I think we are done. Minwawe Lopper delivered two ewe lambs last Monday morning, Cinco de Mayo, a black one and a brown one, white tracery around the head-- No spots, darn! They are out of LROak Mullein, the new fleece king. So we will see how these little girls look later. These two ewes made it, I think, 14 rams to 8 ewe lambs out of 12 bred ewes. 5 ewes didn't take--! I was surprised that NONE of the girls I left with Mr. Big Horns and Great Spots, LRO Alex, got bred. I don't doubt his sperm count, but it showed me that those little rams can get no respect (or anything else) from the ewes. He was small-- as a lot of breeders like them-- and I saw this 2 winters ago, when Minwawe Silver could not get a girl to take him seriously, but they sure did the following winter, when he had more size to him.
I didn't mind having open ewes-- I don't need that many lambs-- but I did want to see Alex's offspring. So that will have to wait.
Happy to be done lambing, though.
I spent the day at the wonderful Shepherd's Harvest in Lake Elmo, hawking fleece and roving to a crowd who really wants it. That was very successful, so my storage space will free up, here. The company there was great, and the other exhibitors have truly beautiful yarns and other products.
I'm going back tomorrow. Happy Mother's Day to those who will be busy celebrating that!
3 comments:
Sorry no spots Gail!! But at least you're done now - yipeeeee!!!
I have found that my young rams usually get the girls bred much later than my senior rams. For instance, I STILL have 7 ewes who've not lambed - EEEK! All were bred to very young rams, since I got 3 from Peeps last year and used each with their girls this winter. Yes, everyone else here has lambed, and still, nothing from 7 of my ewes...but they are showing udders so I have no doubt they are indeed pregnant, it jsut took those 'youngsters' a little longer to get with the program. So, better go check again.....
just in case.....
:-)
Gail, Congrats on your fleece/roving sales. I tried it there a couple years ago and did very poorly even with inexpensive prices. Good job! You're perhaps a better saleswoman...
Well Karen, I wonder what happened there, for you. And maybe my gauge of success is different than yours-- I was happy to sell 10 lbs of roving and 3 raw fleeces in 2 days. My cynical father-in-law said "at least it covered the gas to get there". I also didn't have to pay for a booth, so I had no cost going in--
I was thinking maybe we'd all benefit to set up a shared display. I rolled up lots of 4 oz balls and displayed big, open garbage bags of roving. People liked it that they could touch it, and dictate how much of each color --2 browns, gray, black, musket, fawn-- or just grab 4 oz balls. And I don't charge much, either ($1.50/oz roving, $10/lb raw fleece). I think there was a good crowd Saturday, it got coverage in the Star Tribune for 2 days in advance, and the weather was okay until 2pm. It's an idea to pursue, or let this fleece pile up to the rafters. . .
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