Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Betting on brown

Browns have never been on my palette of favorite colors. It's a fine color for dogs and horses and wood grain, but I don't wear brown, I don't decorate with brown, and I didn't want any brown sheep. But something strange happened along the way and now I'm buying and BREEDING brown sheep! (Hmm, that means I will eventually be spinning up and knitting brown wool, and . . . well . . . go figure.)

You've met my beautiful Valentine, a light moorit (that's brown in Shetland sheep lingo). As I type this, Valentine may be getting acquainted with her handsome beau, Clarion, over at Lois Moore's Stonehaven Farm. As you can see, Clarion is a darker moorit, as well as having smirslet/sokket markings (that's the white on the head and legs in Shetland sheep lingo).

In our first lambing season, our two ewes each reproduced her own color. It's a sure bet that Valentine will do the same, since moorit is recessive to all other colors and therefore the guaranteed outcome of breeding two moorits. She can only surprise me with the SHADE of brown, as well as whether or not Clarion passes on any of that chrome. Whatever we get, I'm sure the lambs will be beautiful -- yes, even though they will be brown!

That's it for now at . . .

1 comment:

Kathy said...

She's beautiful, Michelle! I have a couple of moorits as well but know that one of them does carry Ag genetics. Skit has thrown all sorts of offspring, so I can hardly wait to see what we may get next spring. (Or is that counting your lambs before their Mum & Dad even meet?) :)