Vogue got things rolling for us this year with an excellent moorit ram out of Canterbury. We currently have a grand total of zero moorit rams, so this one doesn't bother me at all (in spite of the fact I said I didn't want any rams this year since I have so many from last year that are about as good as it gets).
I will say this often, but you never know how well these young lambs will develop, but this one has promise. He appears to have very long legs in this picture, but I'm already seeing his proportions shaping up as he grows. You like to have a proper length to height ratio in rams, so we will be watching this one grow. Lambs are always out of proportion at his age anyway. Always lots of leg.
Genoa was next on April 13th (one day later) with a moorit ewe lamb out of Canterbury. We were surprised to start things off with two unpatterned lambs, but we'll take it. We always use katmoget rams it seems, and are never surprised that our lamb crop is so katmoget heavy. This ewe lamb is close to the quality of Vogue's ram, if not better. I think she will be a good one.
Itasca broke our consecutive year string of ewe lambs last year when she had twin rams. This year, she had twin ewe lambs out of Whispering Pines Rosewood. The first one was moorit, and the second a black. We're always excited to get black sheep, especially nice ones like this. Rosewood is a Superfine fawn katmoget out of Stonehenge. We have several generations of Superfine sheep behind these lambs, so we'll see how they turn out.
Caramel Mocha was up next on 4/22 in the early AM with a pretty fawn katmoget ewe out of Canterbury. Caramel Mocha is out of Khan and Genoa, which I think bodes well for this lamb. It took a few days but we had our first katmoget of the season. One thing I'm noticing this year so far is the consistency of the fleece from front to back in addition to the tightness. That is something that we breed for, so that is encouraging.
That was pretty much it for the leisurely portion of lambing as they came fast and furious after that starting with Whispering Pines Sherrie at 3 AM on 4/23, the first of two lambings that day. Sherrie is one of our two year olds that we have been waiting two years for. She is out of our Blue Sapphire, so lots of fantastic genetics we have been waiting to use. Canterbury is the sire of both of these ewe lambs.
Turin waited until 11:30 in the morning to give us these two ewe lambs out of Canterbury. Turin is a producer, I'll give her that. I'm finding that to be the case in the Pompey Magnus daughters. All of them have produced consistently well, which is why we still have so many of them. Again, great fleece uniformity and crimp. We are getting a lot of moorits this year, which is a good thing.
That's it for now. Tomorrow I'll get through April 24th, which was notable for the fact that it was the first time we had three ewes lamb on the same day, and only the second time we had two lamb at the same time. As stressful as that sounds, I actually prefer it.
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