Last Fall, I had so many wonderful rams that I wanted to use, and only a limited number of secure breeding areas. One of the solutions that I came up with was to put a favourite ram lamb of mine in with the entire flock for a few days ... ahead of breeding groups.
The ram I chose was WillowGarden Juice. Juice is grey, and had a decent (not exceptional) histogram. What I liked most about him is that he is linebred on Enfield Greyling, my favourite UK ram. His sire is Lugthart Starry Champion AI. His Dam is a Great Plains William the Conqueror AI daughter. Juice has 37.5% Greyling genetics.
Juice's dam also goes back to Bitterroot Joshua. I liked Joshua a lot, especially for his conformation and fleece lock structure.
Juice was in with the flock for just seven days, but he was a BUSY boy ... :-) So far, six ewes have given birth to his lambs, with a few more looking imminent.
These tiny lambs are out of WillowGarden Papaya. Papaya is almost 100% Dailley lines, very soft and even, and a wonderful modified colour. WillowGarden Liza Minnelli (3.4 lb) is moorit. WillowGarden Leslie Howard (3.9 lb) is black. Both look to be Aa/Aa. It is too early to be sure that they are modified colours.
This little tank of a lamb, WillowGarden Jose Ferrer (7.4 lb) is a moorit (likely modified) ram out of WillowGarden Tootsie Roll. Tootsie Roll is an F2 Brent horned ewe. She has a much more primitive fleece than I like, but this guy looks to have nailed fleece ... :-)
WillowGarden Dustin Hoffman (7.4 lb) is a white ram out of WillowGarden Lake Victoria. Victoria is F2 Lightning and F1 Todhill Hornblower making her 75% UK genetics. She appears black, but is extension dominant and really white. I like this guy a lot. He is either Awt/Ag or Awt/Aa.
WillowGarden Lionel Barrymore (5.9) is a fawn (modified) spotted katmoget ram out of WillowGarden Chocolatini (Underhill Thelonius Monk X SheltrgPines Irene). He has an awesome looking, even fleece. There is no visible britch yet. Thelonius' main fault in my opinion was a larger than I like britch.
This little guy is out of Wind Water Rogue. I am keeping Rogue for my friend Shawna Grey, while she gets fences up at her new farm. This ram lamb has a very uneven fleece that is already obviously double coated, with a much coarser outer coat. He has no official name and is simply known as 'Chops' at the moment.
WillowGarden Joan Fontaine (6.3 lb) is a black ewe lamb out of Great Plains Tulip (F2 Jamie, F2 Greyling). She is lovely and refined.
WillowGarden Helen Hayes is as nice as her twin, Joan Fontaine, but is Ag. Tulip is fawn Ag and has thrown many modified lambs. These two may thus be modified colours as well.
There may still be more Juice lambs to come. We'll see. I have a LOT of really big ewes looking ready to explode and my main breeding groups are still 10 or 11 days away from their due dates!
4 comments:
OMG, Lionel's fleece looks AMAZING!
Nice lamb crop so far.
wow Bill congrats on a group of very even fleeced lambs!
So does all this mean that your other nice rams will be underrepresented, since Juice was so BUSY?
No problem about the others getting there share. There are still 49 more ewes to lamb this Spring ... :-)
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