Last fall we did Laparoscopic AI on 8 of our BFL ewes. Out of those 8, 4 caught and carried to term. This spring we had 1 set of triplets, 1 set of twins and 2 singles. It could have been better, but we were happy to get what we did. Three of the ewes had lambs from Myfyrian Blue Dragon. We ended up with 2 good ram lambs and 2 good ewe lambs.

Little Smoky Draco. Out of Koenig Maggie by Blue Dragon
He's a single, but Maggie always twins with natural breeding

Little Smoky Roshon. He's out of Little Smoky Corene by
Blue Dragon. Roshon is a triplet 

Little Smoky Drogon. Drogon is going to be our keeper.
He's out of Dianna by Blue Dragon. He's a twin. Dianna is a CarryHouse
R1 granddaughter. 

Drogon again, standing besides Xact, our yearling ram.
 He weighs 110 lbs at 4 1/2 months. 

Our New Import June 2012

On June 25th 2012 we crossed the US border with a new ram and four new ewes. All are from new genetics imported into the US.

Our New Ram

Xact is the son of the ram that I originally wanted to get into Canada. His sire, Llwygy X1 is owned by Jo Binns of Great Llwygy Farm in Abergavenny Wales. Only 19 straws were collected from X1 and are now owned by Lisa Rodenfels in Caldwell Ohio. I chose Xact because he is out of a Barlaes "Titus" AI daughter that was bred by Lisa.  You can find a picture of "Titus" at http://www.bflba.com/ Look under the link "UK Imported Sires"

This is a picture of Llwygy X1 that was taken by Jared Lloyd when he made his trip to the UK to find new genetics. X1 was used as one the rams for the BFL Sire Reference program in the UK. He has tremendous length of loin and a good strong top line. Both are highly desirable traits that I would like to breed into my flock.

 The process of getting Xact to Northern Alberta was fraught with stress and heart stopping moments. Much of the stress was of my own doing because of my lack of expertise with importing from the USA.

I had help from several people and it was only because of their efforts that I was finally able to get this ram home. First I would like to thank Lisa Rodenfels for selling Xact to me. I would like to thank Garrett Ramsey for transporting him safely for me at a price I could afford and then Robina Koenig with all her advise and soothing my fears when it looked like everything was going wrong.

There were several vets involved, both in the US and in Canada.  I would also like to thank them. If even one of them had been unreasonable, the import would not have happened.


The other hero in this story is Xact himself. He traveled from his home in Caldwell Ohio to the National Fair in Wooster. He was shown and then picked up by Garrett Ramsey, who transported him to his farm in Minnesota. Garrett kept him there until June 21st. He then faced the long 2 day trip to Black Sheep Gathering in Oregon. He was shown there for two days and then made the 3 day trip to Northern Alberta. The whole experience must have been very stressful for him, but because of his calm disposition, he seemed to take it all in stride.

We are very much looking forward to what he can produce in our flock.

The Girls

We were also able to import 2 yearling ewes and 2 ewe lambs from Robina Koenig in Oregon. Our importing story on our ewes is rather boring. It went very smoothly. Robina had everything in order and I really didn't have to worry about too much at all. 

Please let me introduce you to Delaney in the background and Welly in the foreground. Both are by Mossvale "Master Plan" also known as Scotty. They were bred by Robina Koenig at Tumble Creek Farm in Bend Oregon. Both show great conformation. Good and square with good width and depth and length.

This is Welly again. She is out of Robina's Weslie who goes back to Beeston Titan on her dam side.

Delaney again, who is out of Robina's Dannon. She also has Titan on her Dam side. Delaney is a big solid ewe with excellent width of hindquarters. 

 This little girl is Myfria. She is by Myfyrian B13 (AI) out of Robina's Lilli, who is Carry House R1 grand daughter. She is only a ewe lamb, but shows great length, strength of loin and good width and depth in her hindquarters. 

This is Gwyn. She is by Grugeor B1 out of Robina's Lucy, a Carry House R1 daughter 

We are very excited about the future of our flock with these new additions. I will be adding pictures soon of our new Blue Dragon lambs from this year. They are shaping up nicely with two really nice ewe lambs and three ram lambs that I'm very excited about.

Bluefaced Leicester is Recognized by CSBA

We were given the good news by Stacey White that CSBA has voted to recognize the Bluefaced Leicester.   Recognition is based on their acceptance of the UK registry. This means that all animals that are registered with Canadian Livestock Records Corp. will have to first be registered in the UK. Once we have a base built, we will be able to register their offspring without going through the UK.

Pictured below is our lineup of rams that we've successfully collected from the UK. The semen is due to land in Canada sometime in July. We will be inseminating in November 2011 for an April 2012 lambing. This is a very exciting time for both our farm and the Bluefaced Leicester in Canada.

Myfyrian B10 (Blue Dragon)

Grugoer B1 

This is the twin sister of Grugoer B1

Llwygy B67 (Balck Mountain) We will continue to breed
some coloured ewes and rams for the Fibre market.
They can continue to be registered in the US 

Our Home and our Farm

We are situated on the banks of the Little Smoky river. We have 160 acres of land with 80 acres in cultivation and the rest in bush and some muskeg.

View from the back of our farm
Our future building site

Currently we run around 100 head of ewes, 5 mature rams plus a few ram lambs that are for sale. Most of our ewes are Mules (Bluefaced Leicester crosses.) Our primary market is commercial lamb. These being the progeny of our mule ewes crossed with a Charolais ram.

Our flock management is based on the UK three tiered system. (Or at least as close as we can come to it in this country) This is a system where hill type ewes such as the North Country Cheviot or Scottish Blackface are crossed with a Bluefaced Leicester ram. This produces a hybrid that is said to be more than the sum of it's parts. It has the easy keeping, hardy and great mothering traits of it's dam, coupled with the prolificacy, milkiness and carcass qualities of the BFL. These mule ewes are then crossed with a terminal sire and in our case, it's high index Charolais rams. This produces a fast growing, great market lamb.

Our replacement Mule ewe lambs

Our sheep business began with a focus on fibre and the BFL has probably the best handspinner fleece available on the market. Their wonderful fleece characteristics are passed on to their offspring. That makes up the other side of our farming operation.  We also market fleeces to handspinners and with the recent purchase of a Pat Green cottage industry carding mill, we are now processing our fleeces into batts for quilting, felting and other end uses.

We are in the process, and have been since last fall of importing semen from the UK in order to improve the Canadian BFL. The picture at the top of the page is one of the rams that has been collected and is awaiting import to Canada (Grugeor B1 owned by Maldwyn Davies from Wales). Insemination should begin next fall ( 2011.) We have also collected from a coloured ram in order to build up our coloured BFL flock. Our emphasis however is on Mule production and for that reason we will be importing two other white, high index BFL rams. I will post pictures when I know what rams we are able to obtain.