Just Lamb Pictures

I know there are a couple of you out there that really only read the blog for the lamb pictures, so here you go.

First, one of our cross bred lambs.  She's 1/4 Coopworth, 1/4 Polypay and 1/2 Icelandic.  And I might just keep this one.  I'm curious to see her fleece in the spring.

Next, our youngest baby, a little Shetland ewe - fawn gulmoget.  She was born to one of the few lambs I exposed to the ram last fall.

Below is the lamb from the first picture, with her twin sister.

Ram lamb, he's 1/2 Coopworth and 1/2 Icelandic.  He was born to a yearling (coming two year old) Coopworth, a first time mom and he was HUGE when he was born.  I don't weigh lambs anymore, now that we don't have a production flock, but I should have weighed him.  He's about a month old (this picture was taken awhile ago) and is almost as big as our Shetland yearlings.

And this little guy was almost a bottle baby.  He is one of Lily's (Shetland) lambs.  He had a twin brother, but Lily had some health issues and lost the one.  I supplemented him with the occasional bottle, but Lily is now back on her feet and he is off the bottle.  But still very friendly.  Which is unfortunate, since a friendly ram cannot stay on this farm.

And, last, but not least, another of the younger Shetland lambs.  A pretty decent sized ram born to a first time mom.  Grey katmoget.

And, I did a count and we ended up with 48 lambs and kids this year.  Mostly twins, except to the first time moms - many of them had singles.  I like crossing the Icelandic ram on the BWS ewes - the lambs end up with shorter tails and I didn't dock any of them.  Just that big ram lamb above has a tail that is a bit long, but as he will go to market, I wasn't too concerned about that.  It just didn't seem to make sense to dock off bits that were no longer than my finger (and I have little hands).  And, since we are primarily a Shetland flock again, I figured all the sheep can now have small tails (we tried to leave longer docks on our BWS anyway).

So, there are some lamb pictures for you.  Enjoy!

This is a Test, This is Only a Test . . . .

 OK - Blogger has informed me that they no longer support my browser and I have to switch to Google Chrome.  I'm not sure what that means and, as it's 11:00 at night and I am not 100% at this hour, I'm not sure I want to download Google Chrome without researching it a bit.  (Anyone that knows something about this, please feel free to chime in here - I'm open to any and all advice).  But, my blog SEEMS to be working, although it appears a bit funky, so I'll try a short post here and if it works, maybe another post in the next day or two.

Since my last post, I have skirted about 50 fleeces, which have been listed on the web page, if you're interested.  And I've sold a bunch, which is the idea, but it does take up time that I could have been using blogging or researching this Google Chrome thing.

And I have been dyeing yarns and rovings for shows.  In mid-April, we did the Wisconsin Spin In, which looked like this from the balcony at the Waukesha Expo Center - that's our booth down there - the first time we had a double booth and we finally had room for both the staff (me) and the customers.

The week after that we did the Great Midwest Alpaca Festival, which was at the Coliseum at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, WI.  The alpaca shows were going on in the show ring without me while I was manning the vendor booth in the mezzanine around the outside of this picture. 

And meanwhile, back at the ranch, we were lambing and kidding.  I think we have about 45 lambs and kids on the ground.  One of these days I should total up the reports and see how we actually ended up.  There is one lone ewe who still has the opportunity to lamb, but she doesn't look bred, so I'm guessing we are done for the year.  No lamb pictures in this post, since I didn't want to get carried away if Blogger is just going to delete this since I don't have the almighty Google Chrome.  But here are some kid shots to entertain you this go round.  I'm not sure who this is, but he/she is cute regardless.  He/she is a Nigora kid - that's a cross between an Angora and a Nigerian Dwarf.

These three are Hermione's and Sequoia's (there are two black and white ones there and a brown one.  They are often sleeping together is this old feeder.  They are also Nigoras).  And I do mean they belong to both Hermione and Sequoia, as the mother/daughter pair kidded at the same time in the same corner of the barn, without witnesses.  When I went out to the barn that day, there they all were and I didn't have a clue as to who really belonged to whom.  So the two does are sharing the three kids, as best I can tell.  But it's all working out, so, as they say, "all's well that ends well"!

And last, but not least, my bottle baby for the year.  This is one of Manya's - a little black and white Angora doe.  When she was born, she couldn't stand on her front legs, so I tube fed her and put her back in with her mom, thinking she probably wouldn't make it.  Well, Manya fed her for a day or two, she managed to get up on all four feet and then her mother abandoned her.  So she became my bottle baby for the year.  She's still walks a little funky, but she manages just fine.  She plays with the other kids, goes out to pasture with the rest of the herd.  And she is my most colorful Angora kid.