Trying something new...a ram of a different kind!

Today we bought home a new ram. Brennan our first Ram ever was sold to a new home in May. He sired one of our current lambs and hopefully covered all of the ewes. I don't want a lot of inbreeding and also moving him to CO would have required Brucellosis testing which isn't a huge deal but would have meant more of investment. I had already pretty much decided it was time to change rams.

Potter looking lonely in stall "Where am I ?"

What I didn't know was that I was going to change breeds too! While I love my Painted Desert girls and Brennan was a gentle as could be, I just don't want horned rams. They can do too much harm to a dog in a split second, working them is out of the question. So I've been rethinking my stock plans...

I do like the variety of color in the Painted Deserts as well as their thriftiness. They do tend to be a little flighter than their hair sheep counterparts- Katahdins and Dorpers, showing their Barbados heritage. I would like bigger lambs so my daughter can at least show in the breeding lamb class without looking like she's leading a runt (they lump all the sheep together at our County Fair- they are not broken out by breed so she'll be up against the Suffolks and Hampshires.)

With a bit of trepidation, I opted to try a Katahdin ram to cross over my Painted Deserts. Any color Katahdins are allowed so I can still have color. Their lambs are a lot bigger than the Painted Deserts and they are more placid and they don't have horns. The one thing I don't like with the Katahdin's is how many of the rams are very course looking with big roman noses. I want a pretty head!

A registered Katahdin crossed over my Painted Deserts can give me recordable offspring. When I get to 87.5% Registered Katahdin blood -I can have individuals inspected and as long as they meet hair coat requirements, they will be admitted to the Katahdin registry. This is my new long term goal.

I've found there are not many Katahdin breeders in Colorado. Today I was within a couple of hours of one of the larger breeders and took the opportunity to go see if I could find something there. I immediately found one I liked, but of course he was one of two in the flock that weren't registerable! Figures! I hummed and hawed and then found another I quite liked and darn-it-all-to-tarnation, he was one that had lost his eartag and couldn't be registered either! I finally settled for a ram lamb that though not one of the largest, seemed to be nicely balanced, with a nice head. He's a late January lamb and a triplet.

He's still carrying some lamb fuzz but is shedding out nicely.

I'm hoping he'll add the traits I'm desiring to next Spring's lamb crop (and I'm hoping it will be Spring not Winter-he's going with the girls as I'm not set-up to separate him yet).

The New Additions, new additions

The ewes I bought a couple of weeks back have both lambed. First to go was Santana Sayen. On the morning of December 13th we went to feed, and there she was proud as can be with a gorgeous ewe lamb.

This lamb has gorgeous markings and nice structure

And then last week on the 22nd we were blessed with twins -a little ewe and ramling who look like polar opposites! These guys got off to a bit of a slow start -I don't think Mama had quite enough milk for two and then went off of her feed.

I was quite concerned that evening since Mama still wasn't eating and a sheep not eating is not a good thing. She had passed her afterbirth without problem so I knew that wasn't an issue. She was standing alert and looked fine, but she just didn't want to eat. I gave her a shot of Oxytocin in hopes of getting her to drop more milk and also a dose of probiotics to give her some energy.

We gave the little ramling some milk replacer since he was looking a little peaked and Mama didn't have any in her bag for him. I checked on them a couple more times that evening and could see the little lambs were trying to nurse but just not getting much out. I offered them some milk replacer again but they weren't interested. I stuck my finger into each lamb's mouth and they seemed warm enough so I left them be for the night.

I was a bit fearful to see what I would find the next morning when I went to check on them, but happily they had made it through the night and were looking brighter. Mama however was still not eating -not good.

Hubby decided she should go out with the flock to see if that would pick her up. I had my doubts as the little ones were so little, but out they all went. And sure enough what happened? Mama stuck her head in the hay and started eating. She was just missing her buddies. I'm learning something all the time with these sheep.

The Twins

Ramling, he's white with just a little brown on his legs. He's a real doll!

Ewe lamb, marked like a barbados but with a white spot on her head!

These painted dessert sheep sure are a lot of fun -you never know what you'll get for lambs. It's amazing that two twins could look so entirely different!

New Additions

The texas drought has really put a damper on the livestock industry in this state but there is a bright side - there are some great opportunities to build one's flock, herd or what have you. With skyrocketing hay prices, quality livestock that normally wouldn't be offered for sale, is being sold to feed the rest of the herd.

Yesterday I made a pleasurable drive out to Yantis TX to Brent Neighbors, Tejas Barbados Ranch in search of a couple of new additions to my painted desert flock. I was nicely surprised by the 120 mile drive -it goes through rural towns but most of the way was 70 mph so I was able to make good time and enjoy the scenery which was surprisingly picturesque. The trees are still displaying beautiful fall colors, and with the recent rain we've had the winter wheat is greening up the fields.

Brent had my list of prospects with him when I arrived along with pedigrees and papers (he really knows how to organize his records). No this sheep might be by so and so or maybe it's that one with Brent.

I was in search of just one or two ewes and one for a friend. It wasn't hard to pick out a few nice prospects -what was hard was deciding which ones to bring home. Even harder was picking out one for my friend -she had narrowed her choice down to two based on pictures. Both were nice but I opted for the Yearling ewe lamb of one of her two picks hoping she'd like her as much.

With no further ado, here are the new additions:

I fell in love with this champagne and white ewe, Tejas Ranch Aleshanee Tiponi when I saw her. She wasn't on my list I'd picked out to see but one look and I knew she was coming home with me. She has all the qualities I like in an Ewe (built like a holstein cow, soft eye and strong legs) and to boot she is heavy in lamb to a lovely ram of Brents "Kachada" .

Tejas Ranch Aleshanee Tiponi

My other pick was Tejas Ranch Santana Sayen. Her dam is a really good producer and she is tri-colored, and also a twin. She's a little smaller than I'd like but judging from the triplets nursing on her dam there is potential for some size in her offspring. She is also heavy in lamb to Red Cloud who I really like.

Tejas Ranch Santana Sayen

And last but not least is Taksi Wahinhe, the young ewe I bought for my friend. Funnily enough -I bought the wrong ewe. She had told me to pick between Totsi and Hiawatha and somewhere along the line I changed Totsi to Taksi...It's so hard to pick for someone else. I like this ewe, so home she came! Of course when I arrived home with the three sheep my daughter peared into the car and says " I oh I like that one" meaning Taksi, the only one that's not supposed to stay!

Taksi Wahinhe

How Quickly they Grow

I was just out taking pictures of our not-so-little-anymore ram lamb as requested by his new owner. It's amazing how quickly they grow. Here he is:

And this is our ram lamb we purchased in April. I just love this guys expression -he has the sweetest face.

And this is Jasper now about 8 months old. He's pretty good with the sheep -he just has one he can't resist "playing" with. We work on that daily. Next step will be chickens...that'll be fun!

We have Sheep

I went to Kingston, OK on Monday. I drove up to the last turn and I knew I was in the right place, it was quite comical. What greeted my eyes as I turned onto the road? A farmer trying to herd a flock of sheep off of the road. I rolled my eyes and wondered what I was getting into. The farmer greeted me and asked me to honk my horn, so I did as I was bade and the sheep cooperated and ran into the yard.

We exchanged hellos and then proceeded to look at the sheep. The farmer was very nice but looking at sheep proved a bit challenging. He had lots of them (probably about 100) but they were penned on 40 acres with fields sectioned off here and there but NO real gates, so the sheep could go from section to section. The sheep were pretty spooky and as we'd get close they'd flock together and pour into another section. I inquired about a couple of ewes with lambs "was that a ram or ewe lamb on that ewe". He didn't know (or at least didn't let on that he did). Finally I settled on a loud painted desert ewe and older ewe lamb (he was pretty sure this lamb was a ewe lamb). I wanted at least one more ewe and lamb to start my flock. I picked out one more barbado ewe with a nice lamb (not sure if it was a ram or ewe).

This is the painted desert ram that was running with the ewes, sire of the painted desert lambs:



On my way out he showed me what he had in his little horse trailer -an adorable day old bottle lamb. She was just darling. He said I could buy her but that was more than I wanted to get into. We parted company and he said if he got down to the Gainesville livestock auction this week he'd deliver my sheep for a little extra.

Well I didn't hear from him on Tuesday auction day, so on Thursday I made arrangements to go pick up the sheep. I hummed and hawed on how to get them. We have a 4 horse trailer but that seemed a bit overkill for two ewes and their lambs. I looked at my HHR and thought why not? The HHR rear seats fold down nice and flat and they are all plastic backed -they don't have carpet on them, nor is there carpet in the back of it. I found an old shipping blanket put it in, picked up my daughter at school and set off to get my sheep.

What an adventure. We got there and the farmer had some of the sheep sort of penned in a catch pen (there was no gate). The ewe and ewe lamb were in there so we set about catching them. We were able to corner and grab the ewe with sheep dipping and diving all around us, and got her into the car. Meanwhile the sheep started sliding through an opening between the fence and a pole in the catch pen. We saw her lamb disappear with the group. My daughter and I ran to get a gate closed before they disappeared out of the field and shut it in the nick of time. Then we had to herd the sheep back into the catch pen which of course was the last thing they wanted to do. We did manage to get the ewe lamb in there and nabbed her. Now I had to find the other ewe and lamb I had picked out. They of course were not with the group that we had penned. I said "well let's go get them". The farmer said we'd never catch them but I was determined.

We found the ewe with a group of sheep in the top field and I was excited when we were able to drive them down out of the top field into the field with the catch pen. The farmer said "It's not going to work", and I shrugged wondering what he was talking about. The sheep so far were cooperating, they had come from the top field, and we only had to drive them from there to the smaller field with the catch pen. Then I saw. This field had a culvert that went under the road. The sheep were heading in that direction. I said "they can't go through there can they?". He nodded, they could. Oh boy...this wasn't good.

I conceded defeat. He said he'd catch the other sheep in a couple of weeks time and I could get my ewe then. On the way out, I showed my daughter the little bottle fed barbado lamb. The farmer asked my daughter if he wanted to feed her as it was feeding time. Of course she did and so a bottle was mixed, and my daughter fed her. I could see it was love at first sight, and it was an ewe lamb so what harm would be done adding her to our folds? In the car she went with a bag of milk replacer.

The sheep were good passengers and other than having to relieve themselves straight away and stinking us out, traveled well. Here is a picture of them on their ride home: