Yes, I'm sad. Valentine has such wonderful fleece and personality, and I had full confidence in Lois' judgement of suitors for her. I was just sure her ram lamb would be a good sire to use on my other girls, and the ewe lamb would be so nice I'd have to sell Rechel or Bella to make room for her. But there will be other years and other chances for my sweet Valentine to produce her own little valentines for Boulderneigh. This year I accept the challenge of finding the "perfect" ram to court all four of my girls this fall. I never intended to breed all four of them the same season; ask me if I'll ever do it again a year or so from now!
That's it for now at . . .
8 comments:
I was so sorry to hear of Valentine's lack of lamb when you called today. :( Bummer! I think you ought to "go for broke" and have a ram settle all of them this next fall...then you'd have some lambs to sell, even the ewe lambs, to help with the finanaces.
Gee...I know someone with ram lambs....
Again, I am so sorry Val's not in the family way, Michelle. I know how much you were looking forward to her lambing.
All of us in farming have to be Optimists! What other part of our society always looks forward to "next season", thinking it'll be better next time? Maybe that's something we can be proud of.
Oh, what a dissapointment :-( Well, there's always Black Sheep - I'm sure you'll be able to find lots of up and coming young "men" there - T.
What a huge dissappointment that must have been! I'm sorry, Michelle. I guess it was actually fortunate that you had access to an ultr-sound and could find out now, rather than waiting another month!
At least you'll have another peaceful year to enjoy your girls and I suspect next year you'll have LOTS of lambs....
;-)
So sorry Michelle, such a disappointment. You are lucky to have access to such equipment! I had one last year that showed pregnancy at 30 days when we did ultra sounds on them and re-absorbed. She was one of our AI girls too.
If you don't want to keep a ram, are there breeders in your area you could lease from?
Hi Michelle,
Sorry to hear that Valentine isn't going to lamb this year. I know you were looking forward to having babies. I was surprised that Duckie didn't lamb this year to, but at least all the other girls did. You'll have a blast next year with four ewes lambing. That won't be too bad---you'll likely triple your flock with days! ;-)
WOW! Look at that silvery fleece to be. :-) At least all she has to do this year is grow some really nice fleece. That should be some compensation for the disappointment of waiting another year for lambs.
- Franna
Well, I am sorry to hear about Valentine, but selfishly glad to have a lamb-less "partner" this season - you and I will just have to take twice the number of pictures of our adult flock, and of course make all our blog friends look at them! (hee-hee)
I really wanted to space my lambs out, not famine (this year) then feast (next year, if I lamb out four!). But it is also nice to look for just the right proven ram, rather than planning on using a late ram lamb from Valentine and wondering if he'll be mature enough and if his horns will be okay and if his fleece will be nice. Besides, Val may not have given me a ram at all! I think I'll have to pay Susie Sizemore a visit to get a lamb fix; she's the nearest Shetland breeder.
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