market.) I didn't shear my little TX kid-Grace as she is very thin and has bottle jaw. I have been deworming (she got dewormed 3 or 4 more times than any one else) her all summer and she just seems not to be able to handle worms. I dewormed her with Valbazen and then I'm going to use Ivermectin. (I heard that in severe cases one should use one and then the other after ten days.) I just hope she'll be ok! The poor little thing eats, but is weak.

Cow for sale

2010-09-17T05:17:00.000-07:00

Picture taken last fall after she freshened.

I have a Jersey cow bred to Honour-polled (one of Genex'es bulls) for an end of Oct. calf (she is vet checked). The cow is 3 years old and this will be her second freshening (she's dry now.) She is halter trained and also trained for hand milking (I also used a belly milker a couple times with her.) She would be a great family cow. I'm selling her as I need the shed/pasture space for my flock of sheep and goats. She is $1200.

WI Sheep and Wool

2010-09-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

I had a great weekend at the WI Sheep and Wool Festival. I had a vendor booth to keep me busy on Fri. and Sat. (I don't sell on Sun. so a friend sold some of her product in the booth space on Sun.) I sold roving, yarn, handspun mohair lock yarn, mohair locks, raw fleeces, sheepskins and combed top.
I bought a skirting table. This will be nice as I have used a ping pong table for the past couple years.
I showed several fleeces in the fleece show and Everest my teaser ram's fleece got a second.
The judge did not like my Corriedale fleece (she said it was not consistent and was OK for commercial), but liked the Coopworth fleece. Here is Everest's fleece.

Also had a great time visiting all my sheep and Angora goat breeder and fiber friends. Thanks Tori Gygi for explaining some sheep conformation (shoulders and backs) to me!

It rained when I was gone here at home quite a bit (I left on Thur. and got back Sun.) and when I got back the grass had grown about 1/2 in.! Aug. was dry so the rain is greatly appreciated.

I got a couple new pages up -Shetland Ewes , Shetland Ewe Lambs and Commercial Ewes .

Pied Piper

2010-09-06T05:10:00.000-07:00

I walked out to the pasture and there were sheep and goats scattered around.
I yelled "sheep!" and they came crowding around. Am I the Pied Pier?! I must be as they are all standing there waiting.OK I get the message-I'm supposed to open up the fence so the can get new grass. Let rip...

They are always in such a hurry to get the new tasty grass!

I created a page for my Angora does and am working on a page for some of the Shetland ewes.

Weaning

2010-08-13T17:01:00.000-07:00

I have been really busy the last couple months. I have been washing and dying wool and mohair, cutting weeds, cleaning up manure and setting up fences/moving sheep. I weaned all my lambs about a week and a half ago. When I wean I also weigh all of them so I can see how they grew (which ewes are doing a good job and which are not.) Most of the Shetland lambs were 40# and most of the cross lambs were 50-55#. A couple singles were 70-80#. I also weighed a couple of my yearling ewes. I weighed an average (for my flock) sized Shetland yearling ewe and she was 80#. That's good. I also weighed the smallest -way smaller than the rest-yearling ewe and she was 50#. Wow. She's a cull! Way too small. (I have had ewes who were 60-65# and they generally can't keep up with feeding twins.)
Here some the lambs and yearlings are resting together.
This is what the ewes enjoying their "ladies retreat" looked like this morning.
This is what they looked like immediately after I refilled their mineral tub!

The big boys are all in a bachelor group as well. They are being moved around on weed patrol in the winter pens and around the drive way.

More on Soays

2010-07-27T19:45:00.000-07:00

Some of the Soays did have hair mains. Interesting thing, at the Cotswold Farm Park they do not selectively breed the Soays. Rather they leave all the rams and ewes together, as was the historical way, and a head ram breeds all the ewes every year until another ram takes over. (I think that they had a flock of about 50 Soay ewes.) That way they do not change the breed.

The Soays have a very light fleece-they are not shorn (at the Cotswold Farm Park), but if they were I would guess only 1/2# of wool.

The Cotswold Farm Park has a website http://www.cotswoldfarmpark.co.uk/rare-breeds-animals.php?id=sheep-primitive They also have other rare breeds of sheep including Shetlands, North Ronaldsay, Castlemilk Moorit, Herdwick and several other rare breeds of sheep. They also have a variety of rare breeds of cattle, horses, goats, and pigs. They also run a large flock of commercial ewes .

Micron test samples

2010-07-26T11:42:00.000-07:00

I sent in samples from the four ram lambs that I kept last year:

PS23 Fife (moorit)an F1 Orion is 23.7 Ave, 5.4 SD, 22.6 CV, 9.5 CEM, SF23.4 and CF 88.7 (Note: very soft, but a bit cottony, very crimpy, tight crimp.)

PS23 Fairlight(white) an F1 Jings is 26.6 Ave, 6.3 SD, 23.8 CV, 10.6 CEM, 26.6 SF and 72.1 CF (note: soft, silky hand and a meduim crimp)

PS23 Fandango (grey katmoget) an F2 Greyling/F3 Orion is 25.8 Ave, 5.8 SD, 22.5 CV, 9.9 CEM, 23.4 SF and 89.4 CF (note: silky hand and meduim crimp)

PS23 Fetlar (fawn/mioget) an F1 Orion is 28.0 Ave, 7.1 SD,25.3 CV, 14.1 CEM, 28.4 SF, 67.9 CF

Fetlar's crimp changed just past mid-side and this is the count from between midside and rump 31.4 Ave, 10.0 SD, 31.8 CV, 20.2 CEM, 34.0 SF, 48.7 CF (single coated changing to more double coated-second test has a double peak and first does not.)

Thoughts on Fetlar? (His adult fleece still changes, but is not as noticeable.)

I also send in samples from my two crossing sires:

Cooper the Coopworth is 42.1 Ave, 6.0 SD, 14.2 CV, 9.6 CEM, 39.0 SF, 3.o CF (note: Coopworth is a longwool and has a smoother scales, more like mohair, so does not feel as coarse as it is. Also Coopworth rams are quite a bit coarser than the ewes.)

Windham the Corriedale (lamb sample and looser crimp than normal for Corriedale) is 21.5 Ave, 5.1 SD, 23.8 CV, 9.1 CEM,21.5 SF 95.9 CF

I also sent in some samples from some Shetland fleeces that I had bought in Scotland from Rena Douglas's flock.

Moorit ewe 26.2 Ave, 6.3 SD, 24.1 CV, 11.8 CEM, 26.2 SF, 76.8 CF (note: this fleece was down like and did not have the best hand.)

Grey katmoget (darker them most of our kats looked a lot like Theresa's Dreamie) ram 27.2 Ave, 4.9 SD, 18.0 CV, 8.7 CEM 25.9 SF, 75.6 CF
(note: this fleece had an excellent hand and a tight crimp.)

Britch from grey katmoget ram 31.5 Ave, 8.6 SD, 27.4 CV 11.8 CEM, 32.5 SF, 51.0 CF

Black ewe 23.5 Ave, 5.0 SD, 21.2 CV, 8.9 CEM, 22.9 SF, 90.3 CF (note: this fleece also had an excellent hand and had a loose crimp.)

And now two Soay (Shetland sheep's cousins)samples from the Cotswold Farm Park in England.

Dark brown Soay 20.6 Ave, 4.0 SD, 19.3 CV, 8.3 CEM, 19.8 SF, 98.0 CF

Fawn Soay 24.0 Ave, 5.1 SD, 21.5 CV, 9.6 CEM, 23.4 SF, 89.4 CF

Wow! The Soay is FINE! It is very soft, has a very short staple of about 1 1/2- 2 in. and has a loose crimp.

For info on understanding micron counts Garret Ramsey has a great explanation on his website.

A couple neat websites

2010-07-26T05:15:00.000-07:00

I found a couple neat websites. One is Mohair USA http://www.mohairusa.com/index.php and under industry news it shows how much commercial mohair sells for. The prices range from $2.50 for defective mohair to $5.40 for kid. That is a lot more than commercial wool which can range from $0.25 for good Suffolk-$2.00 for good Merino. (Prices can be much lower for wool depending on the year.)

Talking about commercial wool part of the problem (with the low prices) is much of the wool is very dirty and the growers don't put an emphasis on keeping it clean. The buyers don't like that and give a low price. Now to make matters worse even if there is a shepherd who has beautifully clean wool it is usually not enough to make a bale and gets mixed with the much lower quality wool that comes in at the same time period and then the price is based on the low quality wool. Then the shepherd with the clean high quality wool thinks "what's the point of going to all the extra work of keeping the wool clean just to get a poor price." Then he doesn't bother with all the extra work of about keeping the wool clean so next year he too has low quality wool. One farmer actually lost money by sorting out his belly wool. The good wool was $0.25 a # at the time and belly was $0.10 a #. He sorted his wool for two years and then the third year he decided to leave the bellies in. He got $0.25 a # (for the wool with the bellies) so for two years he lost $0.15# on the belly wool. If he had 600# of belly then that would be $90.00!

Also found a really deep article on crimp by an Alpaca breeder http://www.belleauwood.com/Crimp.htm This article describes crimp, compares the crimp of Alpaca to the crimp in Merino, and compares high crimp fine-wools to low-crimp fine wools and how they have different end results. The low-crimp fine wools have a better hand, but the high-crimp fine-wools were better for sweaters and other woolen products. A good read!

This website http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/techniques/polarized/gallery/pages/hairsindex.html shows pictures of Merino-Mohair and Angora bunny - cow hair at the microscopic level.

The last one http://www.singingfalls.com/index.html is a website by an Angora goat farm. I really like their doll hair page at the bottom there are some dolls with some of the mohair doll hair. Pretty neat!

A couple pictures

2010-07-17T19:06:00.000-07:00

Germany and Geneva twin faded red doe kids out of CFF Pearl (a CAGBA doe) and Danburry the Texas buck (AAGBA). Both will be CAGBA registered. Both are keepers at this piont. VERY nice fleeces!
Nice big single Shetland x Coopworth is bigger than his dam.

Sea of sheep and goats

2010-07-14T06:17:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I dewormed and vaccinated (with CDT) my sheep and goats. Here they are in a hold pen. I have a primitive chute system using the lane that goes down between the winter pens. Both ends are gated off and I run a bunch of sheep into the lane and then use a panel that I swing shut to make the lane smaller and then use another panel that I can swing shut after the other is closed to really crowd them so they can't jump and run around too much.

I used to just have the sheep in a pen and run and chase each one down to treat them and mark them off the list, but a chute system works much better. Now with a smaller group (10-12) getting treated at a time I don't even need to mark them down to remember which I did. I used to absolutely hate deworming my sheep, but now I enjoy it as it is so much easier and I also like to see how the lambs are growing and how their fleeces are turning out.

Most of the lambs have excellent growth rate this year. Most of the lambs also have great fleeces. Only two purebred lambs out of 30 purebred lambs have coarse, harsh fleeces. Most of the cross lambs have nice fleeces as well.

One lamb, Amber's black ewe seemed harsh fleeced when she was younger, but now her fleece is very soft (and very black, and some crimp is starting to come!) Weird. She is a keeper (I need more black wool.)

Ooo the Angora kids... This years kids have the best fleeces I have ever produced! They are so soft, silky and some are even quite dense. The doe kid, "Grace" also known as "Texas Kid", out of both the Texas buck and the Texas doe, has the absolute best fleece. It is like cashmere, but silkier and shiny.
Oh the new OR goats are doing great (they are still in quarantine, but are getting plenty of grass.)

New Goats

2010-07-05T12:08:00.000-07:00

These goats came from Carol Ronan's high quality herd. In the past I have wistfully looked at Carol's goats on her website, but knew it was too far for me to go to get goats!
Thanks to Garrett Ramsey for making it possible to get goats from OR! Garrett picked up the goats at BSG and then dropped them off at Heather Landin's farm in Baldwin, WI. Thanks Garrett and Heather!

Also a special thanks to Linda Brion , Sheeps and Me, for letting me use her sheep hauling van to go get them with!

I spent all last Wednesday driving. The drive was nice, but quite long. I drove through a long stretch of forests and an Amish community. I tried to take pictures, but they didn't all turn out. Here are a couple though.Now the goats!
Treasure is a 6 year old doe with a nice fine fleece.
Terra is a 4 year old doe also with a fine fleece. She has "mohair ears" too! A breeder in TX told me that goats with mohair on their ears have heavier fleeces than those that don't. Her horns arn't perfect, but her twin had nice horns. I don't mind as I don't plan on showing.
Jade is a 2 year old doe and had twins this spring. (the other two does were left open.) Her fleece is not quite as fine as the others, but is still very nice and shiny and silky!
Albee is a 1 year old buck. He has a very nice temperament and very nice locks.

Terra and Treasure were shorn quite a bit later than the other two. That is why their mohair is shorter!

I'm really pleased with the new goats. They are not wild, nor are they too tame. They seem to have handled the move better than the TX goats even though they are from farther away. My guess is it is because OR is more like WI in weather conditions than TX is to WI.

I look forward to crossing them to both the colored CAGBA goats and the white AAGBA goats from TX. Hmm... next spring I might have a hard time deciding which kids to keep!

Storm

2010-06-26T05:15:00.000-07:00

While we were in Green Bay enjoying the botanical garden a big storm came through (not sure if it was a real tornado, but it still did damage!) The power was out for about five hours as a power line post broke at a neighbor's house. I think this was the biggest storm we've ever had.

The barn door must have been blowing around as that t-post had been on the outside and was in the inside when we got home. Thankfully the barn door is fine.The tarp sheds I made last fall are kind of squashed!

The chimney broke.
This tailor moved about 80* in the wind.
A small shed blew into our laundry line and both smashed.
A neighbor's hay wagon blew over.
Another neighbor's tree came down (so did lots of other trees and branches.)

Thankfully both my fencers were fine and no animal was hurt. A calf hutch blew about 25-30 ft., knocking down some fences on the way, into the pasture where the sheep and goats were.

Green Bay Botanical Garden

2010-06-24T16:34:00.000-07:00

My Mom, sister, a guest from England and I went to the botanical garden on Wed. It was beautiful! Warning-photo heavy. This is just a very small fraction of what there was to see.

There was a flower kaleidoscope (made with real flowers.) These pictures were taken through the viewing lens.

Under the grape vines on this display was a nest with some baby birds (scroll down.)
This baby bird was adorable. He was pokeing his head out and looking
English Garden.

I loved the roof on one of the gazebos.

2010 Shetland lambs and some Angora kids

2010-05-24T05:28:00.000-07:00

PS23 Emrald's grey gulmoget/katmoget ewe lamb out of SheltringPines Justinian (F1 Dillon). Very soft fleece. A keeper
Emrald's black gulmoget out of SheltringPines Justinian (F1 Dillon). Nice silky soft fleece. May be a keeper.
Sabbath Farm Swan x PS23 Fife (F1 Orion) musket ewe. A keeper! Very fine, crimpy and soft!
Swan's other lamb- a dark musket ewe. May be for sale. Long silky fleece.
PS23 Daysong and PS23 Fairlight (F1 Jings) ewe lamb-a keeper. Nice fleece. Love her build. (No she doesn't hock in-just standing weird.)
Daysong's other ewe also a keeper!
Longshadow Amber's lambs out of PS23 Fandango (F2 Greyling). Musket is a keeper and has a long silky soft fleece. (Black may go to market as her fleece is harsh right now.)
Sheepy Hollow Sienna's musket ewe lambs out of PS23 Drummond (F1 Brent) one is a keeper and one for sale. Both have long silky and soft fleeces.
PS23 Easterlilly's grey gulmoget out of ShetlringPines Justinian(F1 Dillon). Longer silky fleece. A keeper.Easterlilly's ram. (AG) grey (carries solid) May be polled. Fleece is softer and finer than his twins. May be for sale.
Fonteyn's ram musket katmoget ram lamb . For sale
Fonteyn's second musket Katmoget ram lamb. May be for sale.

Musket (carries solid moorit) ram out of Sabbath Farm Fonteyn and PS23 Drummond (F1 Brent). For sale.Fleece shot of one of the triplets-their fleeces are very similar. All three have long silky fine fleeces. The musket is a bit denser than the other two.
Grey gulmoget/katmget (also carries brown) ram out of PS23 Edelweiss and SheltringPines Justinian(F1 Dillon). Long silky, fine fleece. For sale.

Both are Windswept Lime's ewes out of PS23 Fandango (F2 Greyling). Both have very soft crimpy, fleeces. One is a defiantly a keeper and I may sell one.

Sabbath Farm Silvia's twins out of PS23 Fairlight (F1 Jings) Ewe- a keeper and left and ram to the right-for sale. Very fine crimpy fleeces on both.Nice hindies on these two. (Above lambs)AAGBA pure white doe kid out of Eden my TX doe and the TX buck. Very, very nice! A keeper of course.
CAGBA faded red doe kids out of Pearl a faded red doe and the TX buck. Nice. Both keepers.

Few Updates

2010-05-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

The red clover I planted is up and has the third leaf already (there are two seed leaves and then a single leaf.) YES!

I dewormed lambs/kids last Sat. so got to see them "up close and personal." The Coopworth cross lambs are really nice. They looked lighter than they were and there were quite a few twins that I thought were singles (because of their size) until I looked up who's lamb they were. So far the most of the fleeces are very soft and lustrous. (There are a few lambs out of double coated ewes who are not as soft.) They are silkier than the Shetland/BFL lambs were at that age. It will be interesting to see how they finish out and what their adult fleeces will be like.

Here is PS23 Elm with her Coopworth cross wether. She is feeding 1 1/2 lambs as another ewe had twins at the same time as her and one of those lambs drinks (she thinks it's hers) from both her and it's dam.
Yearling Shetland ewe Flourance (left open) on left and Coopworth cross lamb on right.
PS23 Cinderella with one of her Coopworth cross lambs.

I only had two sets of Corriedale cross lambs out of Shetland ewes and both were first time lambers. Both sets of lambs were lighter than the Coopworth cross lambs and both set have harsh feeling fleeces (could be from the dam side as both ewes are more double coated.) There is also a Corriedale X Shetland/BFL ewe lamb with a very nice fleece!
I am not making a judgment based on two or three sets of lambs as that really is not enough for comparison.PS23 Early Spring with twin Corriedale cross lambs.One of PS23 Evening Primrose's Corriedale cross lambs.

Eco a Shetland/BFL had a huge single "English blue" Corriedale cross ewe lamb. This one has a nice fleece so far.

Sheep for sale

2010-05-10T06:19:00.000-07:00

PS23 Drummond, a 3 year old musket (carries solid moorit), F1 Brent is available for $150. I have several of his daughters (as well as some grand daughters) that I am retaining. Drummond has a long silky type fleece. (See below-His dam's adult fleece very similar to his won reserved Champion at two shows under two different judges.)Drummond is not aggressive and respects people, however he does not respect fences during breeding time. That problem is solved by putting a ram shield on. (I do have extra ram shields and can can throw one in.) He does respect electric fences.

PS23 Campbell, a 4 year old fawn katmoget F1 Jericho will be available in mid Nov. (after I use him one more time) for $200. I do have several of his daughters that I am keeping as well as some future lambs! Campbell is a very respectful ram. Campbell is a small framed ram-probably 85#.

Campbell's fleece (see below) is very fine and very crimpy. His fleece is silky and is 4 1/2-5 in. long.Campbell's back legs hock in very slightly, but most of his lambs have great conformation. (One of his ram lambs won second place at Michigan Fiber Fest.)
"Cheviot" the Reg. North Country Cheviot ram is for sale $150. He is a great crossing sire for small breeds (Shetland, Finn, Icelandic, Jacob etc.) His lambs are thrifty at birth and grew well.

Shetland ram lambs that will be for sale pending on how their fleeces, horns, etc turn out are:

White with a black front leg(Sabbath Farm Silvia X PS23 Fairlight) F2 Jings, F4 Holly/Greyling. This ram is the best looking ram lamb this year-He has and absolutely perfect tail, great conformation and a very soft, crimpy fleece.

Grey gulmoget/katmoget (PS23 Edelwiess x SheltringPines Justinian) F2 Dillon, F3 Brent, F4 Jericho/Skeld. This ram lamb also carries brown. His fleeces looks like it will be long, fine and silky.

Triplet rams-2 Katmoget (1 grey and 1 fawn) and 1 musket- (Sabbath Farm Fonteyn x PS23 Drummond) F2 Brent, F3 Holly/Greyling. All three have long and silky fleeces so far. (Two will be for sale and I will probably keep one.)

Grey probably carries solid black (PS23 Easterllily x SheltringPines Justinian) F2 Bent, F3 Skeld. Will probably be a half poll (could be a full poll based on genetics.) His fleece will be either long, fine and silky or crimpy and fine.

All ram lambs are sold with horn insurance and a fertility guarantee.

I will also have a few Shetland ewe lambs for sale, but haven't even really looked at the ewe lambs yet so don't know which ones (as I have been busy.)

Running and leaping

2010-05-03T11:41:00.000-07:00

The sheep are racing to a new rotation of pasture. " RUN run you might get left behind!"

In the new grass. "Hey why are we still running?"

I took a couple videos of the lamb running. The rams (who live with the ewes in the summer) joined in on the races as well as a few adult ewes. One video has a yearling Shetland and the Corriedale head butt-just for fun. (Sorry that the videos are not the best quality.)

Lambs playing in the dirt.

Busy few weeks

2010-04-28T05:06:00.000-07:00

I have been very busy in the past few weeks. I went to a fiber show, Stephenson County Fiber Arts Show, on the 17'th of April. I had gotten a call on the 12'th that they had an unexpected opening. This was just 4 days before I needed to go down to set up my booth! I had gotten my mill spun yarn back from Mora Valley Spinning Mill just in time and was busy washing and dyeing (and drying it outside) so I could have some to sell. I also had to get all my wool packed and try to make things easier for my sister who would be taking care of my sheep and goats by putting them on part time pasture so she would not have to feed as much hay. But before they could go out I had to deworm the ewes/does and eartag some of the lambs. After hectic running around I was finally ready! I traveled with Carol Wagner as she had extra space and that saved both of us some gas money. The show went fairly well so I am happy.

The yarn that I had mill spun is 33% mohair and 67% Shetland cross lambs wool. I sent about 40# to be spun fingering weight. Mora Valley Spinning Mill did a great job! (They used to be Taos Valley Spinning mill, but changed names as they moved.) I have to say that of all the mill spun yarn I have seen I like Mora's best as they do more of a worsted yarn and that really brings out the shine and results in a smoother and softer yarn. (I have also seen the same wool from the same farm spun at 3 different mills and like Mora's best!) The other good thing about Mora is they charge on out going weight not incoming weight.

I am also very busy washing wool and mohair and need to start dying soon too.

Bouncing on the hill is great fun!
Sheep grazing- the pond is a flooded field after we got some very much needed rain.

This year I got the sheep and goats out on pasture early to see if I could keep ahead of the spring flush. (Last year the grass got way too mature.) I put them out on pasture around the 16'th for part time grazing. I was still feeding some hay and grain so that they would not eat too much grass so early in the year! As of last night they are getting full time pasture! Hopefully I have just the right amount of grass-all summer long.

Another experiment I am trying this year was to sprinkle (yes by hand) red clover seed in a 3 1/2-4 acre pasture when it was raining and have the sheep out there hoping they will trample it in. This pasture is the worst one and had been over grazed in the past. I thought about doing that last year and when I mentioned that to the people at the local feed mill they said it would not work and looked at me like I was crazy. Then late last summer I saw on White Fish Bay Farm's blog That they had broadcasted red clover seed and gotten the sheep to trample it in. It worked for them!
Boys will be boys! The buck kids are already starting to play butting games!

Oh and an update on Emrald the ewe who I thought had no milk-she does have milk on one side and is feeding her lambs and I am not supplementing. They are growing well so she is not a cull after all!

Lamb stats

2010-04-26T05:30:00.000-07:00

My sheep finally finished lambing. The lambing percentage is lower than I like-166% (all sheep and goats together.) Interesting thing is the group who had pure lambs had a higher percentage-187% than the ewes who had crossbred lambs-152%. The goats had160% by themselves.

Total lambs/kids born-68. 8 of these are kids.

Here is what the pure group produced:

SheltringPines Justinian a polled, black gulmoget F1 Dillon's ewes
PS23 Easterlilly-grey gulmoget ewe and a possibly polled grey ram
PS23 Emrald-black gulmoget ewe and grey gulmoget/katmoget ewe
PS23 Ely Cathedral - black ewe and black wether
PS23 Edelweiss-grey gulmoget/katmoget ram

PS23 Fife moorit F1 Orion's ewes
PS23 Essex- moorit ewe
Sabbath Farm Swan- moorit(-may turn musket) ewe and musket? (not sure on her color) ewe

PS23 Fairlight polled white F1 Jings
Sabbath Farm Silvia-white ewe and white with black leg ram
PS23 Daysong-white with brown spot on thigh ewe and white ewe
Longshadow Brownie-musket wether

PS23 Drummond musket (carries moorit) F1 Brent ram's ewes
Sheepy Hollow Sienna- musket blettet ewe and musket blettet ewe
PS23 Dove-white wether and AG grey katmoget wether
Sabbath Farm Fonteyn - musket ram, grey katmoget ram and musket katmoget ram
UnderTheSon Sorelle- Moorit ewe and musket wether

PS23 Fandango gray katmoget F2 Greyling ram's ewes
Windswept Lime- white mirkface ewe and white mirkface ewe
Longshadow Amber- musket ewe and black ewe

Total of 17 pure ewe lambs and 11 ram lambs(-6 left intact.)

So far most of the lambs look like they have nice conformations and fleeces. (Some of the rams are now wethers for various reasons.I did not like the tails and a few and the fleece felt harsh on another.) I will probably have some ewe lambs for sale this year as I don't need to keep 17! I will also have ram lambs for sale as well as possibly some adult rams.

The goats produced 8 kids all sired by Danburry the white Texas buck.

3 doe kids-2 faded red and 1 white

5 buck kids- 3 white and 2 faded red

I'm planning on keeping all the doe kids. Some of the bucks may be for sale.

The cross group produced 15 ram lambs who are now wethers and 17 ewe lambs.

Of the cross ewes 9 are white Coopworth x Shetlands, 3 UNK x Shetlands (either Coopworth or Corriedale), 2 black Corriedale x Shetlands, 1 charcoal English blue Corriedale x Bluefaced Leicester/Shetland, 1 white Shetland x Merino, and 1white Coopworth x Bluefaced Leicester/Shetland.
I may sell some of the cross ewes depending on how they turn out.

Fleeces ready

2010-04-19T16:03:00.000-07:00

I have 2010 (jacketed) fleeces ready to sell on my wool sales blog .

Done Shearing

2010-04-12T05:39:00.000-07:00

I just finished up shearing my goats. Yoohoo! Lots of mohair to wash. My white color carrier doe kid from last year had over 4# of mohair. Her fall fleece was around 2# so that is over 6# of mohair for a little about 60-65# goat! Wish my sheep were that efficient! :)
Here I am in the process of shearing one of the does, Belle (a color carrier white.)
Fleece is coming off. I use blade shears as I have tried electric shears and don't like them. (I did get to do a blow with a professional shearer's shears and that is REALLY nice. Cuts through like butter and is not as heavy as the electric shears and does not vibrate. The professional shearer's shears are run from a motor and have more power, but costs $1000's.)

Got the bucks done. The first thing one of them did was pee all over himself-goat cologne. Yuck! The bucks also had to fight to make sure that their place in the "butting order" did not change. I fed them some hay as I thought things were getting out of hand when one had blood on his horn base. They took a snack break and then went back to fighting, but not as hard as before. Oh well, they settled down as this morning both are friends again. (Bucks don't fight the same as rams. They alternate between growling at each other while pushing and shoving on each other and jumping up in the air to crack down on the opponent.)

Lamb pictures

2010-04-10T12:19:00.000-07:00

Down to 4 ewes left to lamb! Here are some purebred Shetland lamb pictures.
Love this little ram (UTS Sorelle x PS23 Drummond) lamb's "elf ears"!

Sabbath Farm Swan's twin ewe lambs. The "black" (top) has a brown cast to her head and legs and her wool looks sheala/emsket underneath. I'm not sure what color she'll be! Her twin has a very consistent birth coat and is moorit, but may fade to musket. (PS23 Essex had a med. moorit ewe lamb that looks just like Swan's moorit.)

This little gray gulmoget was born this morning and weighed just 3 # 6 oz.! Tiny! Her twin brother is a lot bigger than her. Her dam is PS23 Easterlilly and sire is SheltringPines Justinian.

These two are Sabbath Farm Silvia's out of PS23 Fairlight an F1 Jings. The (top) lamb with the black leg is a ram and is very nice looking. He has a perfect tail and a very consistent birth coat. The (bottom) ewe also is very nice.
PS23 Edelweiss with her grey Gulmoget/Katmoget ram. Edelweiss is very tame-I think she is the tamest/friendliest sheep that I have and her ram lamb is tame so far.

Lambing update

2010-04-06T15:43:00.000-07:00

Down to nine ewes left to lamb! Yahoo! (Four to purebred and five that were crossbred.)

So far :

15 purebred Shetland ewes

10 purebred Shetland rams

8 Angora kids-5 bucks, 3 does (1 doe is a pure white!)That's all for the goats.

12 crossbred ewes

10 crossbred rams

In-between taking care of lambs I have finished up with shearing my yearlings and rams and have started on the goats (6 left to shear.) I also got all the (wool) fleeces ready to sell.

PS23 Emrald's twin ewe lambs out of SheltringPines Justinian. One is gulmoget and the other a double patterned gulmoget/katmoget. Emrald unfortunately will have to go to market this summer as last year she got mastitis on one side. I thought "she should have enough on one side to feed lambs and I can always supplement." Well she has no milk on either side. Both lambs are now bottle babies. At least they should get tame!
SheepyHollow Sienna's twin musket ewe lambs out of PS23 Drummond.

Windswept Lime's twin "Hoto bunny" lambs out of PS23 Fandango. One has a gray patch on he neck.
I had two oops ram lambs out of PS23 Drummond, a musket, who visited the ewes who were to be crossbred. The result was two ewes each had a crossbred ewe lamb and a purebred ram lamb. Both ram lambs have these markings and also have dark bellies! Weird thing is they are not katmoget as neither dam is katmoget (and Drummond is not either!) Both have darker wool at the skin than at the tip too. (Note neither will be registered.)
PS23 EveningPrimrose's twin Corriedale cross ram lambs. They are so cute! Lovely pure white doe kid (out of the Texas buck and Texas doe)! She has the softest birth coat I have ever felt! She was born in the middle of the night when we had a thick frost and was severely chilled I held her in warm/hot water for about an hour and the blow dryed her for another hour. After getting a coat and some colostrum she was ready to go.

Lambing/kidding 3/19-3/27

2010-03-27T11:14:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the lambs and kids that have arrived so far.

First, this is England's buck kid he weighed 4# at birth. He is the dumbest baby animal that I have ever had! He refused to nurse from his dam until he was 4 days old and I had to hold him on to get him to nurse. Finally at 6 days he nursed from her on his own. Talk about slow! (He will not be used or sold for breeding. :> ) The first Corriedale sired Shetland lambs! Both are ewes and weighed 6# 12oz and 7# 5oz. Both were very vigorous at birth and are doing well. Birth coats look like a double coated Shetland lamb's. (The ewe is double coated/intermediate.)
Pearl my faded red Angora doe had twin faded red DOE kids out of the pure white Texas buck! I am so glad that they are both does. They 4#8oz and 4#15oz.Alice my Merino had Shetland (Fandango) sired cross lambs -a ram and ewe. They weighed 6#13oz and 6#4oz.This huge "pony" is almost as tall as my Shetland ewes and weighed 13#! She is out of the Corriedale and Eco a katmoget Shetland/BFL mule.First Coopworth sired Shetland cross lamb. He weighed 6# His birth coat looks like a Coopworth lamb's.Dove a white Shetland ewe produced the first pure Shetland lambs of the year. They are both rams out of Drummond a musket. They weighed 5#7oz and 5#8oz.

Two More Does Kid/Sad Begining-Happy Ending

2010-03-20T05:28:00.000-07:00

England (black) a first time kidder gave birth to a tiny white buck kid. He was slightly chilled when we found him, but is doing well now except for not wanting to learn to nurse from his dam, he does like a bottle though. My guess is his mouth is so tiny-to small to get on the teats which are bigger than the bottle nipple. I have not weighted him yet, but I think he only weights 3#.

Belle (white color carrier) also had a white buck kid. He looked great. He was big probably 6 or 7# and was vigorously trying to stand up and nurse. (It is great when they try nursing as some Angora kids are kind of dumb and don't try. They are good mom's though and some will even butt at a person trying to help to protect their babie/s.) Any way he was great until he had an umbilical hernia and his guts (an apple size amount) were coming out. I shortly thought about trying to put them back, but the opening was so small that there was no way I'd get them back. I did call the vet and he said that the kid was a gonner. He could get the guts back, but since barn floors are dirty...He'd get a huge infection. So we put the poor kid out of his misery. (He was in a lot of pain or shock as he was shaking really hard.)

The happy ending is his dam decided she was not going to not have a kid and started licking off China's (rejected) white kid WITHOUT me even getting a chance to get it wet and get birth fluids, etc. on it (grafting tricks.) I am so happy that he has a mom and I don't have an "empty doe". I did lock them up in a tight pen as the kid needed to learn than he was going to have a mom. He had been wandering around without paying attention to the doe. (He was born on Tue. and got a new mom on Fri. so he was 4 days old.) He did discover the worlds greatest milk bar. It's so much better than the stuff the humans bring and is always there and is never the wrong temperature. This morning he was sleeping next to her!

Spring Is Here!

2010-03-18T17:02:00.000-07:00

I've been busy (blade) shearing, hoof trimming and vaccinating with CDT my sheep and crotching the goats. (I'll shear the goats in April as they aren't as cold tolerant as sheep.) I got done with the ewes just in time as they are due to start laming on this Sat. I still have to shear my rams and yearlings. I have been skirting and weighing the fleeces and they are about 6-8 oz. heavier on average (skirted weight) than last year! The sheep are in very good condition this year and last year they were a bit on the thin side. (They got good Alfalfa hay this year and last year they had lowish quality grass hay.)
The first set of babies came on Tue.! China a black Angora doe gave birth to triplet bucks. The sire is Danbury a pure white Texas Angora. The surprise is the color of the kids. Pure white Angoras have been bred against color for so long that most pure whites don't have a color gene. I guess my buck does! I'm happy because these kids should have really nice mohair as pure whites generally have better mohair than the colored goats. The med. colored kid had weak tendons from being in a weird position in the womb-he was side ways. I put splints on and he is fine now. (I took the splints off tonight.) The poor white kid was rejected, so he is a bottle baby. It was partly his fault as he was stupid and refused to drink (I tried to get him to nurse from her.) He had to be tubed and then finally accepted a bottle at 4 AM after being born at about 5 PM.
This is one of the "ladies in waiting." Triplets?

Roving CSA Shares

2010-03-12T04:59:00.000-08:00

Looking for a fun, easy way to get roving for your handspinning and felting needs? Psalm 23 Farm is now offering wool/mohair CSA shares. For $130 a year or $70 twice yearly you will receive a total of approx. 4# of wool and wool/mohair roving spaced between 4 shipments every 3 months in a multitude of colors (dyed and natural.) The CSA year will be based on the "sheep" year starting in April (twice yearly payments will be due in April and Oct.) You will also enjoy a biannual newsletter on the farm. I do have to limit the number of shares to 15.

Psalm 23 Farm's soft, lustrous wool and mohair comes from Shetland and Shetland cross (Coopworth and Corriedale) sheep as well as colored and white Angora goats. All breedingstock have names and graze on lush pastures during the growing season. In the winter all sheep and goats wear coats to keep their wool and mohair clean.

(Roving can be seen on my wool sales blog.) I can also send samples upon request.

If interested e-mail me with your address and I will send you a form or simply send me your name, address, phone, and e-mail along with the payment of choice.

Laura Matthews
12223 Lax Chapel Rd.
Kiel, WI 53042
(920)273-1849
ps23farm@yahoo.com

yarn

2010-03-06T05:40:00.000-08:00

Here is some of the yarn that I have spun recently. I have started shearing my sheep now so won't have much time to spin (lambs start coming in 2 weeks and kids in 1 week.)

This is some Cormo, spun from Cormo combed top. I didn't really like spinning it very much. I think it is harder to spin than Merino top. I does have a good hand and is VERY soft.
Shetland lamb and natural colored cotton
Black Teeswater, white Wenslydale and grey Romney. I am thinking of making a shawl from this. Both this longwool and the Shetland/cotton were very fun to spin.
Another sunset-we've been having beautiful sunsets almost every night!

Sheep X-ing

2010-03-06T05:31:00.000-08:00

Paul and Carol's Coopworth sheep going home to be shorn and then have their lambs after spending a winter on pasture (eating hay.) The line of sheep was about 3/4 mile long. They follow the tractor as it means food to them.

One More Ice Sculpture

2010-02-17T17:16:00.000-08:00

I almost missed this one as it was farther down the road from the rest. This one is an American flag, soldiers' boots, helmet and gun.

Ice Sculptures

2010-02-15T08:21:00.000-08:00

The little town of Kiel, WI has an ice sculpture contest every year hosted by the local businesses. Here are some pictures of some of the sculptures. Enjoy...

Ok this is not an ice sculpture, but these chick in a shop window remind us of spring coming!

Winter Wonder Land

2010-02-15T07:57:00.000-08:00

Fence and baling twin with frost.

Trees with frost-so beautiful pictures just don't do them justice.

Snow drifts are so fun to look at.
This goat decided that hay is a very nice hat/scarf.

Beautiful sunrise this morning!

Feta Cheese!

2010-02-12T19:07:00.000-08:00

I made some Feta Cheese this week. I used the recipe from http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/easyfetacheese.htm as well as one in a cheese book, "Home Cheese Making". They are pretty much the same, but the one in the book says to add the mesophilic starter an hour before adding the rennet and that is what I did. The one in the book also said to stir the curds for 20 min. (after the rennet was in for an hour.) I did not stire the curds for 20 min.-the one online did not say to stir for 20 min.

I did make one mistake. I was making it at night and then forgot to put it into a cheese cloth to drain the whey after the rennet was in for an hour-I left it in all night. Oops. So far cheese making seems pretty forgiving. (I did have one batch where the recipe was weird and called for an egg that I made and it was AWFUL-the chickens however had a feast.)

Here the Feta is in an olive oil, salt and oregano/basil brine. I did end up dumping most the olive oil brine out and adding a salt water brine as the cheese was not salty enough and had a very strong olive oil taste as I used extra virgin olive oil. That did the trick. The cheese tastes almost as good as some imported Greek goat Feta. (This is Jersey cow Feta.)
Here is the Feta after I drained it on paper towels.

Cheesecake

2010-02-04T17:04:00.000-08:00

I made some Chevre cheese, but it didn't turn out quite right. The recipe is easy you heat 1 gallon of milk to 86* and add the culture then let set at 72* for 12 hours. You then drain the cheese through a cheese cloth and let hang (in the cloth) for 6-12 hours.

Here is what I did- I followed the recipe, but the culture was about 3 years old, from when I had dairy goats, but I still used it. Then I put the milk/culture in a warm water bath by the wood burning stove as our house is way colder than 72*! The milk did not seem ready after 12 hours so I ended up letting it sit for about 30 hours (when it finally looked ready.) I let it hang for 2 days as the whey was still dripping. Oh and chevre is usually made with goats milk so that could make a difference too. The cheese tasted sort of like strong sour cream and was kind of in between sour cream and cream cheese.

I decided to make a cheese cake and it was yummy! (My mom also put some of the cheese into some clam chowder soup that she made and that was good too!)

Turkeys

2010-02-01T15:09:00.000-08:00

Trio of Bourbon Red turkeys 1 tom and 2 hens for sale-$65 or can sell individually for $25 each. The tom is ready and has been mating the hens so they should have babies in the spring. SOLD

Bourbon Red turkeys are a rare, heritage breed. Heritage turkeys eat 50% of their diet from foraging and have very juicy meat. Heritage breeds have more dark meat than modern breeds and self mate (modern ones get A.I.'ed.) All of our hens went broody and raised poults.
Here is a link to learn more about the breed

Sheep shots

2010-02-01T14:59:00.000-08:00

Adult ewes and rams

Oh what fun it is to play

2010-01-30T04:59:00.000-08:00

My lambs (Shetland and crossbred) were having FUN! Ok this was kind of a set up. One day they escaped and started immediately playing on the snow "mountain" next to their pen. I was mad at them and did not have a camera with me so I quickly shooed them back into their pen. So after a couple days I thought that would make a great picture so...I let them out.HEhe. They had a blast running up and down the "mountain". Then the plan went a little wrong, this time they would not go back to their pen instead they run up and down the drive way, then found an open gate to one of the pastures and had marathons in there. OK TIME to go back..a bucket of grain and they all followed me as if I was the pied piper back to their pen.

Wool

2010-01-27T17:02:00.000-08:00

Here are a few projects that I have been working on.
This is a (natural gray Shetland) hat that I made for a friend of the family's son who is in Afghanistan mountains in the marines. He has one year left and had signed up for 4 years at 18 and he and his siblings are/were home schooled. Please pray for Zach's safety as well as all of our soldiers!
This is some Romney with 20% mohair that I'm spinning now. It is fun to spin! I am going to sell the bulky yarn at the State Fair.
Here is some more yarn that I spun to sell. Some is Romney/mohair, some Shetland, and some Shetland/mohair.

Rambling thoughts

2010-01-19T17:05:00.000-08:00

Midwinter is a good time to look forward to new fleeces, lambing, pasture planning, flock goals, as well as reviewing past plans in addition to spinning, crocheting, and other projects.

Since getting my first two Shetland ewes in 2002 I have changed my goals and plans a lot! When I got my first two ewes I did not know what I was doing and had to learn all the basics of feeding, etc. and I also spent time reading all the info I got from NASSA (Shetland 2000, etc.) and learned about the breed (I also read about and researched other breeds.)

I originally wrongly thought that all the lambs born would have beautiful soft fleeces that the Shetland were famous for and that I could sell all the extra rams as wethers for pets and in other words have a 'no slaughter/pet' flock. After my first lambs were born and grew up their second fleeces were harsh and I was very disappointed. That year I also went to WI Sheep and Wool Festival/ Jefferson and saw some of Karen Valley's sheep. Oh did they have soft fleece! I could not believe how she could have such nice fleeces while mine (and most other Shetlands that I had seen) were coarse and not very soft. I remember asking her how she got such nice fleeces and she said that she culled really hard. I still did not like the idea of having to cull, but that did start me thinking.

After my first two ewes were shorn I learned to spin on a drop spindle after seeing some friends demonstrate how. I didn't get my first wheel until I was spinning for about 2 years. There are a lot of things I need to improve in my spinning as I don't know how to spin fine or lace weight and I need to learn more about different kinds of drafting.

I had a short adventure with Alpine and Toggenburg dairy goats, but after 5 1/2 years I was sick of them jumping fences so I sold them! I also tried out Katahdin and Dorper hair sheep as I thought "well even if I can't bring myself to eating one of my Shetlands I can eat one of these" and I did. I was not happy to take one of those lambs to the butcher, but I realized that the only bad day that animal had was the day it went to market and for some animals (raised on mega farms) their life is so horrible that the only good day is the day they go to market. I still don't like sending animals especially the cull ewes and goats to market (well except the mean steer), but it is a part of farming. I sold those hair sheep after having them for 2 years as the lambs did not grow as well as they were promoted to grow. I also sold them because I decided that if I am going to have a sheep it has to have lambs and wool! (My Shetland cross lambs grow bigger and better than the hair lambs did.)

In 2005 I read an article in NASSA News about AIing Shetlands with UK semen and I looked at Martin Dally's website and knew that that was what I wanted! That same year my dad took me to the UK to see relatives and he also took my to Rena Douglas'es farm and the Haddington Show where Mr. Watson was the judge. The Shetlands that I saw in the UK all had soft fleeces-some were very fine and crimpy and others were longer more "intermediate." All of those sheep did have much better tails than the ones in my flock at that time and they also did not look any bigger. After seeing those Shetlands (and bringing home 3 Shetland fleeces) I knew for sure that I wanted to AI some of my sheep to improve both the tails and fleeces. (The reason I chose AI over buying an F1 or 2 is logistics ,there is a breeder out west, and the local breeder who had done AI did not have any for sale!) Oh I also jacketed my flock that fall for the first time. I'll never go back to not jacketing! (Unless I could graze year round!) The jacketed fleeces are so nice! (I see a lot of fleeces that are ruined from the VM.) The other benefit from jackets is the fleeces are so easy to skirt as there is a line where the coat was and you just rip that chunk off and set it aside (I use my skirtings for roving and rug roving.)

I was so excited when my fist AI lambs were born! I had AI'ed 3 ewes, 1 each to Skeld, Orion and Jericho. The resulting lambs were a ram and a ewe lamb from each ewe! Two of the rams (PS23 Craigrothie and PS23 Campbell) have gone a long way to improving my flocks fleeces and tails. (The other ram was culled as I did not like his fleece.) That year I also, after thinking about it for a couple years, bought my first Angora doe. She was a black doe and was bred. She ended up having quads 3 bucks and a doe!

In 2007 I decided that I would crossbreed a portion of my Shetland ewes. The reasons were 1. it was a good way to use ewes who were not good enough to use for purebreeding any more, 2. I needed a lamb that was more marketable in the commercial system as I realized that even if all my lambs were good enough for purebreeding that I probably could not sell all my lambs as breeding stock. So I looked at several different breeds: CVM Romaldale, NC Cheviot, Bluefaced Leicesters, Coopworths, ect. I ended up getting a BFL ram even though I had originally leaned toward a Coopworth.

I also had one AI lamb born (PS23 Drummond) from 3 ewes that were AI'ed. That was a disappointment, but that is how it works with AIing! (I have talked to other people and one breeder had 100% the first year and only 2 ewes out of about 10 or 12 ewes AI'ed lambed the next time.)

My first BFL/Shetlands were born in 2008 and I liked how they grew and I also liked the quality of their fleeces, but was disappointed with the fleece weights. I then bought a NC Cheviot ram for comparison and last year I had both kinds of cross lambs born. The interesting thing is the NCC crosses seemed to be hardier at birth and grew faster than the BFL lambs. Now that I a feeding them out the BFL lambs caught up and surpassed the NCC crosses. Interesting. I did not like the NCC cross fleeces as almost all had kemp.

Last spring I also had a huge disaster as I lost 15 ewes (and their unborn lambs) after they broke into grain and then got acidosis. It was very sad. I also bought 3 Angora does and a buck from Texas. Unfortunately I lost two of the does, one to supposed heat stroke (the vet thought that was what she had) , and the other to pneumonia even though she was on antibiotics (I got her necropsied.)

The good thing about last year is I had some very nice AI lambs born(from Jings, Orion and Gordon) as well as some nice lambs out of a ram, WalnutRise Trevor F1 Greyling, that I borrowed from Maureen K.

So looking forward ...

I am really, really looking forward to my Angora kids out of my Texas buck-his mohair at 2 is so soft! It is as soft as if not softer than my colored kids' mohair! (I also hope they have DOE kids as in the past I and some fellow Angora breeder friends' herds tend to be buck heavy.)

I am looking forward to my purebred lambs, each year they are a little nicer.

I am also looking forward to the Coopworth and Corriedale x Shetlands! Both rams have very nice fleeces for their breeds and both should have heavy fleeces and put their stamp on their lambs! (Oh and the Coopworths do make good market lambs. Paul the Coopworth breeder had some that reached 140#. I don't know about the Corriedale as that breeder does not finish their lambs.)
I am going keep several of the crossbred ewe lambs to slowly build up a flock of crossbred ewes. I plan on running about 50 cross ewes in addition to my Shetlands and Angora does. I still have to decide on what breed to use as a terminal sire.

I guess that is enough for now.

I'll put some of my spinning/corcheting project in another post as this is getting too long!

Cheese!

2010-01-13T16:52:00.000-08:00

I made some Mozzarella and Ricotta cheese today.

Milk,
and supplies.
The curd has formed.
Here is the finished Ricotta.
Here is the finished Mozzarella.Yum. Here is a link to the website where I found the recipe. http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/recipes.htm#Homestead%20Dairy

Christmas

2009-12-26T15:23:00.000-08:00

We had a very rainy, but full Christmas. Family and some friends came over and we ate and read a passage from the Bible and visited. The next day though it got cold again and stopped raining. Here are a few wool related projects I made for Christmas presents.
A wool filled quilt for my Dad (covered in cotton fabric.)

I made a scarf for my big sister, Helen, out of some of the yarn in an earlier post.

Here are a few of my ewes and adult rams. I keep my adult ewes with the adult rams in the winter. (The ram lambs are in a pen with my Angora bucks and the ewe lambs have their own pen. The Angora does also have their own pen.)

My crossbred market lambs are growing nicely (the were shorn in Oct.) I just have 10 of them left.

I just thought that this snow drift was really neat looking so here are some pictures of it!
Oh and just 3 months to go till these guys start popping out!

Wool

2009-12-14T17:04:00.000-08:00

My load of wool er hay came. (The sheep and goats will turn it into wool by spring !) The unfortunate thing is the hay guy was supposed to come in November and I had even called him in October to try to get a date set, but he kept canceling or changing the dates. So now that it is winter our driveway is too slippery for a semi to get up. The bales had to be unloaded on the road and taken up with the skid steer that I rented. The bad thing is three bales fell into the ditch-a very steep, muddy ditch where cattails grow in the summer. Anyway my Dad and I managed to drag up one of the bales piece by piece on sleds up the driveway. Then my brother, Iain, thought he could get the other two bales after all with the skid steer. Well....the skid steer slipped all the way to the bottom of the ditch and after an hour and a half the skid steer was still stuck in mud that is like pudding. We had even tried putting down some hay (about half a bales worth) to try to drive on, but that did not work! The good thing is the skid steer company said not to worry and they'd just bring a tractor on a semi tailor and tow it out.

The other good thing is now I have hay! I was feeding small squares of marsh hay and about 1/2# of grain to my ewes a day (there is not a whole lot of nutrition in marsh hay and they waste a lot), now they will just get alfalfa hay.

Here's what I've been spinning- picked mohair locks with...
black Corriedale lamb. The yarn is very soft!

Art Yarn

2009-12-07T06:31:00.001-08:00

Laurie Boyer is a fiber artist who specielises in making art yarns and finnished products using local wool, mohair and camild fiber. She does and incredible job!

Icicle yarn.
I don't remember what Laurie called this yarn.
Boucle yarn.
I also don't remember what Laurie called this yarn.

Peppermints and dyed red Navaho Churro lock yarn. (Peacock feather yarn on the side.)
Some of Laurie's feather yarn.

Wool lock yarn. Most is Coopworth, but she has some Shetland (the brown on the left hand side on the first picture of the lock yarn) and some Navaho Churro (not pictured.)

Two of Laurie's shawls made from her yarn, The first is llama and the second Merino.

Laurie has also made hardware yarn, q-tip yarn, drinking straw yarn and much more. Sorry I don't have any more pictures!

Yarn drying

2009-11-23T17:11:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of some of the yarn I've been spinning. This yarn is all single ply and I sell it at the WI State Fair. Some is Shetland/mohair, some Romney/mohair and 2 skeins are Polypay.

Wool for dinner!?!

2009-11-19T16:33:00.000-08:00

I work at Hidden Valley Woolen Mill and a customer bought 1# of washed wool. He works at a flavor factory and they are planning to use a blend of ( veg.) oils and the wool to make a chicken flavoring! They heat the oils to 1300 degrees Fahrenheit with whatever else, in this case wool, to get flavorings (the wool would completely disappear at such high temps.) The reason they are using wool is it is a source of carotene and they could not find a different source. The factory also makes liquid smoke as well as other flavors. Oh on environment he said that when they are running the factory only steam comes off-no smoke, and no oils escape!

Holiday Open House

2009-11-10T18:10:00.000-08:00

Hidden Valley Farm & Woolen Mill
14804 Newton Rd., Valders, WI 54245 (920)-273-1849
http://www.hiddenvalleyfarmwoolenmill.com/index.html

Is hosting a "Gifts from Nature" Holiday Open House
November 20-22 Fri. 1-7, Sat. 9-6, Sun.11-4

"Please join us for our holiday open house. Many finished products will be offered for sale; from beautifully hand-carved wooden ornaments and glass bead and buttons to wearable by local artisans. Demonstrations will take place throughout the event. The fiber enthusiast will find an exquisite rainbow of dyed roving, yarn, naturally colored raw fleeces, batts and llama clouds. Our farm and woolen mill is nestled in the gently rolling hills of north-eastern Wisconsin, just minutes from I-43. Please make your holiday gift a gift from nature-Paul and Carol Wagner"

I will be selling dyed Shetland/mohair roving, handspun yarn and possibly some finished products. I will only be selling on Fri. and Sat.

Sick of breeding season???

2009-11-07T16:15:00.000-08:00

I am!

One of my Shetland rams, Drummond, who was in a pasture far far away from the Coopworth's group came up and picked a fight with the Coopworth-Cooper. Poor Cooper's head is all red. I can't catch him to see if his skull is cracked, but he is not feeling to good right now. I just hope he'll be ok! (I did have a horned dairy buck kid who got in a fight with an adult ram and busted one of his horns off at the base. He acted sick for a while, but was ok. )

Update:

The Coopworth-Cooper is acting a lot better. He is eating again and is interested in ewes again. Thank goodness!

WI Spin In

2009-10-30T06:45:00.001-07:00

I meant to post this earlier (but got busy getting my breeding groups together and got busy will other things.) WI Spin In a convention for spinners and knitters/crocheters and any one interested in wool is on tonight, Sat and Sun.

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 will have a "display only" on Sun. Hours are 5-8 on Fri., 9-5 on Sat. and Sun. For more info go to http://www.wispinin.org

Sheds and sheep

2009-10-21T15:19:00.000-07:00

I've been really busy-again! I have finished shearing my market lambs. I built two sheds-one for goats and one for my market lambs (I can also use it for my ewe lambs in the spring after they are shorn.)

These three and a half sided sheds are each made from four cattle panels. Three panels curve to make the roof and sides and are held in place by eight t-posts. Two thirds of the fourth panel make the back and one third makes the front. A post holds the front in place as sheep would rub and knock it out of place. I got heavy duty tarps-the only problem is I could not find the right sizes-a little on the large side. Baling twin and zip ties work wonders along with a few bungee cords.
I decided to get a Coopworth ram for crossbreeding. I will compare the growth rates, fleeces weights, hardiness, fleece quality, ect. on the Corriedale/Shetlands and Coopworth/Shetland. Both crosses will be treated like mules and be bred to a terminal sire. This ram has a very lustrous locky fleece. Coopworths (a New Zealand breed bred from crossing Romney and Border Leicester and culling very hard for production and other traits) actually get FAT on grass too. If I like both crosses I will keep doing both-more wool types to sell and play with!

I put my goat breeding group together yesterday as one of the does was in heat and bawling and the bucks were getting restless-didn't want any accident kids from the wrong sire jumping out-so I stuck the white Texas buck in. He has already gotten to breed three of the five does! I didn't have the goats with a teaser either! I can't wait to see the kids' fleeces! (Or the lambs either!)