Our Farm Sold Sept 2/ 2014. I am happy to say that our flock of Bluefaced Leicesters along with the semen we imported was sold to Tara MacLachlan and Kirsten Tittemore in Saskatchewan.  They have plans to carry on the breeding program and the fibre business that I started and will have breeding stock and fibre for sale next year. Please visit their website to get information on the flock and their plans for the future. http://www.littlesmokyblues.ca

I hope that you will be as good to them as you have been to us. I have enjoyed my journey into raising Bluefaced Leicester sheep and will miss them tremendously, but a new road has opened up to us and we are excited about our new journey and isn't that what life's about? One road ends and another begins.

Looking down the valley towards Barriere

For those of you that are interested, we moved from Northern Alberta to Central BC. Barriere to be exact. It's about 60 km north of Kamloops. Moving from Alberta to BC is very much like moving to another country. We bought a 10 acre piece of land with a small creek running through it. It's very beautiful and so far we are really enjoying our new home our new neighbors and the many differences in climate and attitudes.

View from our building site. Did I mention we need to build a house.

It does come with a small barn, paddocks and fencing.

Commercial Ewe Lambs For Sale

There are between 50- 60 crossbred ewe lambs for sale. These girls are out of 1/2 BFL ewes that were bred either Canadian Arcott or Charolais.

Below is an example of what they look like. They have an average weight between 70 to 75 lbs.

Duelling Rams

It's always a bit testy when one group of rams is introduced to another. We put the two yearling rams in with the older rams today. Neither leader wanted to give up his position. I expect when Jango grows up, he'll be a contender for leader.

Drogon showing Jango who's the boss ram
Jango looking very fierce. Xact acting as backup for Drogon.
  Dallyn backing Jango. 

Now that that's settled. All are best of friends. Drogon has a bit of a
skinned head, but Jango showed no ill effects. 

2014 Lambs for Sale

All our early lambed ewes were bred to Xact. Lambing began March 6th and only ran for one cycle. All the rest of our BFL ewes that didn't catch in the first cycle were bred either Charolais or Canadian Arcott to lamb the first week in May.

Our early lambs are now weaned, separated from the main flock and pictures taken


It takes a while to load the pedigrees, so please be patient. 

Xact

All our Lambs that were born to Xact this spring
220% lamb crop with only two losses

Xact's Pedigree

Fibre Works 3466 Madeleine: Gave birth 3/12/2014 to 2 ewe lambs. One white and one coloured. Both birth weights were 10.5 lbs.

Maddy's Pedigree

Maddy's daughter 4460

Maddy's other daughter 4459

Little Smoky Nymeria: Gave birth to twins 3/6/2014 Ram 9 lbs., Ewe lamb 11lbs

Nymeria's son 4427 Sold to 
Brad Peters

Nymeria's daughter 4428

Little Smoky 7818 Lyra: Lyra had a single ewe lamb 3/8/2014 12 lbs

Lyra's Pedigree

Lyra's Daughter 4426
Very beautiful girl like her mom
Sold to Margaret Fryatt

Koenig OR1-270 Gwyn: Had twins on rams 3/22/2014  Ram 11 lbs  She lost one to the cold weather.

Gwyn's pedigree

Gwyn's son 4461 Frozen ears. This guy will be sold
as commercial. His front legs are a bit
crooked. Other than that he looks good.

Ranfurly 205X Brandy: Brandy had twins on 3/16/2014 A ram lamb 12 lbs and a ewe lamb 13 lbs

Brandy's pedigree

Brandy's son 4496

Brandy's daughter 4495
sold to Judith Isaac

Ranfurly 201X Maeve: Twin ewe lambs born 3/9/2014 13 lbs and 12 lbs

Maeve's Pedigree

Maive's daughter 4453
Sold to Margaret Fryatt

Maive's daughter 4454

Ranfurly 233 03Y Lula: Lula had twin ewe lambs born 3/18/2014 12 lbs and 13lbs

Lula's Pedigree

Lula's daughter 4493

Lula's daghter 4494

Ranfurly 265 36Y Fanny-Mae: Fanny-Mae had twin ram lambs born 3/22/2014. 11 lbs and 10 lbs

Fanny-Mae's Pedigree

Fanny-Mae's son 4491
Sold to Inga Cernevska

Fanny-Mae's second son 4492
He's a bit small and will be sold
commercial
Sold to Dixey

Ranfurly 268 05Y Amy: Amy had triplets 3/9/2014 A ram lamb 7 lbs. ewe lamb 7 lbs and a ram lamb 12 lbs.

Amy's Pedigree

One of Amy's triplet sons 4438
Sold to Lincoln Smith 
The guy on the left is a BFL/NCC cross.
It gives you an idea of what hybrid vigour
does.

Amy's second son 4440.
He is the biggest ram lamb
in the group and very nice.

Amy'striplet  Daughter 4439
She was bottle fed and is a bit small
Sold to Margaret Fryatt

Koenig OR71-246 Welly: Welly had twin ewe lambs 3/9/2014. Both are coloured.  11 lbs and 10 lbs.

Welly's Pedigree

Welly's daughter 4451

Welly's daughter 4452
Sold to Margaret Fryatt

Koenig OR71-242 Delaney: Delaney had twins 3/16/2014. Ram lamb 10 lbs. A ewe lamb 11 lbs.

Delaney's pedigree

Delaney's son 4499

New Adventures

After a difficult winter and some soul searching, my husband and I have decided to sell our farm and retire from sheep farming. He is going on his pension this summer and would like to have the freedom to do some traveling, as do I.

We put the farm up for sale  in February and by April it was sold. I also talked to a few people about my Bluefaced Leicester flock being for sale and they are also sold. They will be going East to Saskatchewan in August. Tara McLachlan and Kirsten Tittemore have bought them. Tara and her husband have a grain farm and about 300 head of commercial North Country Cheviots ewes in the Eyebrow area. Kirsten is new to sheep farming, but is eager to learn and with Tara's help, I expect she will do well. Both ladies have young families which also means lots of willing help.

Kirsten is very interested in moving forward with my fibre business. I will be giving her my contact list, and all the help that I can give. All of you that have bought fleeces from me in the past can expect to hear from Kirsten. I hope that you will give both Tara and Kirsten the support and good will that you have extended to me. I think they will be taking over my blog and farm name as well as the flock.

On that note, I would like to say that I have very much enjoyed working with all of you. The fibre business has been very good to me and I've taken a great deal of pleasure in working with my fleeces and sending them to people that appreciated them. I've made a lot of good friends over the last several years. I plan to continue to work with fibre and carry on learning to weave. Only now I'll be in the same boat as the rest of you. I'll have to buy my fleeces!! I expect to have a good supply with Tara and Kirsten though.

Possession date on the sale of our farm is September 2nd, so we have the whole summer to get our plans in order. I lambed out our ewes this spring and I will have the lamb crop from both the BFLs and my commercial girls. We will sell them after weaning in August.

We bred all of our BFLs and the commercial ewes that I had intended to keep replacements from to Xact. There are some very nice ewe and ram lambs coming up this year. I'll get pictures posted ASAP. So anyone that has thought about buying a BFL ram or ewe lamb from me, this is the time to do it.

Please follow the link to my fleece page for an update on my 2014 fleeces.

2013 Ram Lambs

We have 11 ram lambs, but only 4 or 5 will be good enough to register. I have to be very picky about who I keep as breeding rams. Some were very slow to mature and they really should have done better. One had pneumonia as a lamb and it seems to have ruined his lungs. Another little guy looks good, but his mother had some traits I didn't like. I kept her daughter, but won't keep her ram lamb. Her daughter is on trial.

When we are using  these rams to produce replacement ewe lambs, we have to look closely at the maternal traits of their dams and their growth characteristics. I have a large enough flock of ewes now that I can afford to be diligent about keeping good ewe records and culling ram lambs where needed.

Again, I have not done the registrations on the ram lambs and so, no one has names yet.

We did semen testing a couple of weeks back and all of the guys I decided to keep tested well. One had a fever, so we decided not to stress him. Since then, his fever cleared up and if I have a sale for him, I'll take him in and get him tested. If not, he'll wait until next season and be tested as a yearling.

I have the rams with what's left of our feeder lambs. The five I had in the group of keepers, pretty much stick together. So when I went out to take pictures this morning, they were all in a convenient group.

One little guy in the front clearly does not belong in this picture,
but he certainly thinks he should be included.

This is my favorite ram lamb this year. He grew really well, even
though he had a rough start. His dam only has one side and I decided to
keep his brother on her. He was bottle fed. His brother died of pneumonia  at about
2 weeks of age. I put him back on his mother and she took him back without asking
too many questions. She's a great mother. 

Our 2013 Ewe lambs

We had some really nice ewe lambs born this year. There were 11, but we lost one last summer. Here are some pictures of some of the 10. I still need to get registrations done on them, so they don't have names yet. Plan to get that done soon. Some of these girls are for sale. I would like to sell 5 of them.

This little girl is one of the best in the group. (I think)

I was able to get the 4 coloured girls grouped together for
a shot. 

This little girl is out of Dianna by Xact.
 She's a twin and is for sale