Sunday, December 14, 2014

New Ram


This is a new purebred Shetland ram. His name is Blue 1A. Blue being his right ear tag colour, 1 meaning he was first born, and A indicating he was born in 2013.

Blue 1A is a pretty boring name compared to the existing rams Willow Garden Seasonal and Harmony Marsh DaVinci.

I'm looking for an actual name to call him, something a little nicer than the former but not as sheeshy as the latter. I dunno... Bill, Bob, Ralph...

Whoever he is, he will be breeding all the Shetland ewes on the farm this year as he is unrelated to any of them. This will provide a suitable genetic enrichment.

The other two Shetland rams are with the Khatadin flock this year.

The rams went in Nov 25 and 26, so lambing should begin around April 20th.

This is quite early - I usually prefer lambing on pasture beginning around May 10, but the coyote (and wolf) populations continue to grow so I've decided to lamb in the barnyard and barn this season and keep them off the pasture til the lambs are mothered up. The ewes and their babies are most vulnerable to predation during the actual birthing process.

3 comments:

  1. He is certainly a handsome fellow and it will be interesting to see his offspring. Happy holidays and thank you for sharing your blog. I always look forward to new posts. Blogless Mary Lou

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  2. I am enjoying your blog. The sheep look great. A new ram is a great idea! Where is he from?

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  3. Hey Bill. New ram is from Chassagne.There seems to be a lot of 'shetlands' out there, as opposed to Shetlands ;o) I was happy to find a selection of yearling rams in their second fleece to choose from. It was also a nice outing for someone like me who doesn't get off the farm much. Thankfully I also have a friend with stock racks who drove me.

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