Before and After

On Saturday, we had a shearer come out to finish up a few sheep who didn't get sheared on March 30.  Kora, a pied (spotted) black and white Finn ewe, was still too short-fleeced to shear back then, having been sheared in Fall 2009-- and there are people who really want that Finn fleece for spinning.

So we waited , and now before it gets really hot, we asked Jake Sirek to give her a haircut. Driving 40 miles to shear one ewe seemed ludicrous, so we asked Jake to clean up a few more ewes who couldn't be sheared well earlier, being "in the rise".  You non-Shetland folks, I can't explain that, because I don't get it myself.  I just know the shearer can't get under the lowest inch of wool, then, which turns into big mats of wool, later. 

Here, Kora and her twin lambies wait their turn for lamb vaccinations and Kora's haircut.  They licked clean the bin where alfalfa hay is stored.

After shearing, Kora actually looked a little thin.  But very, very comfortable.

This is a family picture of Finn ewe, Lassi, her ewe lamb Leila, and her ram lamb Lukas.  I still don't know about Finn colors;  whether this is what the Finn breeders would call plain "brown", or "fawn"-- being brown with an Ag "graying" gene, or what I would call a modified brown.  The finn breeders are rather new at colors, and therefore, at describing them.

Here, we see Mari the white Finn ewe and her white ewe lamb;  my old Little Red Oak Yarrow hiding in the corner, freshly shorn;  front and center is Leila again, and front right, Kora's ewe lamb, Heidi, is scooting past-- the lamb who had selenium deficiency last month.  She'd just gotten a pink ear tag and her Cdt shot.

Terri Drimel will take Leila home in a few weeks.  Her experience, this month, with losing another little brown Finn ewe made me want to bump up vaccinating the lambs against "overeating disease"-- clostridium?  So we took advantage of the cool, indoor lambing barn and ear tagged half (ran out of tags) and vaccinated and wormed all the lambs.  It felt good to get ahead of schedule this summer.  Now, we'll only have half as many to tag when our Scrapie Program vet tech comes out on July 9th, when we will give booster shots-- and know the lambies are protected.