I started to name this Dress-Up Day for Sheep, but that is misleading and a little too cute. The title describes what I did yesterday.
I caught 7 of the 8 sheep that have coats. A coated fleece is often prized because it is free of VM (vegetable matter). In my situation that is mostly hay and grass seeds. My coated fleeces may not be as wonderful as some because I don’t usually coat the sheep from shearing day on. Most of these coats were put on either when the sheep traveled to Black Sheep Gathering in June or went to State Fair in July and Lambtown in October. So they may have been coated only part of the year. But that is less VM than if there was no coat. There was also the advantage that those sheep with coats won’t have as much marking crayon from the rams in their fleeces (note the green rear of the sheep on the right).
Why don’t I coat all of my sheep?
1. I’d rather see spotted sheep, not coats.
2. It’s a lot of work. Coats need to be changed periodically through the year as the wool grows and they get too tight. Then they will cause felting and may ruin the fleece. We may go through 4 coat changes in a year, especially for a younger ewe who is not only growing more wool, but she is getting larger too. If I put on a coat that is too large I risk having sheep get a leg through the neck hole or slip out of one of the back leg straps. Then you have a sheep that can be tangled up and/or cause damage to the coat.
3. It’s a lot of work to repair the coats that are torn. Horned sheep are tougher on the coats than those without horns.
4. Eventually coats need washing, especially before I take them to my sewing machine for repair.
I tied all the sheep in the lambing area and removed coats. I hung the coats on the fence near the sheep so I could find the next size without trial and error.
This photo shows another advantage of coating. The fleece under the coat does not have sunbleached tips so the color of the black yarn will look blacker than if those brown tips are mixed in. You can also see the amount of hay in the neck wool of this sheep.
These photos are some views of the fleece under the coats.
Some are cleaner than others because the sheep has worn a coat for longer.
This photo and the one below it are good examples of the different styles of Jacob fleece, at least as far as the crimp. Both fleeces are within breed standard.
Here they are all ready to have new coats.
This coat has a little more room for growth. Most of us probably don’t walk around with our clothes size showing, but it is helpful for me when keeping track of coats that may need changing. (The number 3 is above the shoulder.)
I have acquired coats from various sources although most came from Terri Mendenhall who is well-known for her award-winning sheep and fleeces. As the coats need repair they get a mix of patches.
They have been repaired by a Farm Club member who took some home, by me, and by my son who lives in Idaho and works as a smokejumper. Did you know that smokejumpers learn to sew so that they can make gear and handle all their own repairs? They use heavy duty sewing machines and fabric so Chris was able to make some repairs using fabric from the scrap pile.
Meridian Janie (bide a wee Buster x Meridian Jane)
Meridian Maybelle (bide a wee Buster x Meridian Mae) This ewe was going to be on my sale list but she had an unexpected tryst with Cayenne and may be pregnant.
Meridian Ruthie (Meridian Cayenne x Meridian Ruth), who just broke her horn and is somewhat bloody on one side. This is another ewe who may be pregnant after the aforementioned incident.
Meridian Zora (Meridian Cayenne x Meridian Betty)
Zora is a pretty little lilac ewe who was chosen from Day 1 for her cute markings, although “cuteness” isn’t listed under the JSBA Breed Standard selection criteria.
Meridian Quartz (bide a wee Buster x Meridian Jade). Quartz was chosen because, besides being a nice looking ewe, her mom is everyone’s favorite pet sheep and…
…I want to see how her 6 horns grow out.
Meridian ??? I haven’t named this lamb yet but she certainly deserved a good one. (Meridian Serrano x Unzicker Shenandoah)
bide a wee Marion (Ruby Peak Cinnamon x Meridian Maven), who didn’t go home to Oregon after the AGM we hosted in August.
Meridian Janna (bide a wee Buster x Meridian Janis). Janna is a big tall ewe lamb and is out with the breeding group, possibly to be bred by Meridian Axle.
Meridian Soprano (bide a wee Buster x Meridian Sonata) has definitely been bred by Axle.
I brought the groups in one at a time and separated the rams. That’s Buster in the pen. His nose is already bloody because he was ramming the panel to try to get to Axle, the young 2-horn ram in the middle of the photo.
Most of the ewe flock was back together now and that was Clark’s lucky day! That’s him in the background with his head turned away.
Meanwhile the other four rams went into their “buddy-up” pen. The point of this is that they are confined enough that they can’t do much damage. That doesn’t mean that they don’t hit each other but at least they can’t back up 10 feet and come charging.
After a few days of learning to be buddies again they went back to the ram pen with minimal fuss. They all had figured out the pecking order. Cayenne (above) is #2.
Cayenne. I love a nice two horn head.
This is Spark, Cayenne’s full brother, born this year. There is the difference a year makes. Cayenne was born last year.
Brothers.
Bide a wee Buster is #1 in the ram pen.
Buster is 3 years old and Clark is his son from this year. 
Bookends?
Here’s the lucky ram who gets to stay out with the ewes for another few weeks. This is Axle, also a 2018 ram. He is wearing a blue marker…
Today I moved most of Peyton’s ewes back to the flock. Three of them were the Pope Valley sheep that came this summer, and they immediately found their two friends. That’s the five or them in the front. Large Triangle, 4-Horn, Small Triangle, White Ear, and Crooked Blaze in the back. (They do have names but I remember them better by what I called them at first.)
John is the Rock Star.
We checked teeth to try and figure out the ages of the sheep.
This sheep had a 13 pound fleece. The average for Jacob sheep is 3-6 pounds.
It was a multi-person operation to stuff some of these fleeces into plastic bags.
The usual suspects were there to watch and cheer John on.
Not a bad looking group of ewes after shearing.
The two rams.
After shearing we looked at all the fleeces. The longer fleeces have a break about 4″ in from the outside, but the rest of the fleece seems sound.
It will take some time to work through it all.
As we pulled out staples from some of the fleeces I thought it would be a good idea to get a photo. Susan and Gynna worked on this while we opened up and re-rolled the fleeces.
Note the measurements marked on the sides and down the middles. Weights are below. 
This was a fun day for all of us and a good day for these sheep.
This is a ewe they called Athena.
I think that this is at least a 3-year fleece.
I love the markings on this ewe’s body. I don’t have any information about her.
This is a ewe they called Caliope. She is pretty wild.
Markela, one of the original ewes purchased by this family.
No idea about this ewe…
…or this one. Don’t you love her horns?
Paniota…
…and her fleece.
The lamb named Easter because that is when she was born.
New temporary quarters.
Stay tuned for a Shearing Day post.
Let’s not forget the rams. Tikes on the left and Costa on the right. I think they are yearlings.
First I sort and start narrowing down choices. This is two-horn rams.
More two-horn rams. 
Four-horn rams (except for the one I liked best who broke his horn this morning and I put him out so he would hopefully not keep knocking it on others). I bred to two two-horn rams and one four-horn ram last year. There are more two horn lambs than four. Some ram lambs are missing from these groups because I had already castrated those that I knew right away would not be candidates for registration (too much or too little color or horns that were too close). Time to narrow these into groups.
These are rams who will be on the cull list. It doesn’t take much for a ram to be moved to that list. In this case two of these lambs (on the right) have wide spacing between the upper and lower horns. That seems like it would be a good thing, but usually those upper horns tip forward and sometimes there are other issues with them. I’ll report back with more photos as they keep growing. The lamb facing the photo on the left doesn’t have enough spacing between horns. His right side horns are already touching at the base leaving no room for growth. The other two both have a lot of freckling, although it’s hard to see without parting the fleece and one is scrawny.
Three of the potential 4-horn breeding rams. Nice horn spacing and shape so far. No sign of freckling. Color % OK. Nice looking fleeces. Britch wool not too high on back leg. 
Out of two pens of ram lambs I pulled these four out as potential at this point. That is mostly due to the wide horn growth. There may be others in the pens but I won’t guarantee the horn spread yet. Of course, they all have to meet the other criteria mentioned above as well.
Here they are from the rear.
Another from the front showing the ram with the best horn spread so far.
These are the 4-horn ewes. I will be less picky about the ewe lambs than the rams. The breed standard isn’t so stringent and each ewe doesn’t play as large a part in the flock as the ram. Keeping a variety of ewe lambs is a good way to maintain some genetic diversity (although that is a good reason to buy some lambs from other people in August).
The 2-horn ewe lambs.
Another view of the pen on the right. Notice the two lambs (sisters) in the upper left corner. Compare their horn growth to the others. All these lambs are about the same age. Those two are showing minimal horn growth compared to the rest. I don’t know if that is temporary and their horns will be just fine when they are mature or if those are scurs. This is another reason to look at the lambs in a group. All of the rest of these lambs look fine to me so it will be hard to narrow this down to only a few to keep.
These are some of my 4-horn choices. Preliminary selection is based on wool and lack of freckling in the lamb and the dam.
The same group from the rear. I don’t fault the sheep for their rear leg position, but from this photo it would be the lamb on the left that I’d take to a show.
Two horn lambs that I like.
From the rear.
Zorra had plenty of cuddling while she was still in the lambing area with her mom. Lisa is a lamb cuddling Pro.
This is pet sheep Jade’s lamb (and me).
This is her again being held by Peggy. We’d really like her to be friendly too.
This is Zorra again with Sumi.
As the lambs get a little older we have other Farm Days. This was Betsy’s first day on the farm and she jumpred right in holding lambs as we ear tagged and castrated. 
I don’t castrate many because it’s hard to know how they will grow out and which might be a great flock sire for someone. Some are easy though–too much or too little color to fit within the 15-85% breed standard. This one’s horns are already touching at the base under that hair. As the horns grow they will fuse and not grow well separately.
Marina and Maggie (no photo) helped catch lambs too and Mary handled the clipboard. The lambs were all tagged with their white ID tags right after they were born but we put added a colored tag on Farm Day. I like to use a second tag for back-up ID if the first one falls out and also to color code the sire. It’s interesting to keep track of that and it also helps to find a lamb when you’re looking for one among 75. You can narrow it down some if you have a color to look for.
This year Cayenne’s lambs got orange tags. Pink tags go in all the lambs that have been castrated.
Green means these are Buster’s lambs.
Blue was for Catalyst.
Peyton’s lambs are obvious so don’t need an extra tag.
After we tagged all the lambs Marina and Betsy stayed to help me set up the pasture for the sheep. I had put the sheep out for a few days but hadn’t cleaned and moved the water trough.
We walked around the pasture and took stock of things. I always point out the issue that I have with the dallisgrass that is out of control. That’s what all that dry grass is. I’d much rather see green grass growing. The whole pasture was looking somewhat dismal from a growth standpoint. At this point we had just had March rain after two very dry and cold months. I wasn’t seeing much growth–at least not enough to feed 55 ewes and 75 lambs. 
We spotted this grass that I don’t recognize.
I took photos to send to a friend of Marina’s who she think might recognize it.
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