Feather's ram lamb

Ok, here's a quick photo of Feather's ram lamb, black with a big Krunet.

It's a girl!

Silveraurora Iliamna gave birth to a lovely girl just a few hours ago! Mom is a Bersugget - black with areas of gray ground into the wool. I have always really liked Bersuggets! This ewe lamb is super flashy with all the whistles and bells, and may end up being Bersugget also - woohoo! Dad is Minwawe Topple. Enjoy the pics!

Peyton is a dad!

Congratulations go out to Peyton, who is indeed a first-time dad as of yesterday! One of my solid black yearlings gave birth to a nice solid black ram lamb. So the wait is FINALLY over with!

Feather has a boy

I had hoped that Feather would carry spotting - ok, express spotting in her lambs. I'm ho-hum about her first lamb, a simple black ram lamb with a big white Krunet (patch) on the top of his head. He's a healthy big boy tho!

Too busy!

We have more lambs!! The problem is I have to go get photos now - ha! Two more beautiful Yuglet/Sockett/Krunet girls were born (HST's), one was from Fairy Slipper, they are beautiful and yes, for sale! What a gorgeous group of lambs this year sired by Topple. Even the unregistered flock is about finished lambing. Feather and Blanche are holding out tho - ugh. And the 4 yearlings out back that were with Peyton for a while are still a ways from lambing - we're waiting to see by birth date if they are Peyton's or our young guy from last year's lambs. Crossing fingers for Gulmolgets!!

Otherwise we're a bit too busy with spring cleanup and birthings, caring for lambs and goat kids! It's a fabulous time to visit the farm if you're looking for either beautiful registered Spotted Shetland lambs or wonderful goat kids! I have a lovely Nubian doe kid ready for her new home, as well as 3 lovely ND doe kids old enough to leave now - very colorful!

Princess and her girl....

Just a beautiful moment.......Rick took this photo of Princess, newly sheared, with her beautiful ewe lamb. They are truly devoted to each other, and oh my is Princess such a wonderful first-time mom. We love our girl too!

Catching up to get behind...

HA! Gotta love spring......I'm catching up so that I can at least get behind!

Lots of goats kids have arrived.......and almost all at once. Twins this morning, triplets and twins yesterday. Lots of goat kids and milking to do. And lots of doe kids available for a change! The 2 Nubian girls are very very pregnant now and growing udders, so it won't be long before they kid. I'm guessing twins for both of them.

The registered sheep on the other hand are holding out........seems there was a lull in the breedings 5 months ago and I have 3 Goodyear blimps out there! I swear they're going to burst! And loooooooooooud!! They sure let me know when it's dinner time.

All else seems to be holding steady on the farm. The wintered-over roses have just come out to see their first daylight via the greenhouse which Rick has begun heating a few weeks ago with the woodstove in there. It's doing a fantastic job too. The roses have 4 to 12 inches of new growth on them, very pale in color and certainly not green. As they sit in there with the cloudy days, they'll start greening up again. Always take them out of winter storage when you're due to have mostly cloudy days for 3-5 days. They are very tender at this point, can break easily, and can burn up if exposed to strong full sun. Lots of water, a jolt of liquid fertilizer, and patience. I've transplanted the tomato starts into bigger containers so in a few days those will head out to the greenhouse too, along with the calendulas, gourds, cukes, a flat of 3 varieties of red lettuces, and other miscellaneous seeds I've started. A friend brought over a flat of pansy starts for me too. And in the dirt bed in the greenhouse, the soil temp is now up to 70 degrees again so I planted radishes and spring mix lettuces which have all popped up already. Hopefully in another month we'll have a fresh salad from the greenhouse. The woodstove in there is just a barrel stove, but we run hot water heated in a big pan on the top of the stove that circulated through hoses with a little electric water pump deep down in the dirt. So not only is the greenhouse warm, the soil is heated to prevent the cold from the frozen earth below from coming up into the beds. We had a similar system at the old place and it worked well. Here's to spring!

Another set of twin goat kids...

Another lovely set of twin doe kids were born early this morning to Vanilla, a wonderful doe that I enjoy very much! Both girls are black with little splashes of white and are doing great! Nice to have another set of girls in the barn, and 1 will be available. Vanilla is the dam of Silveraurora's TH Xbean who as a first freshener was LA'd the highest score - 89 - and who also has an ADGA Best in Show as well as a Best in Breed at another show, as well as milking nearly 4 pounds on milktest. Beanie is a beautiful doe, and this is a repeat breeding. We're hoping to find a good home for this girl, she sure has big shoes to fill but she should do well! Oh, and Vanilla has a championship leg or two also! Her dam was ARMCH Twin Creek's Scarlet *D *M. A long line of lovely does no doubt. Photos as soon as they find their legs....

Happy Easter everyone! Sheep and goats...

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you're enjoying your day today! I'm sooooo happy my sheep are all sheared again for another year. I can also watch those udders on the ewes too.......it makes it SO much easier to tell who's going to lamb next. PHEW! Blanche was definately faking........her udder is so tiny I can easily say we have a ways to go now.

And for goats - my best milker and mother, Patience, who broke the one day test milk records twice producing over 6 pounds on test, has a lovely daughter sired by our dual champion Sebastian, named Yada. Yada decided today would be a good day to become a First Freshener! Sired by Jobi LA Thunder, our best 'milk' guy and my favorite buck, she gave birth easily on her own to triplets - 2 girls and a boy. Big udder on her but then you can't tell anything early on as they can have misleading edema. We'll see how she milks in a few weeks - yay! My Easter present no doubt!

Unregistered lamb count...

So far, 20 lambs have been born, of which 16 still reside here with their moms. Ok, I need to count moms, but I believe we're at 11 or 12 out of 23 ewes. All in 16 days. Now normally my crew lambs over at least a month and a half's time. Almost every one of the mature ewes has lambed, with a few more left who are very close and some 2 year olds quite close. Then we'll wait for the yearlings for a while, like usual...

And for the registered flock, we're half way there with some pretty big looking girls still hanging on, especially for as little as they are. Cheesecake's daughter, Princess, is doing very well with her little girl too. So what shall we name this girl?

Blanche was faking it

HAHA! In case you were wondering, Blanche was faking it! She's still running around like normal.

I *did* see 2 udders on the 4 girls that Peyton was in with. Now we'll have to wait to see just when they lamb. Just in case.......I pulled Peyton after the girls were in with him for months, gave it a few weeks break, then put my boy from last year in with them to be sure that they were bred this year. So, depending on when those 2 girls have lambs, we'll either have Little Peytons or not! Here's crossing fingers as Peyton is my only Gulmoget.

Sheep shearing..........lots of fleeces

Wonderful day, clear to hazy skies and a light breeze, a new sheep shearer and 34 head are done with the rest to be finished tomorrow. Lots of nice fleeces for sale, $15-$25 depending on quality. I hope to see folks from last year back out again tomorrow and Sunday. The ground is starting to thaw here with little rivulets of water running everywhere. Mud mud mud, and things blown by the wind showing up which means lots of little bits to pick up as you walk from one pen to another. The hoses thawed, the barrels cleaned out and now filled with water as are the sheep pen's big water containers, so it's nice to fill things up with something other than 5 gallon pails - woohoo!

Still no more lambs in the registered group, they are holding out, yes, including Blanche who is now very nude! I think the sheep are embarrassed when their first sheared - haha!

Tomorrow is Shearing Day

Want fleeces? Tomorrow is your day! We'll get started tomorow if it's not raining or snowing and see how many our new shearer can get done in a day. We have at least 40 head to do this time........stay tuned!

And we've had a plethora of unregistered lambs born, and another registered lamb born...........more later, and photos to come!