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.