Tag Archives: Jacob sheep

Summer is waiting

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Summer is waiting, but that’s not the season. It’s Summer, the sheep.

This is Summer on January 5.

January 17.

This is today, February 5. I don’t have a breeding date for Summer but I don’t think she lost any time after I put Clint in with her group. About a week ago I started giving her a little grain at feeding time, along with Paulette, who I know is pregnant with triplets after an ultrasound.

They both have to share their grain with the chicken who now comes running when she sees me get the grain bowls out.

 

Sheep photos

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Lambing won’t start for 4 weeks but there are some ewes that look as though they shouldn’t wait that long, especially when you realize that 70% of total fetal growth occurs during the last third of pregnancy.

Sparkle was bred as soon as I put her with the ram. She is due February 18, a month away.

I don’t have a breeding date for Summer, but she is obviously pregnant.

I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t have triplets.

Jimmy is out there with the ewes and he is a very luck sheep. Most males that do not make the cut as breeding rams end up in the freezer. When he was a young lamb, I thought Jimmy had breeding potential. In fact I had a buyer for him. She was very disappointed when, after taking a closer look at him at about 3 1/2 months of age, I would not sell him for breeding. I was knew that his lower horn on the left would be a problem, but what was not obvious until I looked more closely was the freckling.

In this photo you can’t see the freckling, but when I parted the fleece I could see it. Freckling in a young lamb is a disqualifying trait for Jacob sheep registration. It increases with age and it is almost as if a spotted sheep turns into an overall gray sheep. Jimmy has a beautiful fleece (although not appropriate for a breeding ram) so I decided to keep him as a wether. The horn issue was dealt with when he was castrated because, without testosterone, the horn growth slows drastically.

Why keep a wether? When you have to separate a ram for whatever reason, he needs a buddy to keep him company. Sheep do not do well by themselves. The other wether I have right now is Jerry (nice fleece, but too much black for a breeding ram)…

…and he is Faulkner’s permanent buddy.

New Buttons

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I made new buttons this week. This is a multi-step process and after each step I know that I have not priced my buttons too high. If I were to show all the steps the first photo would be the head of a sheep (butchered for meat). Then there would be the photo of cutting the horns off the dead head. (Lately this step has been done by the person who butchers sheep, but I used to have to do that myself.) The next step is letting the horns sit in a bucket of water for a week or so. The hotter the weather the better, because the slimy parts that are between the bony core and the outside horn get rotten and smelly and then I can pull the outer horn off. Then I’m left with this:

I use a band saw to cut the horns into button shapes. That was a huge improvement over the table saw. I could easily cut a finger off with the band saw but it is probably not as likely as with the table saw. These are pieces that are ready for the next step:

I still need to drill holes and sand these buttons. Then I finish each button with polyurethane.

Rounded buttons.

Squarish buttons.

Shawl pins (without the pin part).

These are for sale on my website

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About a month ago I got an e-mail asking for favorite sheep photos so that they could be used for the 2012 Jacob Sheep Breeders calendar. This year’s calendar is very different from previous calendars. JSBA member, Julie, who happens to live nearby, offered to create artwork from the photos to use for the calendar. Julie is a wonderful artist and the calendar is a special treat, complete with Jacob yarn binding. As a special surprise, each of us whose photos were used were given the original artwork.

This is Fanny, my oldest ewe. I absolutely love it. Thank you so much, Julie!

A Foggy Morning

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It’s been foggy in the Sacramento Valley, but this last few days we have been just west of the fog. It was here this morning but is burning off.

The sheep greeted me as I went out this morning.

See the 3 sheep in the middle of this photo? Paulette is the farthest right of those three. We did preg checks on her and the other 2 sheep who are the ewes I breed in February to lamb at State Fair in July. When we brought her in I thought that she had quite a belly for an open ewe. She’s pregnant with triplets. No State Fair for her this year. Faulkner had got through the fence a couple of months ago and although I gave her an injectable form of the “morning-after” pill I guess it didn’t work. So those are three little BFL/Jacob lambs she’s carrying.

Why is Amaryllis standing here when everyone else is in the pasture? Those of you that know the flock will probably guess.

Because that’s where Stephanie is.

Here are the rams. In the foreground left to right: Ruby Peak Linden, Meridian Clapton (lambs)

Center: Meridian Fogerty (lamb)

Background front to back: Mud Ranch’s Hudson, Sweetgrass Clint, Puddleduck Sullivan (lamb).

This is Faulkner and his Jacob buddy, Jerry.

And, of course, Rusty is out here with me–staring at shadows.

Where will you be Feb. 21?

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I know where I will be. I just transferred the breeding notes from my clipboard to my 2012 calendar (while learning to use the calendar in my Mac) and look what I discovered. I knew that a lot of sheep were bred all at once, but it’s more striking when I see it in this format.

That’s 23 ewes due in a 5 day span. I usually aim for March 1 lambs, but I got antsy and thought I’d start breeding a week earlier. After all, my friends will all be lambing and I’ll want to have a few of my own before the rush starts in March.  I thought wrong. There are about 30 more in addition to those first 23. I guess I’ll be warmed up by the time they lamb.

I’ve been finishing up registration applications for this year’s lambs. It’s interesting to look at baby photos of sheep.

This is 11038, now known as Rosie. Notice how her pink nose develops pigment as she gets older.

Rosie was developing very nice horns and I had my eye on her from the start as one I wanted to keep. She got in the ram pen when she was a few months old and, in trying to get back with the ewes, she broke off both horns. They are still stubby, but stout.

Here is another. This is ram lamb 11094, the last ram of 2011, and sired by Sweetgrass Clint.

He is named Clapton and will be the sire of several lambs in 2012.

Clapton doesn’t look quite so nice after shearing…

…but his fleece is sure pretty.

Faulkner & Jerry

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I haven’t had time to sort many fleeces yet. In fact, other than those I’ve sold I have only skirted the ram  and wether fleeces.  But I’m very happy with those that I’ve seen.

This is the fleece of a wether, Jerry. He is mostly black, not a good Jacob trait, but he will get to live his life being Faulkner’s companion. Faulkner is the BFL ram and I am not going to subject him to living with a group of rams with huge horns.

Faulkner and Jerry

This is what Faulkner’s fleece looked like “on the hoof”. This photo was taken shortly after I got him so it had grown a lot since then.

This is a lock after shearing.

Less than a minute in hot soapy water.

Silky, white locks!

 

Lambtown

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Another post by Robin. I don’t have time to straighten out WP right now. I think Rusty needs his own e-mail address to fix this problem.

Lambtown was Saturday. What an incredibly busy day! There is no way that I could have made it through the day without the help of friends. The event was packed. Here is my booth before the doors opened.

I had the booth pretty well set up the night before when I was asked to move it 18″ to the north because the neighboring booth wasn’t given the allotted space. Can you imagine? I was not happy, but after dealing with it, I didn’t feel so guilty about spilling over into the empty space next to me. Next year I think I’ll get two booth spaces, but I’ll definitely need a full-time person to help. Friends, Aaron and Alison and Jackie helped with the booth and we even pulled in a few other friends who happened to be walking by.

I taught a rigid heddle class in the morning and had five students. We crammed as many new techniques into that class as we could in 2 hours. Everyone wove a sampler with Italian hemstitching, Danish medallions, and warp and weft pick-up.

There was also a sheep show. Tina helped in the show ring and Dona and Rick spend most of their day monitoring the timing of the show. I thought that we might be showing in the morning, but there were enough sheep entered that we didn’t show until later in the afternoon. This is the yearling ewe class. That is Meridian Vicki in second place. She was Reserve Champion ewe in the Primitive Breeds division.

Tina brought her service puppy in training to Lambtown. Isn’t Golly cute?

Thanks to Dona for the last 2 photos.

Sorting ewes

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This is getting confusing. This post is by me, Robin, even though it says it’s by Rusty. He has his own blog and did not write this post and this is not his blog. Rusty’s blog is here.

Today was breeding group sorting day. Many thanks to Dona, a Farm Club member, who helped me all afternoon (and brought cookies).All the lilac ewes or those with lilac parents went to Hudson’s paddock. He didn’t waste time. Three of seven are marked.

Clint whispering sweet nothings to Delilah.

Faulkner  wasn’t to be left behind.

The Puddleduck ram lamb (I still haven’t decided on a name) is on the left in the picture. He isn’t quite 6 months yet and was given a challenging group of girls to work with. He’s starting to get the hang of what he is supposed to do, but the ewes are giving him a hard time.

Ruby Peak Linden and Meridian Clapton are the other two ram lambs I’m using. Linden seemed more interested in food tonight but Clapton got right to business although he had to work hard to reach the adult ewes in his group.

It’s fun to see the colored rears and know to expect lambs in 5 months, but I hope we have some good rains before shearing day so the marks won’t be so obvious.