Lambing Conclusion 2013

I haven't been on top of our lamb posts this spring, so I will try to bring things up-to-date in one fell swoop.

Izarra had a pretty fantastic ram lamb out of Barenfang and he illustrates the potential that I saw in Barenfang when we threw some ewes in with him last fall. Izarra is a Khan daughter, and Barenfang is a Khan son. This is a closer line breeding than I normally do, but there were some things I was looking to combine with this pairing, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

On a related note, I got my ram micron tests back today and Khan came back at 22.5 microns as a three year old, which I thought was quite impressive. His spinning fineness was 21.9 microns.

Barenfang's numbers were excellent as well. His yearling test was 21.5 on average, with a 20.7 spinning fineness. If I had to pick between the two, I would go with Barenfang simply because his fleece has the full range of characteristics that I am looking for. But they are both excellent polled rams. Anyway, I like Izarra's ram lamb, to make a long story short (after I've already made it long).

Frangelico, another Khan daughter also came through with an excellent fawn katmoget ram out of Pompey. We ended up with 10 ram lambs this year, and nine ewe lambs, and this ram is at the top of the list. I said before how I liked how the Khan and Pompey lines have worked together, and this one is a good example of it. I'll have to get better pictures once the lambs mature more, but this was the best I could do with the time I had tonight.

Itasca is a ewe who always produces well, and we always look forward to her lambs because of it. This year we bred her to Pompey for the first time, and she produced this beautiful fawn katmoget, who has earned a spot in our top five ewe lamb list this year. She is what I was looking for when I cooked up this pairing last spring. It took me a while to get around to it, but once I did, it paid off.

And finally, Pearl produced an excellent fawn katmoget ram lamb out of Khan. This is Pearl's first lamb even though she is three. She is a very refined ewe, so we waited a year to breed her and for a variety of reasons, she didn't get bred last year either. But the wait was worth it, because I see this ram as a future flock sire. It's hard to really predict how a lamb will turn out, but I like what I see in this one. Time will tell whether he has his mother's density, but both of his parents are superfine.

Whispering Pines Blue Diamond x Pompey Magnus

Blue Diamond is one of our two Blue's Clues daughters, and also one of our better Constantinople daughters. Constantinople always throws really nice lambs, but Diamond's fleece is the tops. We felt like there was a good chance of getting really nice lambs from this breeding and we were not disappointed.

The grey ram is a really nice katmoget, with just about everything you could want in a ram lamb. The moorit is also extremely nice and is most likely polled. This is about as good as we could've hoped for, even though I don't typically get excited about rams. The truth is, however, we wanted a couple of nice ram lambs this year either out of Constantinople or one of her daughters. We have several to choose from. This breeding combined some of my favorite bloodlines.

Sommarang Isla x Pompey Magnus

Isla is a super fine ewe that we brought in from Wisconsin in 2011 and I was very interested in breeding her to Pompey, so that's what we did last fall. I liked her ewe lamb last spring out of Khan and could have gone that way again, but I had reasons for going the way I did.

The result was two very dark fawn katmoget ewe lambs. One is bigger than the other, but otherwise, they are pretty identical. They both look pretty sharp with very soft and fine fleeces.

Sommarang Ilke x Whispering Pines Barenfang

Ilke is one of our two Wisconsin ewes that we brought in back in 2011. The goal at that time was to infuse some additional top notch genetics into our flock (she is out of Firth of Fifth Avyt) as well as some much needed moorit. It's impossible to find super fine Shetlands out east, and I felt Ilke would move us toward our goals.

I bred her to Barenfang because I felt they both had very dense, super fine fleeces, and sometimes you just go with a hunch.

This little moorit lamb is the result and I really think she is built really well, and the fleece has potential as well. But, to be honest, I'm just happy to have a nice lamb out of Barenfang, who is a Khan son. If we elect to keep her, I think she adds a nice combination of genetics to go with what will be a dense fleece.

 

The other day I mentioned Genoa's ram, and finally got around to photographing him. He is out of Winter Sky Khan.

 



 You can see how his color and markings are identical to Genoa's.

 

I also included additional pictures of his moorit sister, shown here next to Blue Diamond's yearling daughter from last spring. Lots of rooing.



Whispering Pines Blue Sapphire x Pompey Magnus

Lambing slowly plods along here at Whispering Pines, but so far, the wait has been worth it.

Whispering Pines Blue Sapphire lambed and had two really nice lambs (one male and one female). As you can see, we finally got our coveted black lamb, although, we would have preferred a ewe in black. I’m just saying. This ram is very silky and soft, and has what is known as a dog coat. He has a nice structure and will most likely be a half-poll.

 

 

The ewe lamb is a fawn katmoget that is also silky and soft. We don’t typically decide on sale animals until all of the lambs are born and have had time to mature some, but I would be surprised if this lamb was on that list. I personally think her fleece will be very similar to her mothers, but one can’t know that for sure. But the fact that that’s even a possibility is quite exciting! It’s been very difficult producing my vision of the perfect Shetland fleece, so it’s always fun to see that potential in some of the lambs. And I also like that we are getting a fair amount of diversity in fleece type this year. I’ve always said that there are many types of Shetland fleeces within an acceptable range.

I've also always said that collecting the best bloodlines would be a strategy that would be the correct path forward if I could use them correctly (something I'm still working on), and it's rewarding to see some measure of success with that approach. It's not going to pay off with every lamb, but soon or later, proper selection is going to increase our success rate.

The next struggle is balancing selection so that we maintain the correct combination of all Shetland attributes, while maintaining a manageable flock size. In fact, if lambing ended today, I would be happy to switch our focus to the insanely tough choices we will have to make with our flock this year. I suppose we'll find a way, but it's never been this tough before.

Whispering Pines Genoa x Winter Sky Khan

I blogged about Siena and Kiyah recently, and readers will recognize Whispering Pines Genoa (Pompey Mangus x Shiobhan) as another of our top ewes. In fact, she is my top ewe in the flock. That’s a matter of taste because none of them are perfect, and they aren’t all strong in the same areas. Genoa is the result of some AI we did several years back. Her mother was Whispering Pines Shiobhan, an F1 Orion. When we bred Shiobhan to Pompey, we were looking for several things (we’re never looking for just one thing). We were looking for fineness of fleece (Pompey was one of the finest Shetlands in the country), and moorit. Well, we got fineness and type in spades, but Genoa is not brown-based.

Genoa was also my hardest breeding decision last fall. I ended up putting her with Winter Sky Khan because he was my best option really. Genoa is Pompey’s daughter, and Barenfang is a Pompey grandson. Ultimately, I think I made the right decision. Khan is a super fine three-year old ram, and in the grand scheme of our breeding program, not only our best option for Genoa, but really the only one.

I wasn't able to get a picture of the ram lamb, but I will soon. What I can say is that he looks very much like Genoa did at birth. Same color and fleece type. He is pretty much a copy of her at the same age. What I am hoping for is the same fleece. Genoa’s fleece is stunning in both color and handle. I see a lot of potential in this ram. I am hoping to get some updated pictures tomorrow since the weather looks like it may break for at least one day.

This moorit ewe is a stunner as well. It took two generations, but we did finally get moorit from Shiobhan’s genetics. I look forward to seeing her mature. We started out with a white ewe lamb who was dominant for black, ended up a dark blue katmoget (Genoa) and then this little moorit, who is in contention for my favorite lamb so far this year.

 

 

I also look forward to getting better pictures.

Whispering Pines Kiyah x Sheltering Pines Pompey Magnus

Whispering Pines Kiyah is out of Blue Diamond and Egyptian King, which means she is a second generation Whispering Pines sheep. We have always resisted the temptation to simply load up our flock with Whispering Pines offspring unless they fit a genetic purpose. There are so many things we look for before we elect to keep a lamb for future use. Kiyah is one of those sheep that we saw genetic potential in. Actually, she is built as solidly as any Shetlands we have owned, and has the crimpiest fleece in our flock (her CRV as a yearling was 107). She is also fine and extremely uniform from front-to-back. In short, she has a lot of things that we value.

We bred her to Pompey, not because Khan would’ve been a bad choice, but because I liked the line breeding potential here. Blue Diamond is Kiyah’s mother, and Wintertime Bond (Pompey’s grandson). That makes Kiyah a Bond grandson, and a Constantinople granddaughter. This is not a heavy line breeding, but it does bring together a lot of valuable genetics.

This ram lamb is a fawn katmoget with a lot of potential. There is very little I don’t like about this guy at this young age. He should be polled.

 

 

His sister sets the bar much higher, however. This is one beautiful ewe lamb, and I’ll resist the usual hyperbole and leave it at that. We’ve had several ewe lambs born here that I would put on our wall of fame, and this is one of them.