Rams for Sale

Adrienne's on the run to tell you it's time to find new homes for some rams we have.

First, we have Contented Bergelmir. To see his pedigree, just click here. He's an Ag grey ram who carries wild spotting. Just look at the post when he was born and you'll see what I mean. He's really coming into his own and looking like a a great ram. If he doesn't find a new home shortly, we'll be using him for clean up of all the ewes in January. At this juncture, he's unproven.

Secondly, we have Contented Theobroma. To see his pedigree, just click here. Theo is a proven moorit ram. He's a gentle ram that understands his place around humans. We used him last year on two of our ewes (to figure out what they were genetically) and he threw twins both times. I just love the light patches he has on his face. Very striking. They were also visible when he was a lamb.
The third and final ram we have available is Contented #15. He's just waiting for the right home to name him. He is also unproven. He is unregistered at this moment, but is the offspring of Contented Theobroma and Islandfleece Rakel. He was born April 14, 2008. You can see Rakel's pedigree here. He has a nice intermediate fleece. At this point, I don't see any registration faults with him. He's got real nice looking horns and everything else seems to be in the right place. :-)

If any of these rams catch your fancy, just give us an email or post a comment to the blog and we'll get right back to you. Our prices are reasonable ($150 for unproven and $200 for proven) and we figure registration or transfer costs are ones that we should absorb. We do have a discount when you buy two or more. Lambs, like #15 also come with a horn guarantee. If for some reason, his horns turn wrong we'll refund half the purchase price.

Thanksgiving Wishes

May your day be filled with good food, great family and friends, and so many things to be thankful for that you need to borrow your family and friends fingers and toes to count off your blessings.

Breeding Groups are Together!

Tim and I were able to put our breeding groups together on Tuesday. We always try to do it around Veterans' weekend. I've been a bit under the weather, so I didn't get shots of everyone the day they went into the groups, but I can give you a heads up of how it went and if the blasted rain would hold off, I'll grab some shots and upload them.

First off, each lady needed to get a pedicure before meeting their big date. First up was Sage and Celebrian. After pedi's done, Tim got the pleasure of dragging (actually she kept rolling a number of times) Sage while I walked Celebrian to the hog-paneled pen near the old J.D. baler that they would be staying in. We then grabbed Bach to meet his women. The funny thing is that they all sniffed and then Bach went right over to the hay and started munching down. Mmm this hay is good!

Next breeding group would be Freya, Helle, and Rafn to go on another hog-paneled pen on the front lawn. Tim took Freya, who funily enough acted much like her mom, Sage. I got Helle and Rafn to move to the pen in leaps and bounds. They were given Gulliver, who sniffed and started immediately pawing Freya (who was having nothing to do with him).

Third breeding group included Sabrina, Mulan, and Rosemary to go to the dog's kennel complete with filled in holes and a blue tarp for shelter. I thought that I would be real tricky and take Mulan, who after all is a Gail Former sheep, so should lead properly. Guess what? She didn't want to budge and kept putting on the brakes and dropping her hind end. Sabrina and Rosemary moved much better for Tim. I kept putting pressure on Mulan and every so often she would do a jump (which would release pressure on the lead nearly making me do down!), but eventually she got to the dog's kennel. They were then introduced to Balder who showed a keen interest in Rosemary, but who was also not interested in him. She was much more interested in eating the grass in there.

Last, but not least, is the grouping of Viveka and Rakel (aka the bruiser twins) and Sylph. They stayed in the normal ewe winter quarters and were introduced to Uber. Uber wasted no time and found that Rakel was receptive. He must have mounted her at least 5 times.

If you're counting, you realize that there's 3 other ewes who won't be bred that were put in a separate pen near the barn. There's also a bachelor pen of 5 rams (anybody interested in a ram or 3?). One more pen was created when Wilkins came back from breeding 6 ewes in Meriden, NH for a 4-H'er. He's currently sharing residence with Arcturus (our wether) until his quarantine is over.

All told, we'll be and have been taking care of 7 pens of sheep. This will stay that way for 36 days (a good 2 cycles) and then we'll bring all the girls back together for 2-3 weeks and then separate out those 3 non breeders and use Bergelmir to clean up anybody who didn't take. At least that's what we'll be doing in theory. Changes can possibly happen.

Just us chickens

Tim's away helping Nadine and Glenn put up 5 acres of high tensile electric fencing. So, it's just us chickens. Here we are, the Partridge Chanteclers. Mr rooster is in the center of the picture. They were created in Canada to withstand colder winters. Each chicken has a slight bump/nub of comb on them to prevent frostbite.

Another shot of the girls.
Here are the Barred Holland's. They are also a dual purpose chicken, like the Partridge Chanteclers, but they lay white eggs. Actually, they look more like eggshell white (not as bleach white looking as those in stores). Rooster in the center (looking a bit more greyish than the hens.

Here's another shot of them. Okay, now you see the sneaky part. We ordered two roos of each breed. The Partridges are down to one roo as the other was getting really persnickety (read mean). Needless to say, he was enjoyed in a nice wine based marinade. We still have two of the Barred's as they haven't been really mean to us. We will eventually take care of the one (who happens to have a crooked middle toe - like it was stomped on or has arthritis). Just not right now.Okay, it's more than just us chickens. There are the 2 cats, Adrienne the Border Collie, the 11 rams (we're trying to shrink that number down) and the 14 ewes. Since it's after Halloween, we've got a real good deal worked out with a pumpkin farmer to pick up his pumpkins to get them out of his field (before he discs them in) and we get pumpkins to feed the sheep for an extra energy boost. Here's some of the pumpkins we picked up over by the girls.

Normally we go for the pie pumpkins as they last longer, but as they say beggers can't be choosers. They pointed out to Tim where the pumpkins were this year (they rotate them each year) and unfortunately showed him where the regular jack-o-lantern pumpkins were. C'est la vie! Here's a shot of some of the girls. It's a bad shot, but you can see 3 black girls (Sage, Freya, and guessing Rosemary (can't see the ear tag). Fee Fee is also there (white) and one of the kat twins (either Rakel or Viveka). A grey girl (my guess is Mulan) lying down in the foreground.

In the next picuture, there is Celebrian (moorit in the background), Rafn (black ewe peering around bale box), Helle (grey in front of Celebrian), Sabrina (white), Sylph (grey lying down to left), Arwen (moorit) standing betwee Sylph and there's Mulan again.

Looks like we're missing a few girls. Brisingamen (black ewe lamb from Freya) and the other kat twin seems to be missing. Probably chilling out near the barn (that would be to the left of the last picture.

Soon there will be breeding groups. Stay tuned to see who goes to whom.