Saturday, October 18, 2008

Farm Lambs

In addition to buying the 9 new ewes from Monica, I also kept 10 of my own farm ewe lambs, and 3 ram lambs from this spring.

You may remember seeing photos of them from when they were first born here back in April. Here's what they look like now!

The girls:

Unity: Nice stout girl, and who can resist the pretty moorit mouflon color?


Ulrica. Very tame and friendly, and an excellent broad build, very wide in the chest.

Utopia: A large, well-built lamb. Her sister had twins as a one-winter ewe, and the twins grew more than a pound per day. That's excellent for a yearling mother! So I expect Utopia will be a very milky mom as well.


Ulyssia: She's a full sister to my ram Titan. Both her parents have excellent parasite and heat resistance, so I have high hopes for her.


Urbana: Very nice build, superb fleece, and an extremely tame and friendly personality.


Ultra: She had pneumonia as a lamb, so she's a little smaller than other lambs her age. But WOW, what a smart, friendly, extremely interactive personality! This one is definitely showing her Leadersheep bloodlines.


Udela: Just plain cute.


Undra: A stout little butterball with a pretty moorit fleece.


Ulanova: Another cutie in that most popular of fleece colors, moorit.


Urelia: Quiet personality so I don't tend to notice her much, but she's grown pretty big this fall.


The boys:

Umber: The biggest of this year's lambs, he is now almost as big as the yearling rams. He showed extremely good heat and parasite resistance this summer (which is probably why he managed to grow faster than the other lambs). He'll have a chance to produce lambs of his own this breeding season.


Ukraine: I'm not using him to breed this year, but because of his bloodlines (my best parasite resistant ram crossed with my best meat-conformation ewe), he was too valuable to send to slaughter. I'm keeping him for another year to see how he grows up.


Urban: I have so many rams this year, I really didn't need another one, but this boy (twin to Urbana, shown above), was just too nice to send to the butcher with the other "extra" ram lambs this fall. I'm keeping him through the winter. He will stay on my sales list, and if no one buys him before next fall, I'll decide then whether to use him myself or send him off to the butcher then.

1 comment:

Hurricane Pottery said...

The sheep are wonderful; so sorry about your loss. She seemed very special!