A plethora of rams
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It's almost time to put the rams in with the ewes. I've been looking at my sheep list to match up ewes and rams. It makes the most sense for me to use only 2 or 3 rams. Keep the biggest group in the pasture and smaller groups where they will need to be fed hay. But I have an exciting stable of new rams to try. So I think that I'll have more groups than is really smart.
Faulkner is going to be used on some older ewes . This is an experiment to see how crossbred lambs will do for the meat market. My guess is that they will be ready for market sooner and at a higher weight. There may be some interesting pelts as well. Faulkner is a character. Dan says that he reminds him of the Grateful Dead. "truckin', just keep truckin' on"."Hey, man, good grass."
Mud Ranch's Hudson is a lilac ram with spectacular horns. He will be bred to all my lilac ewes or those with lilac parents. It's been several years since I've had lilac lambs and Hudson will give me plenty. (Most Jacobs are black and white. Lilac refers to a color other than black--usually a brownish-gray.)
This is the yearling, Sweetgrass Clint, ready for some ewes. He came from Michigan last year.
Clint's son, Clapton, out of Meridian Jazz. He will be 6 months old the first week of October. I hope he'll be ready to work soon. His horns and fleece look great. I would have shown him at State Fair but somehow he knocked out 3 teeth just prior to the show. You can't take a sheep with a bloody mouth to the fair. Clapton is an "E" generation lamb and I'd like to breed my unrelated E ewes to him.
Here is one of the new ram lambs, #337 is from Ingrid Painter's Puddleduck flock in Oregon. He needs a name.
Ruby Peak Linden is also from Oregon. These two rams lambs will be 6 months old in mid-October. I'm going to give them both some ewes and see what happens.
If I haven't forgotten anyone that is already 6 rams, which is more than enough. So these ram lambs may have to wait until next year unless someone buys them this season. This is Meridian Siskiyou, sired by one of my favorite rams, Tioga.
This two horn ram has a great horn spread and I'll probably keep him around to see how he turns out.
I like the horn spread on this ram also. I like his color, also, even though he is on the dark side and should not be used with ewes who are also very dark. His wool looks quilted in this photo but is is not when you see him in real life.