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

Our BFL Ewe Line Up

Last summer we were able to buy 9 very fine solid ewes from Margaret Fryatt. Along with the 4 ewes we imported and the daughters that were born from our AI to Blue Dragon, I feel that we have a good solid genetic base to build on. Here are some pictures of our ewe line up. Not all of our ewes are represented yet, but I will get pictures of everyone eventually.

Nymeria is a yearling BlueDragon daughter

Lyra is a yearling Blue Dragon daughter

Delaney one of our imported ewes
from Robina Koenig's flock.

Lyra again showing her good body length and top line

This is Fanny-Mae 36Y. She came from Margaret Fryatt's
flock. Raised a good set of twins

Myfryia is one of our imports from the US
out of  Robina Koenig's flock

This is Amy 05Y from Margaret Fryatt's flock

This is Welly, also from Robina Koenig's flock

Maive 201 from Margaret Fryatt's flock

Gwyn from the US. Robina Koenig's flock

Lula 03Y from Margaret Fryatt

Madeline

Maive 201 from Margaret Fryatt

The girls looking bright and attentive
(border collie on the other side of the fence)

 This is just some of our ewes. I'll be adding them to the static page on our current ewes.

Fall of 2013 and What Was Accomplished This Year

I have made a pact with myself to keep my blog up to date. I often think that I really don't have too much to say and nothing very interesting happens here, but that is not true. Week by week and month by month, there is a lot happening on the farm. I don't know how many are interested, but even for ourselves it will be a benefit to keep it updated.

We had an excellent lambing season this Spring. Our mule ewes produced well and we had good growth on our lambs up until mid summer.

This is one ewes story. Wish I had a picture of her two lambs at weaning time, because they looked great and weighed about 75-80 lbs at 3 months. This ewe is 4 yrs old and has done a good job every year. 

Coming into the barn to lamb
 (on her own. She knows the routine)

Would like to be left alone
thank you very much.

About 2 hrs later a successful delivery with no interference
from me

Same ewe about 2 months later. Two very nice lambs

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