mule sheep.

I wanted to post a photo of one of the mule sheep that was born last year.  This is Mary-Kate, she is a mule, which means her father (blarney) is a BFL.  Her mother is one of the lincoln girls.  We will let mary-kate breed into the Teeswater program. The resulting offspring will not be pure or registerable, but should grow an incredible fleece.  the teeswater and lincoln breeds are known for their long fiber length, while the BFL is known for it's soft crimpy fiber.  So far-so good for this cross.

Blarney

I just wanted to put up a photo of Blarney, our BFL ram.  He hasn't really received much attention here yet.  Hopefully by this fall we will have settled on finding him a BFL ewe, so we can have pure babies to in turn breed into our teeswater program.  Blarney came from Glen Rock PA, Potosi sheep farm.  He's a very gentle ram.  If anyone wants a good pet sheep, and is concerned about the safety of their children around a ram, BFL's are a good choice.  This guys likes to be petted more than most dogs I have known

all-you-can-eat buffet

On saturday, we moved all the longwools off the hill into the barn. They were supposed to sheared and vaccinated... but we only had enough time and energy to give shots.  Shearing will happen as we can get to it, or as lambs are born, whichever happens first.  These girls have been out on a pretty nice pasture by the spring-fed pond almost all year, with very little grain.  They are actually in really good condition, but I'm not surprised to see that they went after the hay like this-always afraid of missing out on the next great thing...  Look at the girl fourth from the left, her whole head is covered in hay.  so much for a VM-free fleece. oh well, maybe next year.

tiny triplets.

One night about a month ago while herding the girls in to the barn for a lick on the mineral block, we noticed this lincoln longwool, bred to a blue-faced leicester, ewe's water had broken. She'd been as big as a barn for at least a month prior, and we just knew she would throw triplets. She let us stay in the barn stall with her and watch the "whole thing go down". This old girl delivered three babies inside 45 minutes with no trouble whatsoever. I think I've been able to put these photos roughly in order to give you a sense of a play-by-play. Some of them are kind of gross, so if you havn't eaten lunch yet, or you have a tendency to feel queasy, look upon the following with caution...