Whispering Pines Farm Registered Shetland Sheep

Fleece Clinic II

2011-12-29T17:43:00.000-08:00

Last year we did a fleece clinic on this blog to illustrate some Shetland fleece characteristics that we like. Shetlands come equipped with many fleece types, so don’t take this to be the definitive guide on the breed, but I will attempt to contrast the different types and, at the same time, illustrate some reasons to go with each type.

First of all, it’s not unusual to encounter double-coated Shetlands on your Shetland journey in the US. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a double-coated Shetland. They are common. What you need to determine is what you want to do with the fleece. Below is an example of a double-coated Shetland fleece.

This sample is very straight and coarse. But it has nice luster, which is to say it’s silky. It will spin up very well. But you would never want to use it in next-to-the-skin garments. It’s far too coarse for comfort. And without crimp, it lacks the elasticity that you want for some projects. This particular sample is about 34 microns on average, and the CV is over 30%, but not much over. This fleece is about 9" long.

It is not a breed standard Shetland fleece by any stretch of the imagination, but that doesn’t mean it is bad, necessarily. But I can’t see using it for anything other than rugs. I think it's an example of the type of fleece that starts a lot of arguments between breeders. When you say something does not meet the breed standard, people take exception to it, but, in my opinion, this one doesn't. Why? For one, 34 microns is too coarse. Shetlands are supposed to be fine. Secondly, there is not crimp here. Some might try to argue that it's wavey (which is what the breed standard calls out), but that's equivalent to saying blue is almost green. This fleece has no movement at all in the finished product. It has no elasticity whatsoever.

Now, given that this sample has two very distinct coats, you could easily spend the time to separate them and then the finer inner coat could be used for clothing, but it will still lack the elasticity that you desire. As I said, it comes down to what you want to do with the fleece. But the bigger question might be why would you choose Shetland if you are making rugs and/or other items that require extra durability, without crimp?

The next sample is also double-coated, but not as extreme. I’ve seen Shetland fleeces ranging from 2” to 16”, and this one is closer to 6”. It has good luster, but also lacks crimp like the first example.

In terms of fineness, it is about 32 microns with a 30% CV. It’s certainly not my ideal, but it is pretty silky, and doesn't feel as coarse as the first sample. You can do a bit more with this fleece than the last one, because the outer coat (guard hair) isn't as dominant, but it still lacks the crimp to really provide good elasticity to projects. And I know there are things you can do during the spinning process to compensate for the lack of crimp, but when you compare it to finer fleeces, there is a very noticeable difference. In terms of spinning properties, it's probably equivalent to the first sample. Both will spin up easily, which makes them a favorite of beginning spinners.

To sum up the first two samples, both are Shetland, but not particularly good examples of the breed. If these fleeces were the norm in the old days in Shetland, the breed would not have been called the finest of the British breeds. That's not to say they didn't exist, however.

Next is a sample of a fleece that I think is a pretty good example from an adult Shetland. You can see distinct crimp here.

The staple is 4", which is what I have found to be a good length. As far as fineness, this one is about 29 microns with a 23% CV. Not bad at all. Nice luster, but not as nice as others that I've seen. Having made products from this fleece, I can say we are pretty satisfied with it. You might say that 29 microns is at the very upper limit of what wool authorities would call fine, and you'd be correct. But you have to evaluate fleeces against multiple criteria, and this one grades out pretty well overall. It has a lot of good properties. And coming from a three-year old ewe, this is not bad at all. There are two coats here, but they would be difficult to separate. If you are into separating the coats, you might be better off with a fleece that contains a more pronounced difference between them. Icelandics have such fleeces and a lot of people like them for that reason.

The next sample is from what I would call a fine fleece. This is basically what we breed for here at Whispering Pines. That doesn't mean anyone else needs to follow what we do, but I'm merely illustrating what we are after.

This fleece falls somewhere between 26 and 28 microns with a 20% CV. It’s about 4” long and you can see the crimp quite clearly. This fleece is fully functional in that is has nice luster and fineness to go along with the other classic Shetland properties. It could be used in most projects, including those requiring extra durability. It really has no limitations for use. It's not as fine as some of the best Shetland fleeces I've seen, but it's very good. This fleece would not need to be separated into two coats because there really aren't two of them.

The final sample is what I would call an extra fine Shetland fleece. It's not Merino fine, but it is still very fine.

In Shetland parlance, an extra fine fleece should have an average micron of between 21 and 24 microns. Some would disagree with my assessment on that, but I’ve seen too many really nice 24 micron fleeces to say that they are not extra fine. And yes, you can notice the difference between one of these fleeces and say an 28 micron Shetland fleece (like the one above). I also don’t think there’s much of a downside to fleeces this fine. I would think you might give up some durability with the really fine stuff, but for years, they used Shetland fleeces in the UK for shawls and other next-to-skin applications. And they were able to do that because of the versatility of the fleeces. It has properties that allow it to be used in many applications. Shetland fleeces are very unique in the totality of their properties. They aren't like Alpaca fiber. They might not be as fine as Alpaca, but they are very durable. Shetland fleeces were commonly used in the hosiery industry back in the day. And that was another thing that made them so unique. They could be used in a demanding application like that, and yet still had excellent fineness. A good Shetland fleece handles like nothing else.

Shetland fleeces can also be quite diverse. The breed itself is very diverse in terms of the various attributes that make up the breed, but fleece is one example of that. I have seen single sheep that had three types of fleeces on one animal. The neck and shoulders were kind of like the good sample above - very decent - to - good with lots of utility. Not extra fine, but still pretty good. Then by midside, you were into a fleece that resembled the second one from the top. Then, as you moved back a few inches, you were into something more like the top photo. The back half of the sheep really was very limited in terms of what you could do with it. For all intents and purposes, you started out with a three pound skirted fleece and ended up with less than a pound of what I would call decent and reasonably crimpy, and maybe another pound of fleece that wasn’t terribly coarse, but still had limited functionality. That’s just not what we breed for here, but you can find sheep like that without very much difficulty if that's what you like. As I said, it really depends on what you like in your fleeces.

In closing, here are a few other examples of extra fine fleeces with 4" staple lengths and great uniformity. And notice the classic Shetland lock structure on each one.

These fleeces might not be for everyone, but we think they represent the breed nicely. They won't be 6" long, but 3" to 4" is more typical of the breed when you get this fine. If someone can show me a fine and soft Shetland fleece that is longer than 6", I'll be very interested in that fleece. I am sure there are bloodlines like that, but I haven't come across one yet. A 6" fleece can be quite acceptable, but I wouldn't expect it to be this fine. I suppose it could be, but I think this would be the exception to the norm, based on what I have seen.

And maybe that's the final point of this post. You don't have to go super short to get extra fine. The Shetland Sheep Society allows fleeces to be as short as 2" and as long as 6". I don't care for the fleeces at those extremes, but I've seen some good stuff at those ends of the spectrum.

I have been fortunate to have visited 15 Shetland farms over the years, and I have seen a lot of different types of Shetlands and fleeces. That has given me some perspective on the breed that I would not have gained otherwise. It allowed me to really fine tune my craft. And to me, breeding is a craft. It's not easy. It's not hard breeding Shetlands because they are so small and hardy, but getting fleeces like we like has not been easy. And, to be honest, we still haven't reached our goals yet, but we have had enough success to get a glimpse of what is possible with the breed. And that keeps me working at it.

Sommarang Idelle

2011-12-09T16:25:00.000-08:00

When I headed out to Wisconsin to attend the WSWF this past September, I left home with specific instructions not to buy any katmogets, but this one was too good to pass up. She is out of Sommarang Challis, another ewe that I am impressed with (hey, Lori knows what she is doing). Her father was Sommarang Gilroy who microned around 20.5 or something as a yearling. I also liked Gilroy a great deal. He wasn’t far off of the top rams in my estimation. It’s always nice to see the parents. In fact, if I don’t like one of the parents, I won’t take the sheep.

Anyway, this beautiful ewe is Sommarang Idelle. In the best pair of ewe lambs class, she took first or second, and Isla took the other spot. I don’t remember who they were paired up with, but it wasn’t each other. So, Lori took first and second place with her two pair of ewe lamb entries. Not too bad. Idelle’s micron test was: AFD: 21.0 CV: 4.3 CV: 20.7% CEM: 8.1 SF: 20.4.

How does this lamb compare to the other two Wisconsin ewes? Structurally, I like her better. In terms of fleece, I prefer Isla and Ilke. But Idelle's fleece, although not quite as silky and fine as the other two, is a little longer and denser.

I just don’t encounter spotted ewes of this quality very often. I don’t breed specifically for spots these days, but I do appreciate a good spotted ewe when I see one.

Sommarang Ilke

2011-12-07T16:42:00.000-08:00

Proving how much I liked Firth of Fifth Avyt, I decided to buy another moorit daughter out of him. Ilke is another beautiful ewe. I didn’t go to Jefferson with the goal of buying up Avyt lambs, but once I saw him, I knew one wasn’t enough (of course, is it ever?). Ilke is out of Sommarang Comfrey, another of the amazing ewes that Lori owns. I prefer Isla if I had to pick one, but they are very close. Ilke’s micron test was: AFD: 20.2 CV: 4.5 CV: 22.3% CEM: 8.8 SF: 19.9. I think Ilke and Isla will have very similar yearling numbers, and certainly both will be keepers for next year.

They both feel really fine, but Ilke feels slightly softer. Either way, they are two of the softer ewes in our flock.

Sommarang Isla

2011-12-06T18:31:00.000-08:00

When I went to Jefferson this fall, I was on a mission to learn and to see if there were any moorit ewes that I thought would help our flock. There were, but most of them were not available. Fortunately, I left early for the trip so I could spend some time on the Thursday before the Judge's training talking to Lori Stephenson, Kate Sharp, and Alan Hill. I had already been talking with Lori about moorit ewes so I knew what she had, but I figured I'd take a look in person to see if I could talk myself into buying sheep (that's how I buy sheep. I go into it not planning on following through with whatever hairbrained idea I might have had earlier). Once in a while, I see something that blows me away, and so begins the inner turmoil of trying to talk myself out of it.

In this case, Lori had several really nice moorit lambs, so right away I knew I had some issues to deal with. I'm lucky to find one Shetland that I like (and that is also for sale) and here there were several. After looking them over pretty well, I slept on it and went to the training on Friday. Needless to say, I was really blown away with two of Lori's adult rams that were at the show. Hacket and Avyt were incredible rams, and certainly two that would've looked good on my farm...if they were polled. Still, they were (are) two excellent rams and I thought to myself that it would be nice to have some offspring from one or both of them.

After the training, I went back to the pen and looked the ewe lambs over again, and picked out two moorits that I liked a lot. I wrote down the eartag numbers and then proceeded to look at the pedigrees.

I was surprised to discover that both were Avyt daughters.

When I went to Jefferson, I already had an eye on Isla, but I didn’t know it was Isla I had selected that day until I looked at the pedigree, so that was kind of cool. The one I picked in the picture ended up matching my in person evaluation.

I think she adds a lot to my flock other than moorit. If that weren’t the case, I wouldn’t have brought her home (although I am excited to have an Avyt lamb).

Isla is a ewe out of Sommerang Ginger and Firth of Fifth Avyt (a Black Forrest son). I nearly bought Ginger last year, but elected not to when I decided not to go to Jefferson in 2010.

This year, I had a hard look at both of her daughters out of Avyt and decided on this one. Avyt (for those who aren’t into Shetland genetics) was the Reserve Champion Shetland at Jefferson in 2011. That means he was not only the very best ram there (in the eyes of two certified Shetland Sheep Society judges), he was the second best Shetland. And honestly, the competition was incredible.

Lori sent in Isla’s fall micron test, which was pretty nice: AFD: 20.1 CV: 4.7 CV: 23.5% CEM: 7.9 SF: 20.0. I have often said that I don’t put much stock in fall micron tests, but I do think they provide some value. In this case, Lori provided the results after I had selected, so that was cool. Isla is very fine and soft, which was obvious to me the minute I handled her fleece. The CV is interesting in this case, because I don’t see a lot of tip, which would be indicative of double coating. I don’t see that at all. In my opinion, this is a very nice fleece.

The bottom line is that I like this lamb a great deal or I wouldn't have gone to all of the trouble of bringing her in. I am influenced by colors and patterns a little bit, but if the underlying sheep doesn't make the cut, it doesn't really matter. Every time we bring in new sheep, it ends up costing me a lot of money for OPP and Johnes testing to ensure we aren't bringing anything into our flock, and we keep everything in quarantine for four-to-six weeks, so when we bring something in, it has to be special. I think Isla is.

Whispering Pines Genoa

2011-12-05T16:55:00.000-08:00

Genoa is out of our F2 Heights Orion ewe out of Whispering Pines Shiobhan and Sheltering Pines Pompey. She is one of the prettiest lambs we have had here and I really really like her fleece. It will probably micron at 23 with a low CV as a yearling. But, I really don’t care because it is very consistent from shoulder to tail and just has wonderful properties. And the color? Dark blue, which is just the best Shetland color ever. Okay, it's my favorite anyway. And soft soft soft.

In my opinion, she has the best fleece of any lamb we've had born here in terms of handle, lock structure, crimp, color, and overall fineness. She wasn't the finest lamb born here this year, but I just dig the fleece. Still, it's extra fine. Of course, I'm feeding the heck out of our lambs as of this writing to try and get more weight on them heading into the winter. Although that tends to have a negative impact on fleece fineness, I like our lambs to be close to 60 pounds on December 1st.

Her fleece is probably the most like Sheltering Pines Blue's Clues of any of the sheep we've had here on the farm. And the funny thing is that she's not even related to him. I have two of his daughters and this one is the most like him. The fleece just has a lacey quality that makes you want to take a nap in it. All I know is that I would like an entire flock with fleeces like this one.

As I scanned her pedigree recently for this post, there is a nice collection of great bloodlines in there that I hope bodes well for her lambs once I breed her next year. And the funny thing is that her fleece is unlike either of her parents. Both parents had wonderful fleeces, but I prefer this one right now. I liked Shiobhan a lot, and her mother, Queen Anne's Lace, was also pretty nice. Anyway, whether it was Pompey's influence, or what, I don't know. But I do know that this is a really nice ewe lamb.

Whispering Pines Harvest Moon

2011-11-30T17:50:00.000-08:00

This lamb was one that I was pretty high on from day one and still am. Harvest Moon is out of Sheltering Pines Persia and Wintertime Bond. I think I can make the argument that she is the best Bond lamb that we have had. She isn’t quite as fine as some of the others, but should still come in around 23 microns. She is a very dark blue katmoget. She is a very nice combination of Shetland traits out of great bloodlines. I won't use her this year, but she should be an important part of our breeding program going forward.

Whispering Pines Vittoria

2011-11-27T06:50:00.000-08:00

In keeping with the theme of naming Pompey's daughters after cities in Italy, this is Whispering Pines Vittoria, who is out of Pompey and Peridot. Peridot was a Wintertime Bond daughter that we liked a lot as a yearling, but decided to sell to keep our flock size down below 20 ewes.

That makes Vittoria a Bond granddaughter. I don’t have micron data on her, but in my estimation, her yearling test will be 22 microns with a low CV. Just a lovely fleece! Now, yes, she is a grey katmoget, but she carries moorit from her father. She is a really nice lamb out of a genetic cross that I had hoped would produce such a Shetland. It was the only line breeding that I did last year. I had planned to do more this year, but sold most of the Bond lambs; decisions that might not have been the best in hindsight, but, as you can see, we are heavy in grey katmogets, and only the best of the best stick around. And we just can't keep everything we like if we want to keep our flock size small.

The thing I like about this one is that, not only is she out of great bloodlines, her color is very different from some of the other grey katmogets that we have. Even though I love grey katmogets, I do like variety in type, color, and fleece. And it always seems like the grey katmogets have the best fleeces.

Whispering Pines Pearl

2011-11-25T15:26:00.000-08:00

Whispering Pines Pearl is a grey katmoget yearling ewe out of Wintertime Itasca and Wintertime Bond, who are two of our finest adults.

Pearl’s yearling micron test was: AFD: 23.1 CV: 4.1 CV: 17.6% CEM: 7.1 SF: 21.9. Not as fine as we prefer, but when you combine it with the other properties, I’ll take it. When you get into nice silkiness and fineness like this, it’s splitting hairs when you start talking microns. Of course, there are other things buried within the numbers that probably speak volumes, but I have yet to completely crack that code. So, while I continue doing my research on Shetland fleeces, I’ll just enjoy what I have here, which are some beautiful fleeces.

Her fleece is also very consistent from front-to-back (as most of our sheep are), with a 3" staple length. She's a very petite ewe, but she has a lot of qualities that I like (and being petite is not a flaw, I just like a little more frame on my ewes. A small criticism, perhaps).

Blue Sapphire and Egyptian Autumn

2011-11-20T17:26:00.000-08:00

Whispering Pines Blue Sapphire is another flock favorite. Another Blue’s Clues daughter with a fabulous fleece! I just really like this ewe. She has wonderful bloodlines as well. The only thing that remains to be discovered about this ewe is her pattern. She is a katmoget, but is she double-patterned? I hoped to find that out this year, but I still don’t know. Sapphire’s micron test was: AFD: 24.1 CV: 4.4 CV: 18.3% CEM: 7.5 SF: 22.9. I've certainly seen better yearling micron test results, but when I say her fleece is very nice, I'm stating that it has all of the properties that I want in a Shetland fleece. It has nice length and crimp, the handle is exceptional, and the lock structure is correct.

Her ram this year out of Egyptian King is also very nice. Egyptian Autumn is a fawn katmoget with very small scurs. As a result, we elected to keep him even though he is a katmoget. We already have two katmoget rams, which will make it difficult to use him in our flock, but hopefully, I'll figure out a way. If not this year, then hopefully next. I have several ewes that would benefit from his properties, but they are all katmogets. At this point, I don't know how many katmoget-to-katmoget breedings I want to roll out.

Blue Diamond, Kiyah, and Isis

2011-11-15T17:29:00.000-08:00

Whispering Pines Blue Diamond is a yearling out of Sheltering Pines Blue’s Clues and Constantinople. I still love this ewe!

One of two Blue’s Clues daughters, she is built really well and has a nice dense fine fleece with good length to boot. She's an F3 Jericho, which, as we've said before, are genetics that we've wanted to add to our flock.

Like all of our sheep, she has things I don’t like, but she’s a good one. She is a katmoget, but a fawn one (which makes it okay). Her lambs this year were incredible! This is another bloodline that I think a lot of! Diamond’s micron test was: AFD: 25.4 CV: 5.1 CV: 19.9% CEM: 8.5 SF: 24.5. That’s right where I thought it would be as a yearling. We’ll see how the fleece matures in year two, but I like what I see right now. It doesn’t seem much different to me than her first fleece.

Isis is one of her lambs from this spring.

Isis is an Egyptian King ewe lamb out of Blue Diamond. Right now, I’m pretty high on this girl. She has a very fine fleece with nice length. I will estimate that her fleece will be around 23 microns as a yearling. If it is, I’ll be doing handsprings down the street because it has all the other properties I like as well. There isn’t much tip here, so it’s good length, not coarse guard hair. She will have a decent CV as well; perhaps not under 20%, but low 20's anyway.

Isis’ twin sister is named Kiyah. I named the Egyptian King daughters (both of them) after Egyptian Queens. This girl is in the running for best lamb of 2011. She is definitely the finest, but she has nearly everything else as well. Her fleece won’t be as long as her sister’s, but it will likely be 21 or 22 microns when she turns one next spring. I also like that she is brown-based. In fact, that’s reason for celebration in our flock.

I'm pretty happy with these three right now. I was able to combine a couple of nice bloodlines I like and produce two pretty nice ewe lambs, so I can't complain about that.

Itasca and Jumpy

2011-11-14T16:58:00.000-08:00

Wintertime Itasca will be three years old this spring and still like her a great deal because she has much going for her. She has wool on the poll, has an amazing, fine fleece, with great density, and has a pretty good conformation as well. Very good actually. Nice tail, etc. She looks like a Shetland.

She is out of Whistlestop 0427, who has produced some incredible sheep. So, Itasca has some incredible genetics behind her to go with what you see. She has produced very well for us in the short time that we have had her and we continue to look toward the future with her.

Itasca had two daughters this year that we liked a great deal, but we sold one of them. I regret selling her to some extent, but we felt we needed to move out a few really nice katmogets.

But we kept this one.

English Garden is a grey katmoget lamb out of Little Buckaroo. She’s a lighter katmoget with very feminine qualities. So far, Itasca is throwing that in her lambs, and I really like it. I will not breed her this year. We call this one Jumpy because she has rare leaping ability for a Shetland. Her fleece (as you can see) is quite stunning. It should be more than 3” long with nice elasticity. This lamb is an F2 Jericho, an imported ram that I really like. I'd like all of our lambs to look like this one, and fortunately, a number of them did this year.

Sheltering Pines Constantinople & Whispering Pines Irish Rose

2011-11-12T17:03:00.000-08:00

Sheltering Pines Constantinople is different than Cor de Nuit in many ways. She is our tallest ewe, but her proportions are absolutely perfect. What I like most about her is her perfect head and topline. Her fleece is nothing to sneeze at either, but I have other ewes who have nicer fleeces. Of course, they aren’t three years old. For a three-year old, it’s a very nice fleece (meaning you can’t compare a lamb’s fleece to an adults).

She is out of Salicional, who was the Supreme Champion Shetland at the WSWF this year. I have to admit that I was a big Salicional fan even before Jefferson, which is one of the reasons I brought Constantinople in to begin with. They do look a lot alike.

Plus, I really like this bloodline. Salicional is actually Pompey’s half-sister, which is why I brought him in. Their father was William The Conqueror, who seemed to produce very well. He goes back to Bramble Dixen, another ram that produced well. On her mother’s side, you have North Wind Holiday, who I think a lot of as well. So, Constantinople has a nice mix of genes. Her three year old micron test was AFD: 27.5 CV: 20.1%. I'm happy with that in a three year old Shetland. Especially one that looks like her.

Speaking of genes, this is Irish Rose out of Constantinople and Wintertime Bond. I think this is going to be a really nice ewe.

Not as fine as perhaps all of the other keeper lambs, but she has her mother’s long body and nice proportions. We have always been about conformation here and this is what we are after. I also like the luster in this fleece. It feels very silky and soft. It’s one of those fleeces that I have a tough time with when I try to estimate fineness. I would say it’s around 25 microns and I think that’s close to what it will be as a yearling. But she will have a low CV, and the luster is worth the price of admission. Plus, the fleece has a classic lock structure. The very essence of what makes a Shetland fleece handle like nothing else. Let's put it this way, she's finer than her mother was at this age, and I actually like her fleece a little better than Constantinoples (probably because of the luster). And her fleece looks pretty much like this from front-to-back, which is also a very desirable quality. I am also very interested in how she produces, given her lineage.

Whispering Pines Siena

2011-11-11T20:28:00.000-08:00

This year, we named all of Pompey Magnus' lambs after cities in Italy. This is one of his daughters.

Siena is Sheltering Pines Cor de Nuit's daughter out of Pompey. We like this lamb a lot for so many reasons. She's probably as nice of a lamb as we've had born here. Great conformation, tail, and fleece. Her fleece has great density, like her mother's, and has great handle and crimp. It won't be super fine, but I do think it'll be between 24 and 25 microns as a yearling. Followers of our blog probably know that we would like our fleeces to be finer than that, but you'll also likely remember that we want our fleeces to be uniform from front-to-back with consistent fiber diameter throughout. She has all of that.

So, she's a good one, and certainly close to what we envisioned when we put Pompey and Cor de Nuit together last fall.

Cor de Nuit

2011-11-09T17:41:00.000-08:00

It occurred to me today that I haven't done our ewe-a-day posts this year, so I better get to it. It's been an annual tradition for several years, and since I enjoy seeing people do similar posts, I guess we'll stay with it another year.

Sheltering Pines Cor de Nuit is the flock matriarch. Of the lambs that we kept this year, five call her their mother or grandmother. We also have her son Egyptian King from last year. This year, I discovered that she carries moorit. She is out of Thelonious Monk (a ram that I always liked) and Justalit’l Lana (a Bramble Dixen daughter). I love her genetics a great deal, which is one of the reasons she is still here.

Another thing she offers our flock is incredible fleece uniformity and density. Two things that most Shetlands lack. I wouldn’t call her a perfect Shetland ewe, but she is very rare in terms of what she brings to the table. And she is a producer. We've not had a single lamb out of her that we didn't like a great deal, and we've come to expect the best out of her at lambing time.

When we start making tough cuts next spring, I don’t know where her position will be in the flock. Some of that depends on what she has for lambs.

Last Ewe Lamb For Sale For 2011

2011-09-20T18:05:00.000-07:00

Over the past week, we have started going through our flock again to determine how we are going to proceed this year. Once we decided we’re not breeding ewe lambs, it raised some questions about how many lambs we want to keep through the winter.

As a result, we have decided to sell one more ewe lamb this year. This lamb is out of S’more Sparkles and Sheltering Pines Pompey Magnus. We went back and forth with this lamb this year. First, we were going to keep her, then we sold her, then the deal fell through. Then I was going to keep her again.

She’s a pretty ewe who really should throw fine lambs given her pedigree. She’s an F3 Orion and her father is really fine. I would say her fleece will be about 5” - 6” long. It has a nice handle as well. I don't have micron results on her, but, although she won't be super fine, she won't be coarse either.

Here is a good opportunity to add some polled and fine fleecegenetics to your flock.

And yes, she carries moorit and spots as well. If we were breeding ewe lambs like in the past, she is one that would have a place in our flock.

2011 Breeding Plans

2011-09-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

Armed with what I learned from the certified UK inspectors at Jefferson, I have fine tuned my evaluation approach to our flock and am in the process of revising our breeding plans. I don’t think it will change much, but I want to make sure my initial assessments are as accurate as they can be. Then I will know which ram to put with which ewe. I’ve never been one to just throw all my ewes to one ram just because I may like him for his color, spotting, or whatever.

I think next year, we will have a number of promising yearlings, and need to supplement that with a handful of ewe lambs next year who are even better. As it stands right now, we won’t be breeding many ewes this fall, which means we won’t have as many lambs as we did this past spring. So, it’s important that we maximize the likelihood of all of them being top notch. I’m basically looking for three or four keeper ewe lambs next year. We had more than that this year, but we had a strong ewe year, which isn’t going to happen every time.

Actually, if we have more ewes than that that we want to keep, we’ll have a problem because I don’t have a strong desire to sell any of the adults and lambs that we have right now. None whatsoever. And I realize that we will have to sell one ewe for every lamb that we keep. That's the only way we can keep our flock size to 18 ewes.

How many lambs do we want to have? As I said, just enough to give us the quantity of keepers that we want. I have said this many times, and I’ll say it again, we breed to our own goals, not to sell sheep. And since we have a pretty good flock of Shetlands right now, I don’t see the point of adding another 20 lambs into the mix next spring. So, I think the magic number may be 12 lambs next spring. That feels about right. That way we won’t have to be pressured to sell sheep. We’ll still have to sell some, but we can be more choosey about how we do it. The practice of breeding too many Shetlands and then dumping them on the market for less than proper value, is not good for the breed, and I won’t be a party to it. It’s what separates us from puppy mills. In my opinion, this is one of the top three or four concerns facing our breed over the next few years. But that's just my opinion. At any rate, we have to do what we feel comfortable with.

Once we made the decision not to breed many ewe lambs, everything else fell into place in terms of what we want to do (and we may not breed any ewe lambs at all). We’re going to return to the small-time operation we used to be and focus more on fleece development rather than on livestock sales. Now that I’ve actually said all of this out loud, I feel a nice sense of peace. It feels like the right decision.

Closing Thoughts (Almost) On Jefferson

2011-09-16T18:48:00.000-07:00

I have some more thoughts on this past weekend’s WSWF in lovely Wisconsin.
I don’t know that anyone walked away from the event thinking that there is only one correct Shetland. I think that’s been a fear for a lot of people when we start comparing the SSS sheep to what we have here in the US. On the contrary, I saw an incredible amount of diversity at Jefferson. I think that’s what we want in NASSA. And Kate and Alan were very open about that fact. You have to emphasize correct breed type (which they did), but you also have to recognize that there is a range of acceptable traits to consider. I hope we all came away with that lesson.

I have also heard it said that fine fleece people are single trait breeders; just focusing on fineness at the expense of other perhaps more valuable traits. Well, I can tell you that I didn’t see evidence of that in Jefferson. I saw correct conformations and fine fleeces in most cases. And it doesn’t matter what I think about it, Kate and Alan saw the same thing (and noted it). No, they didn’t pass everything put before them, but they were very good at pointing out the strengths and weaknesses so that improvement was within reach.

Alan made a good point during the wool show. Someone asked what makes one fleece long and straight and another 4” and crimpy? Was it nutrition? And he was rather pointed with his response, saying it was because of selection. Specifically, proper breeding and proper selection. That may seem obvious to some, but clearly that’s not universally understood. That’s the kind of thing that made Jefferson so special. Having a candid exchange of ideas, and being receptive to the incredible experience that we were provided. We could all agree or disagree with what Kate and Alan chose in the ring, but I don’t think that was the point. If you don’t consider other views and open yourself up to new ideas, there can be no learning.

As time passes, we’ll all drift off doing our own things with our flocks, but we can’t lose the lessons we learned this past weekend, which is that we can have wonderful diversity and not give up correct Shetland traits. But we have to be willing to be open-minded about learning, and not stubbornly stick to our preconceived notions about the breed. I know our flock will be better in the future because of what I learned over the weekend. And I can be as stubborn as anyone.

Jefferson

2011-09-12T20:20:00.000-07:00

I got back from The Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival on Sunday and I have to say it was a pretty special event. I had an opportunity to spend a lot of time over the weekend with Kate Sharp and Alan Hill talking a great deal about Shetland history and learning a ton about the breed. As many of you know, we have spent the last few years really working hard at bringing our flock up to snuff with the 1927 Shetland Breed standard. It’s important to me to have our flock in close alignment with what the 1927 standard requires. And spending three days with actual certified Shetland Sheep Society inspectors and judges was incredibly valuable. Just what the doctor ordered.
The highlight for me was participating in the inspector and judge’s training on Friday. You don’t know what you don’t know until you spend time working side-by-side with two absolute masters like Kate and Alan. The methodical “hands on” approach was something to watch. I’ll never forget it. It was nice receiving some confirmation that our breeding approach isn’t all that far off, but the real value for me was in getting additional clarification around the finer points of the breed standard.

I had a little apprehension about hearing what they had to say because it was entirely possible that my understanding of Shetland sheep was way off. I was relieved to find out that it isn’t, but the whole thing was incredibly educational. I know I will take the lessons to heart (as I’m sure the other participants in the training will).

The morning portion of the training involved Kate and Alan demonstrating the finer points of inspection on a live animal (one of Garrett’s rams. I don’t know which one, but he was nice).

This was followed with a discussion around judging in the UK, which was quite informative.

The afternoon session involved breaking up into two groups to have the judges evaluate individual animals. That was an incredible learning experience because all of the sheep were different. It was interesting to see how they approached assessing the diversity. I also have to confess that I was moving back and forth between groups so I could see how each judge was handling each point in the standard. It was probably as good as or better than any training I have received on any subject.

On Saturday, I had a lot of fun watching the fleece competition, which was also judged by Kate and Alan. The top two prizes went to fleeces by Karen Valley and her daughter Meghan. Third place went to one of Garrett’s fleeces. I think Karen or Meghan also got fourth with another fleece. I might be mistaken about that. Theresa Gygi took fifth place honors with one of her black fleeces. Keep in mind that this was a huge Shetland fleece class. Alan and Kate told me in private that all the fleeces in the top 10 would’ve been indistinguishable from the top fleeces in a UK show! That’s pretty impressive. Theresa’s daughter Tori also took first place in the white Shetland class. That was also a large class. Congrats to everyone.

Finally, the show was pretty awesome on Saturday afternoon. Below are some pictures.

Lori Stephenson took top honors with Firth of Fifth Avyt in the ram class. Let me just say that he was an incredible Shetland ram. Her ram Hacket was also incredible as was Karen’s ram Grasshopper. I was amazed at the quality of the sheep at this show.

In the ewe class, Kelly Bartels took first place overall with Sheltering Pines Salicional (Constantinople’s mother). As I was watching the class, I commented to someone that the ewes in that class were unbelievable! You had lambs, yearlings, and adults in one class, and each one was absolutely spectacular! Each was a champion and I know Kelly is extremely happy with having Salicional pull out top honors! That says something about how good she is.

I could go on and on, but it was a great time, and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such a great collection of Shetlands in one place before. I would’ve liked to have taken some of our sheep, but I didn’t feel comfortable dragging them that far. Kudos to the people who did!

I don’t have a lot of pictures (an annoying story), but here are a few.

This is Theresa’s ewe lamb. I don’t know her name, but she was extremely nice.

This moorit ewe was Lori Stephenson’s. She was standing right by me, so I got a pretty good picture of her. I think she’s a good example of the type of sheep that were in that large ewe lamb class. I think there were 37 ewes in that class. Karen Valley's beautiful black ewe is next to Lori's.

Here is another of Lori’s ewes. Lori had several good ones. I didn’t get good pictures of a lot of the other lambs in that class, but I have a few more I’ll post in the coming days. Lori did take first and second place in the best pair of ewe lambs class.

The whole thing was a lot of fun and hopefully this gives you an idea of the quality of Shetlands there.

Egyptian King Lamb Fleeces

2011-08-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

I’ve already said how much we like the Egyptian King lambs, but pictures are always worth more than a thousand words.

This shaela ram out of Sheltering Pines Christmas Holly is a good example of what we like in a Shetland. He is very much like Holly’s ram from last year, Rowdy. I think he’s a great example of a polled Shetland ram. He didn’t do me any favors by taking a nice roll in the grass clippings for this photo shoot, but it at least gives you an idea of his qualities.

I think he will micron in the 24-to-25 range as a yearling, based on what I see right now. More importantly, he has good lock structure, consistency, and will have a low CV, which translates directly to the handle of the fleece.

Blue Diamond is a Blue’s Clues daughter from last spring who we like a great deal. Her black daughter is quite impressive. Great lock structure, uniformity, density, and fineness. She will probably micron in the 23—24 range with a low CV. This is an excellent black ewe who carries spots and moorit. She’s better than her mother, which is what we are all about.

Unfortunately, I thought I had a current picture, but did not. I'll have to get one this weekend.

Her sister is a fawn katmoget, who quite frankly, is nicer than her sister. This ewe is our finest of the year, in my opinion, and I don’t feel that she trades off much for that fineness. How fine will she be? Who can say? I would guess 21 microns with a low CV.

Blue Sapphire was one of our favorite ewes last year. She is a Blue’s Clues daughter who had a fleece that was the most like his. I’ll probably never have another fleece like his, but it’ll be fun trying. So, when we bred her to Egyptian King, we had high hopes for the lamb. And we weren’t disappointed. This ram lamb is nicer than both parents, in my opinion. He is scurred (yes, those are scurs. I’m not going to try to convince anyone that he’s polled), but they are small scurs, which is a good thing.

Anyway, he’s very fine, has great density, and an awesome conformation. We’ll just have to see how he matures. I think he will be close to 22 microns as a yearling, and probably a really low CV (maybe 16%). Just a great ram out of fantastic genetics!

Did I say that I like Egyptian King? I’ll do a post on him at some point.

Lamb and Fleece Evaluations

2011-08-16T19:01:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share some of my assessments of this year’s lambs before time gets completely away from me. We did the final round of CDT shots on Saturday, and that gave us a chance to evaluate each of them more closely.

I decided to break them down by sire, which seemed as good of an approach as any.

First, the Little Buckeroo lambs.

This one is easy since we only have two ewes left and both are out of Itasca. These lambs are F2 Jerichos, who is one of my favorite UK rams.

The first one is Itasca’s fawn ewe. I really like this ewe. She has an excellent conformation, nice fleece length, and luster up the ying yang. She has a bolder crimp, which really shows off the luster. I don’t know if others have noticed this, but the larger crimp seems to really reveal the full amount of luster. The tightly crimped lambs don’t seem to do that. I suppose if I stretched them out and compared side-by-side, I’d see it, but the fingers really glide over this fleece. I think it’s a bit early to predict micron values, but I think this one will be 26 microns as a yearling. It’s probably close to that now and might possibly increase by one or so by next spring. Who knows?

Her sister is a grey katmoget with a different style of fleece. It should be around 3.5 inches next spring, but it will definitely be finer than her sister’s. I would say between 22 and 23 microns. It’s just a beautiful fleece on an outstanding ewe lamb!

That’s it for the F2 Jericho ewes.

We still have one ram left from Buckeroo and I will do my usual lamenting on how I wish he was a ewe. Actually, I don’t. I wish he was polled. It’s a fleece that we really like. I think it’ll be 4.5 inches and fine! And I don’t see much tip either, so the CV should be pretty darn low as well. It’s just very soft with tons of potential. But, he’ll be wethered. There’s nothing wrong with a good fiber animal – the gift that keeps on giving. I just wish we could’ve used him in our program.

He is out of Irish Lace.

Lamb Colors

2011-08-07T19:32:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on our blog, so I thought I’d share some pictures of lambs that I still like. I can’t say for sure they will all be keepers (we are only keeping the 10 ewe lambs that we think best meet our requirements), but I like them for different reasons.

First are Itasca’s katmoget lambs out of Little Buckeroo. These lambs are 61% UK. I like the grey better than the fawn, but these lambs are a good example of the diversity you can get out of Shetlands. Both should be fine, but the fawn will have a longer fleece (maybe 5 inches) than the grey. I’ll post more current pictures once we get more time. As you look at the pictures, notice the differences in colors and markings, even though all of these lambs are katmogets.

The next lamb is Peridot’s out of Pompey. Just a tremendous grey katmoget ewe lamb with great genetics behind her. It was my first attempt at line breeding around Pompey. I took a Bond daughter and bred her to Pompey, who is her great grandfather. I just love the katmogets – especially this line. This lamb will be very fine; perhaps our finest. We are trying to breed for fine fleeces without losing some of the more valuable fleece traits such as silkiness, crimp, and lock structure. I would say this lamb looks similar to Itasca’s grey, but not quite. This lamb is only 43% UK, but I think you can see the influence of those genetics, and she would look very much at home in a UK Flock book flock. For those readers not familiar with what a Flock Book flock is, it’s an organization in the UK that inspects Shetlands to the 1927 standard (in fact, they wrote the standard). Only the best of the best qualify. I’m not saying this lamb would qualify, but UK folks would recognize her as a Shetland that meets most of the 1927 standard’s requirements. Oh, and yes, the Shetlands that were imported to North America in 1980 were from Flock Book flocks.

At birth, I thought Cor de Nuit’s ewe lamb was our best of the year, and I still think that way. She has a nice frame without possessing too much bone. Shetlands are supposed to be fine boned. But her overall conformation and fleece are pretty close to the total package. She is out of Pompey, and 43% UK. Again, not a huge percentage, but she looks quite a bit different than other Shetlands that you might see. She will also be fine, but perhaps not as fine as Peridot’s ewe. That’s what my evaluation is telling me. I’m not going to guess at the micron level for another month or so. I know what I think, but I’ll wait. This is one of those lambs that would’ve received a rather large breeding group had she been a ram. I’ve been looking for a ewe out of Cor de Nuit and now that she’s had one, I’m wishing it was a ram. I loathe myself sometimes. I like this lamb better than her half brother, Egyptian King.

The last lamb to share is Shiobhan’s grey katmoget. This lamb is pretty impressive as well. I would argue that she’s the prettiest lamb we’ve had here. This picture does a decent job of illustrating the markings and colors. She’s probably the darkest katmoget we’ve had here as well. Her fleece? Very yummy. As I said, we’ll post more pictures soon (just got back from vacation and are way behind on things). This lamb is 58% UK.

The point of this post is to illustrate how different the markings and colors can be with this breed. I like the darker colors (particularly the katmogets), but our breeding program revolves around quality, not color and markings. If the fleeces are exceptional (as all of these are), I don’t care about color and markings that much. Of course, that thought process gave us a flock that is predominately katmoget.

I’ve noticed that the road less travelled is a tough path to follow. It’s hard to breed for sheep of this quality, and it’s hard to sell grey katmogets. People seem to like spots. Heck, I Iike spots. I wish it was easy to produce spotted Shetlands with fleeces like these. I wish it were easy to find quality non-katmoget rams. Fortunately, we have one in Egyptian King, but we don’t have one in moorit. So, it’s tough. And it’s tempting to bite at the hook that a lot of customers seem to be putting in front of us. But, I unless we produce what I consider to be a quality Shetland, I don’t think we are doing anything for the breed. As a result, we’ll continue on this path and hopefully produce more variety of colors and markings along with stunning fleeces.

Book Review - The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook

2011-07-11T19:33:00.000-07:00

I’ve been meaning to post about a new book that I got a few weeks ago, and I saw that Theresa beat me to the punch. The book is “The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook” by Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius. My advice to anyone that is into spinning is to order this book immediately. It is simply the best book on fiber that I have found. The pictures are breathtaking and extremely well presented. Thanks to our UK friend Hannah for pointing this book out to us recently. We also have a few other UK books that I’ll be blogging about that contained interesting sections on Shetlands. Those are books that Hannah brought to a fiber thing we had at our house and I liked them so well, we picked up copies for ourselves. Hannah was raised in the UK around sheep and has been nice enough to share information with us.

Anyway, this book has some really nice information on Shetlands, including wonderful fleece pictures of different types. As Theresa pointed out, the fine white on the top of page 190 is stunning. And since we now have good examples of that in our flock, it was nice to see it in print. I don’t totally agree with the authors’ assessment that some of the examples were single coated, but they were good examples of the breed nonetheless. The pictures on the bottom of page 190 are nice, but contain a lot of tip in my opinion. To me, they are examples of what we used to call intermediate, but in my experience, intermediates are typically double-coated (a small point, however, and one that might not be shared by all).

At any rate, I think this book presents an excellent, well-balanced portrait of the Shetland and my hat goes off to the authors for their exhaustive work. If you aren’t a Shetland spinner, I think you will love the other breeds that are presented as well. Each is placed in its correct category, which was a nice way to organize the book. The Shetlands were placed in the Northern European Short-Tailed Family and not in the Longwool section as some breeders would have you believe. I just think well-researched books like this are a treasure to have since there is so much misinformation about the breed out there. I am not an expert on any of the breeds presented in the book, so I’d love to hear from people who have thoughts on the information presented. As a Shetland breeder, I was thrilled. No, I don’t agree that Shetlands should have fleece lengths over 6”, but the authors are not taking up sides, but are merely presenting facts about the North American Shetland. And I respect that approach.

I also loved that you could flip through the various breeds and compare them to Shetlands. This book allows people the opportunity to see the differences in lock structure and fineness. The Soay, Icelandic, and North Ronaldsay fleeces are all different from Shetland and the book does a fabulous job of differentiating the breeds through both pictures and words.

Check it out. I’m sure many might find flaws here and there, but I thought it was a work of art filled with incredible information. Of course, I bought it for the large section on Shetland Sheep, but it has so much more than that. I just can’t say enough about the book (although I probably have).

Fleece Clinic

2011-06-13T18:58:00.000-07:00

First of all, I’m not qualified to give a fleece clinic, but if I called this anything else you probably wouldn’t still be reading. Even though I’m far from a Shetland fleece expert, I have visited 13 farms around the country and I have seen many different types of fleeces. What I want to share today is some observations on a few sheep. We own all but one of these sheep, so I can share my thoughts freely with some data to back it up.

The first fleece sample is from a Shetland that is not from our farm. I’m not saying we’ve never had a fleece like this here (because we have), but it’s a good example of bad Shetland.

I read on one blog that Shetland fleeces are not straight. Well, this one is. There’s no crimp or wave whatsoever. It is double coated, but that’s not the problem. It’s just coarse and hairy. It’s about 7.5 inches long. I don’t have micron data on it, but as you can see, it’s more like hair than wool. I suspect that when people have a negative impression of the breed, it’s because they have experienced wool like this. Oliver Henry is the world’s foremost authority on Shetland fleeces in Shetland and I really don’t know how he would classify this one. It’s “Rough” at best. Certainly good for making carpet or something that wouldn’t see skin contact, but if that’s what you are making, why even use Shetland?

Is this fleece example typical in the U.S.? Sadly, yes. And this one isn’t even the worst one I’ve seen. I’m not sure how the breed fell apart this badly since the breed was imported in 1980.

The next fleece is Shiobhan’s. She’s our F1 Orion. Her staple is about 4” long with loads of crimp. It has a nice silky handle as well with very little tip.

I like this fleece. It’s not super fine, but it is 25 microns with a 16.7% CV and a 23.7 Spinning Fineness. The spinning fineness is a number that I think does a good job of capturing the handle of the fleece. I use it as a relative gage of handle. In other words, I’ve found that it is a better indicator of handle than the average. I have no data to back that up, but when I rate our fleeces by hand, the better handling ones also have lower Spinning Fineness numbers. Okay, maybe I do have some data. In Shiobhan’s case, her fleece feels finer than 25 microns. That’s my point. Is that misleading? I don’t know.

Blue Diamond’s fleece is also a favorite. Her fleece is very much like Shiobhan’s (except a different color, of course). It’s 4” with great crimp and a very nice handle. I would say the fleeces are identical in many ways.

Blue Diamond’s average micron was 25.4 with a 19.9% CV and 24.5 spinning fineness. Do I think Shiobhan’s feels a full micron finer than Blue Diamond’s (according to the spinning fineness)? As a matter of fact, I do. It has a little better handle. But they are really close. In fact, probably within the margin of error of my handle test.

Christmas Holly is the one sheep that really threw me off this spring with my tactile evaluation. I had her pegged at one of our finest ewes. She isn’t. I thought she might be 25 microns (like Shiobhan and Blue Diamond). Her micron average was 26.3 with an 18.0% CV and 25.0 spinning fineness.

So, how can a sheep with a 25.0 spinning fineness feel softer than the others? She is very silky. That’s my only explanation. It’s just a beautiful handling fleece. In fact, Itasca’s fleece (which is actually 25.0 microns), does not handle as well as Holly’s. The difference? The CV and the silkiness. Holly’s fleece is the same length as the others (4”), has similar crimp, but it just handles wonderfully. I have to argue that it handles better than the other fleeces here. The only other difference worth noting here is the tip. Holly has more tip than Blue Diamond and Shiobhan. You can see that in this picture.

Bond is two years old now, but his second fleece looks good. His second fleece tested at 23.6 microns with an 18.6% CV and a 22.5 spinning fineness. His crimp is nice, and the handle is excellent. Now, as far as length goes, his fleece is only 2.5" long. But now that we've had a chance to process it, I can say it has special properties that you just don't often find in Shetlands.

The finished yarn last year was just exquisite, and everyone who has touched it is impressed. You just don't find Shetland fleeces in this part of the country like this. The only other thing I can add here is that Jen was overwhelmed when she spun this this past winter. Two years ago, I would've thought a fleece needed to be four or five inches long to spin properly, but it's all in the experience level of the spinner. Fine is good, and let's leave it at that. The end result speaks for itself.

The point of all of this? Shetland fleeces come in different types. There are bad and excellent fleeces within the breed. A lot of lamb fleeces look pretty good, but there are usually some indicators of future behavior. I may not be able to differentiate between a 24 and 26 micron fleece in 100% of the cases, but I have gotten pretty good at it. This year, I was able to estimate 85% of our flock within a micron of their true average fiber diameter. Some of that was probably luck, but I was in the ballpark on the rest. On the whole, I was within 0.17 microns estimating the flock average once I added up the individual estimates (I averaged my estimate vs. Texas A&M’s results and I was within 0.17 microns).

Anyway, as I learn more about fleeces, I hope to improve on my estimates, but for now, I feel good about the lambs that we kept based on my subjective evaluation. And that’s a good thing because we all have to make tough choices in that regard before we have any help from science. I like to wait until our ewe lambs are yearlings before we do micron testing on them. That means I’d better not be off by much…in June. Fortunately, I was very close on all of the yearling estimates. I only missed on four adults.

Anyway, I just wanted to share some examples of good and bad Shetland.

Irish Lace's Ram

2011-06-07T18:52:00.000-07:00

Here’s one of the few ram lambs we’re offering for sale this year. He’s out of Irish Lace and Little Buckaroo, which makes him an F2 Jericho with Black Forrest ancestry. Iris Lace is a Black Forrest granddaughter. This guy is 51% UK.

Here’s my assessment of him thus far:

• He’ll most likely have a full rack. It's possible he'll be scurred, however.

• His fleece will most likely be 4” to 4.5” long with crimp

• He is a fawn katmoget

• He probably carries spots

• He has an excellent conformation

He just oozes Shetland, and would make an excellent flock sire for someone looking to add UK genetics and jump start their breeding program. I think he’s about as good as it gets in horned Shetland rams. I don’t know how fine he will be but both parents had very good micron tests. I do know he’ll have a low CV. If he was polled, he would be staying here.

F3 Orion & Pompey Daughter For Sale

2011-06-02T19:14:00.000-07:00

This ewe looks like she might be the last lamb we offer for sale this year. She is out of S’more Sparkles and Pompey Magnus. She is 52% UK genetics, an F3 Orion, and will be Ag. I like her and would like to hold onto her another year for evaluation, but we have more sheep than we are comfortable with right now.

What do I like about her? Her genetics for one thing. Pompey is a great Shetland ram who is correct and very fine. This lamb’s mother has a 4” very dense fleece. I always think her fleece is longer than it actually is. Sparkles is also still less than 30 microns as a three year old, with a low CV as well. Another thing we look for is the quality of the grandparents. I think a lot of Sparkles’ parents. Under The Son Torvus is an F1 Orion, who I have always liked. He has a beautiful dark golden fleece and has all of the properties I like in a Shetland. Sparkles’ mother, Petal, is also very nice, and one of the reasons we got Sparkles in the first place. There are just a lot of generations of nice Shetlands in this lamb’s pedigree.

We were looking to produce a lamb with a 4” fleece like her mother, but with the fineness of the lamb’s father. I do think this lamb will have a 4” to 4.5” fleece, but it’s too early to gage fineness. Her crimp really hasn’t come in yet like I know it will.

Anyway, I think this is a good Shetland lamb that will help someone who is looking to improve their flock. I also think she is capable of producing very fine lambs, and as I said, she will most likely be the last lamb we offer for sale this year, and definitely the last Pompey lamb.

Moorit Gulmoget Ewe For Sale

2011-05-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

We’re finally getting around to creating a sales list, and are offering a few sheep at this point. As the spring rolls on (or arrives), we’ll continue making the hard choices.

First, Irish Lace is a two year old solid-sided gulmoget out of Firth of Fifth Leyland and Buttercup. She is a Black Forrest granddaughter.

I really hate to sell this ewe, because she is built quite nicely (as the shorn picture shows) and because she is very rare (being a moorit, solid-sided gulmoget who carries spots).

Her fleece is 5” to 5.5” long, which still meets the Appendix A guidelines. Her two year old micron test average was 27.7. I wouldn’t hate keeping her, but for now, she’s for sale.

10 Lambing Thoughts

2011-05-10T19:24:00.000-07:00

1. I'm still having a tough time picking which lambs I like the best. I think we ended up with more top notch ewe lambs than I expected. I was hoping for four really nice ones, and maybe it'll end up that way, but right now, there are quite a few great ewe lambs out there.

2. It’s hard to get all of the colors, patterns, and spots that you want while also improving quality. As we raise the bar each year, it becomes more of a challenge.

3. Egyptian King turned out to be a great ram. His lambs are everything I hoped they would be.

4. I’m happy that we haven’t taken a step back in terms of conformations while working on fleece improvement. I was worried about that. I’m not sure why.

5. Pompey made a nice contribution to our flock in only one year.

6. As did Buckaroo. I wanted to introduce more Jericho blood into our flock and he allowed us to do that.

7. We’re still reaping the benefits from bringing in Blue’s Clues and Bond two years ago. I’ve done (and continue to do) dumb things, but those were good decisions.

8. We’ve built up a nice foundation of poll carriers. Three years ago, I don’t think we had any. Leyland was the first half-poll ram we ever used, and at that time, we were breeding him to ewes that I knew didn’t carry polled. This spring, I believe all but one lamb carry one or more polled genes, and some carry both of them. So, I’m happy that we’ve been able to introduce that into our flock without giving up other things as well. It’s still not our number one priority, but we’ve been able to make good progress.

9. I continue to be amazed by the diversity in this breed. I mean, we have a lot of katmogets here, and yet, no two are the same. The fleeces are different, the colors are different, the pattern itself varies. The same is true of gulmogets.

10. I continue to find joy in learning about different fleece types, and speculating about how each lamb’s fleece will turn out. There is so much to consider beyond color.

Lambing Stats

2011-05-06T19:01:00.000-07:00

Here are the stats from this year's lambing:

13 ewe lambs
6 ram lambs
4 grey katmogets
8 fawn katmogets
6 blacks
1 grey

That’s 19 lambs, which quite frankly, isn’t too bad. Of course, I say that because 13 of them were ewes.

As expected, we certainly had a run on katmogets again this year. We are still paying the price for breeding with two grey katmoget rams two falls ago. But we are also reaping the benefits of that decision in terms of fleeces and conformations. In year three of our fleece improvement program, I can honestly say we struck gold. Much work remains, but it’s nice to see some incremental improvement.

Our goal heading into this spring was to add some solid black and moorit ewes to our flock to go along with the overall quality of the sheep. We were able to add blacks, but not a single unpatterned moorit. Still, if I had to choose between color and quality, quality wins every time, and that continues to be our philosophy.

Now, we did add some exceptional fawn katmogets, so we’ll take that. We didn’t have a single fawn katmoget ewe last fall, and we wanted to add a couple.

We are attempting to put together a sales list, but it’s not the easiest thing to do. We believe strongly that we need to keep a nice mix of adults and lambs, and we’re trying to do that. We really hate to part with any of the adults. But our goal is to breed for quality, and the difficult part is deciding whether a mother or daughter is a better fit for our plans for next year. That is very difficult to evaluate with lambs that are only a few weeks old. Some certainly will not be improvements on their mothers. And it might take months to really gage that with any accuracy. And some of the mothers are such great producers, that you really need to include them in the breeding program. Other adults are young, but already showing promise.

Last fall, we kept 18 ewes and bred 14. I don’t know how many we are keeping this year, but it won’t be more than that. More important than the number is our goal of making sure each flock member is outstanding. Some might be finer than others, some might have more crimp, some might have greater density, and still others might have better conformations. Maybe none will have all of the things we want. But looking at the progress we’ve made this year, I feel confident that our flock can reach the goals we have set for it. I’m not sure how long that will take, but I’m pleased that we are starting to contribute to the breed in a positive way. Sure, with such a small flock, the contribution is very small, but it’s rewarding nonetheless.

Lambing - Final Stretch

2011-05-01T15:46:00.000-07:00

Two new lambs to talk about. Blue Sapphire lambed on Wednesday and gave us this extremely fine fawn katmoget ram lamb. He’s 56% UK and a half-poll. He’s just a beautiful ram in my book!

Now that all of the Egyptian King ewes have lambed, I can say that I’m blown away by his lambs! Each one has his fleece type. I can’t say that all of them will be 20 microns, but they are going to be fine. Granted, we did breed him to two Blue’s Clues daughters, so I shouldn’t be surprised at the outcome, but I was very pleased with his lambs this year. Christmas Holly’s ram lamb out of Egyptian King is also looking impressive. He may or may not be as fine as his father, but I like his structure better already. He’ll be one to watch over the next few months as we figure out which way to go with breeding next year.

Whispering Pines Shiobhan, our F1 Orion ewe from last year, also lambed on Wednesday and had a very pretty grey katmoget ewe lamb out of Pompey. She is 58% UK and the second darkest katmoget we’ve had here. I love those dark blue katmogets and would have four or five of them if I could. This lamb looks promising so far.

Only one ewe left to go, Irish Lace, our solid-sided gulmoget (shown here trying to elude my camera). She is bred to Little Buckeroo, our F1 Jericho son.

Lambing Update

2011-04-23T15:03:00.000-07:00

Lambing this year is winding down, so I thought I’d catch up on the most recent lambs.

First, Primrose had a ram and a ewe this year out of Little Buckaroo, our F1 half-poll Jericho ram. The ewe is a collage of color, and a fawn yuglet socket katmoget. She has a lot of growing to do as both she and her brother are small, but she looks nice. I love the small eye patches. Actually, Primrose is our smallest ewe, so it doesn’t surprise me that these two are on the small side.

Her brother is also very pretty. He is a fawn katmoget with nice facial markings.

These lambs are 41% UK. Not sure if these lambs carry one or both horned genes. Primrose is not a poll carrier, but Buckaroo is. The ram has horn buds.

Peridot lambed this morning, and I’m very impressed with her ewe lamb out of Pompey. This was a linebreeding where I was trying to bring out certain characteristics that I admire in both Bond and Pompey. It’s early, but I really like this grey katmoget lamb. This was the first Bond lamb I bred back to Pompey, and although I know it won’t work every time, it did here. This lamb is 43% UK. As I said earlier, we threw Peridot in with Pompey late, primarily because I really wanted to see how this cross would work.

And last, but not least, is Cor de Nuit’s fawn katmoget lamb out of Pompey. This may very well be the nicest lamb we’ve ever had born here at Whispering Pines. Oh my goodness, she has just about everything I could ask for in a lamb. She’s big, so that might be influencing my assessment, but she is just a knockout lamb. She is 44% UK.

That’s it for now. Three more ewes to go: One bred to Egyptian King (Blue Sapphire), one bred to Buckaroo (Irish Lace), and one bred to Pompey (Shiobhan). I’m very interested in all of them!

Lambs - Little Buckaroo

2011-04-21T10:21:00.000-07:00

Wintertime Itasca is our finest adult ewe at 25.0 microns, and she produced two very fine ewe lambs last year when bred to Bond. This year, we bred her to Little Buckaroo (our F1 Jericho son) in hopes of producing fine fleeced lambs with excellent conformations. We were also looking for lambs in shades of brown.

We’re pleased with the outcome, although only one lamb is brown-based. But both are carriers!

The first ewe lamb is a fawn katmoget with a very nice, consistent fleece. I like this lamb a great deal. It’s very close to what we were looking for.

The second lamb has the prettiest facial markings that we’ve had here. And her fleece is spectacular! Very fine and crimpy, much like Itasca’s lambs last year. We were very fortunate to get ewe lambs out of her again this year.

Needless to say, these lambs are some of the best that we’ve had here this spring. Nice long bodies, great tails, and wonderful fleeces. No one can predict how lambs will turn out, but these two have great potential. Anyway, I feel good about that breeding now. I was originally waffling between Pompey and Buckaroo, and I’m glad we went the way we did. These lambs are 61% UK.

Lambs - Pompey

2011-04-20T21:06:00.000-07:00

We’ve only had a few Pompey lambs this year, but here is an updated list.

Sheltering Pines Queen Anne’s Lace had a black ewe lamb that looks promising. I was looking for black here, and I’m not disappointed. She is one that we will be watching. She also appears to be a spot carrier, which I did not expect. This lamb is 44% UK.

S’More Sparkles (an F2 Orion) had two nice black lambs recently. The ram looks like he could be something really nice. He’ll be a half-poll with a consistent fleece. I would have preferred a moorit here, but both lambs are very nice.

His sister has cool markings, and also should be very nice. She feels really soft, and I think has lots of potential. These lambs are 45%UK. I’m guessing that the markings on her face only indicate she is a carrier. I do not believe Pompey carries spots. Anyway, two very nice lambs.

Lambs - Bond

2011-04-20T08:22:00.000-07:00

All three ewes from Bond’s group have lambed and each gave us a ewe lamb, which will make decision time difficult. But then, it always is. We gave Bond Constantinople, Onyx, and Persia in hopes of getting some fine, high quality ewes, and we’re pretty satisfied with the results. Last year, Bond improved every ewe he was bred to, and we were very interested in what he would do with these particular ewes. Bond’s two year old micron test was: AFD: 23.6; CV: 18.6; SF: 22.5. Our goal is to reproduce that in as many ewes as we can. Plus, we just like the way the Bond lambs look. All have nice toplines, tails, and heads, to go with their improved fleeces.

Here is Constantinople’s ewe lamb. She only had a single this year. The lamb is a fawn yuglet katmoget, with an impressive fleece and is 51% UK. Again, not a huge amount of UK blood in this lamb, but enough to introduce the fleece characteristics that we want.

Persia twinned this year, which was a surprise. Her ram is built extremely well and has a wavy birth coat at this point. I haven’t had time to determine whether he might be polled, but there is a 50/50 chance. He’ll be at least a half-poll. He is black with nice spotting. It’s always cool when we get unpatterned lambs with katmoget-to-katmoget breedings. If I had to guess, I’d say he’ll probably have a four or five inch fleece length, which is about right, I think. I have no idea how fine he’ll be, but out of those parents, he should be pretty nice. He may end up being for sale, but we’ll have to see how he develops. He really doesn’t offer us anything genetically that we don’t already have.

And finally, Persia finally gave us a ewe. And we really like her potential. Great structure, fleece, and presence in one package. She’s a very pretty dark, silvery blue katmoget with a very consistent fleece. We’ll be keeping a close eye on her to see how she develops, but she’s as close to what we are breeding for as we could have hoped for. She’s almost exactly what I envisioned with this breeding. She is 48% UK.

Onyx also lambed yesterday, but I don’t have pictures yet. The lamb looks very much like Persia’s ram lamb, however. Solid black with interesting spotting on her head. Stunning conformation, and a wavy black fleece. I don’t really know where her fleece is headed at this point because her mother also had a fleece like this when she was a lamb and she ended up being fine with a lower CV. I would say this lamb might be very much like her mother, but unpatterned. She is 57% UK.

A good collection of lambs out of these breedings! Some excellent conformations to go with fleece diversity and fineness. We would’ve liked to have put Bond with more ewes, but we’re trying to maintain genetic diversity as we improve our flock, which isn’t as easy as it might sound.

More Lambs - Egyptian King

2011-04-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s been a tough spring to get pictures, but I finally bit the bullet and took some in the barn just to give people an idea of what we’ve had so far.

This lambing has been much anticipated because it represents several years of work accumulating top notch genetics in hopes of developing a flock that closely resembles what you might see in the UK, where all North American Shetlands originated. We felt it was better to get back to our old world roots than to perpetuate the continuation of a shiny new breed that has been created in the US. Not all of our sheep meet that lofty vision, but the sheep that we have here were brought in as pieces of a genetic puzzle that we continue to assemble year after year. We continue to welcome the incredible diversity that this breed offers, but I do think that we need more Shetlands in the US that reflect the UK approach to breeding (there are precious few of them in the US) and we want to be a part of that. I continue to find it interesting that if you look at our flock, we really don’t have a high percentage of UK content in it. But genetically speaking, they are producers, and it’ll be tough to part with any of them. Anyway, here are some of the lambs so far, starting with Egyptian King’s group.

We bred Whispering Pines Blue Diamond (Blue’s Clues x Constantinople) to Whispering Pines Egyptian King (Wintertime Bond x Sheltering Pines Cor de Nuit) in hopes of leveraging some pretty amazing genetics. It was a tough call breeding a wildly spotted moorit ewe to a solid black unproven ram, but it was too good a cross and I couldn’t see doing it another way.

I’m very pleased with the results. Diamond had a solid black ewe lamb with a small spot on her head, and a fawn katmoget ewe. You be the judge, but I think these are stunning lambs. The black one is just what we were looking for – an unpatterned sheep with a stunning, consistent fleece. And in my opinion, the fawn katmoget is even nicer. Both carry spots, and the black one also carries moorit. These lambs represent several years of breeding for fine, consistent Shetland fleeces, and I am quite excited about their potential. The lambs are 53% UK (see, not that high).

Not to be outdone, Christmas Holly (FirthofFifth Thayu x Lil’Country Possum) came through with an incredible black ram lamb out of Egyptian King. This is also a stunning lamb. I know he is black, and who gets excited about that, but we said that about his father last year, and look at the lambs he gave us so far. I wish I had bred more ewes to him.

Again, this lamb has a very dense, crimpy, and uniform fleece. I’m not going to say I don’t wish he was a ewe (and moorit), but you get what you get and you never know who is going to give you the top quality lambs. When you get a Shetland of this quality, we just accept it for what it is without getting disappointed over gender or color. I also expect this lamb to be polled. He is 43.5% UK.

So, the only thing we’ve proven so far about Egyptian King is that he carries moorit and has thrown three lambs that are his equal or better (nice long bodies, fine, crimpy fleeces, great toplines, etc.). We have one more ewe bred to him (Blue Sapphire), and we are looking forward to her lamb (another Blue’s Clues daughter).

I’ll post more lambs on Wednesday.

Lambs

2011-04-10T19:15:00.000-07:00

The first lamb of the season has arrived! Sheltering Pines Constantinople delivered a pretty yuglet fawn katmoget the other day. This lamb is out of Bond and I like a lot of things about her. She has a very uniform fleece -- crimpy right to the tail and very soft as well. I never get tired of getting getting brown based, spotted lambs from breedings involving two black based, solid Shetlands. Just what the doctor ordered, and a good way to start the season.

Lamb Goals

2011-04-09T14:56:00.000-07:00

Well, shearing is done. It’s a day we look upon each year with dread. Will the fleeces come off properly, or be unasable? Will the sheep be all nicked up. Yes, shearing day has always been an adventure here -- kind of like riding a roller coaster with no seat restraints. But we came out of it fine this year. A few ewes didn’t shear well, but overall, not too bad.

Everyone is in nice condition as well. It seems several ewes aren’t as far along as I would’ve liked, but perhaps they are just carrying singles. Still, I like how everyone looks. No surprises; no disappointments.

We’ve talked about some of our flock goals, but I wanted to share some of the expectations for some of our ewes (in case they are reading this).

Wintertime Itasca

We’re hoping for solid black or moorit. We don’t need any more katmogets, and we are sure to get plenty of them, regardless. Chances are, Little Buckaroo is a homozygous katmoget, so our odds of achieving this goal aren’t great. She gave us our best lambs last year, and we have high hopes again this year. She’s one of the ewes that epitomizes what we are trying to do here. She has a really fine fleece, and we are trying to reproduce that while improving other traits. We’re not necessarily looking for ultra fine lambs with this breeding, just really nice ones with exquisite fleeces.

S’more Sparkles

Sparkles gave us two nice lambs last year when bred to Bond, and I expect the same this year in moorit. She is Ag, so musket would also work fine. We won’t get spots out of her this year, however, but that’s fine. In hindsight, I’m glad we bred her to Pompey. I was on the fence about it, but I think it was the right move. Sparkles is an F2 Orion, and her lambs could be really nice.

Sheltering Pines Christmas Holly

We’re definitely looking for a solid black ewe here. She may carry moorit, but that’s not likely, and she’s being bred to a black ram (Egyptian King). I just want this lamb to be as nice as I envision in my head. The lambs could be fully polled, but that really didn’t enter into our decision to breed her to Egyptian King. The fact that she’s one of our nicer ewes and he’s one of our best rams did enter into it. I don’t know if this lamb will be ultra fine either, but it could be. What I would like, however, is a ewe lamb exactly like the ram lamb she threw last year. He’s darn near perfect.

Whispering Pines Blue Diamond

In hindsight, if we really wanted more moorit lambs, it made little sense to breed this ewe to Egyptian King, but the potential for a high quality lamb was too good to pass up. We’re hoping that Egyptian King carries moorit and spots, but I really don’t know. We would love to get a moorit lamb here, but black is fine too. I’ve grown to like the blacks more and more each year now that I’ve seen what that color fleece can look like when it’s fine.

Whispering Pines Blue Sapphire

Pretty much the same thought process as Blue Diamond. This breeding was interesting, however, in that Sapphire could be a gulmoget, which means we could get a gulmoget ewe here. This is the first time I haven’t been able to identify a lamb’s pattern. There’s really no color on her to help make that determination. There was barely enough to determine that she is a katmoget. If not for the one grey spot on her side, I wouldn’t know that either. There is so much potential in this ewe that we almost don’t care what pattern or sex the lamb is. Still, black is preferred…and a ewe. To me, breeding her to Egyptian King was a no brainer. There are always other options, but she is probably our favorite ewe, and he is my favorite ram right now in terms of overall structure and fleece.

Whispering Pines Peridot

She looks to be bred, which is a surprise to me. We put her in with Pompey late and she never saw a complete cycle. But if she is bred, I would certainly want a mioget, or moorit ewe lamb. Pompey is her great grandfather, so this isn’t a close line breeding, but it is intended to bring out fleece traits that I admire. She is an improvement over her mother, and we liked her mother a great deal. A mioget ewe lamb out of this ewe would be really awesome! She’s a good looking yearling!

Sheltering Pines Cor de Nuit

The old lady of our flock (she’s five this spring) is one of our best producers. She hasn’t had a bad lamb yet! She is bred to Pompey, which probably means more katmogets, but it would be really sweet if she had a solid black ewe this year. Heck, any ewe would be welcome. She’s had four rams since we’ve owned her and it’s time for two ewes, quite frankly. I still love this ewe! These lambs could also be fully polled. I haven’t come across many Shetlands in my travels who have the kind of fleece this ewe has. You’ll have no difficulty finding finer fleeces than she has, but not with this density and crimp. It’s a fleece that you want to sink your hands into. By breeding her to Pompey, we are forfeiting our ability to get spotted lambs, but this is a straight up quality-to-quality breeding and we are excited about it!

Sheltering Pines Constantinople

This Salicional daughter is quite nice (maybe not as nice as her mother, but very nice nonetheless). She has also produced well. She is bred to Bond (which excites me), but that probably means another grey katmoget. That’s okay. We know there’s a potential for solid moorit as well. We’ll hope for that. The lambs could also be fully polled or be spotted. We get excited when we get fine, spotted lambs. There is so much work to be done with spotted Shetlands, that it is cool when you succeed in getting a nice one. So, we are always conscious of that when we put our breeding groups together. It’s not our number one goal, but it’s probably fourth or fifth on the list.

Sheltering Pines Onyx Velour

Sure, her name sounds like a stripper’s, but she is also a very nice ewe, who has produced well for us. We have a chance at a gul-kat here, but solid black is the ticket that we would like punched. She is bred to Bond, so just about anything is possible here. We don’t have many opportunities for gulmogets here anymore, so I would welcome that as well. Onyx is always one of our best looking ewes on shearing day. Fleeces have a way of hiding conformational flaws, but not with Onyx. She actually looks better after shearing! Now that I think about it, that's true of many of our ewes.

Sheltering Pines Persia

We love this ewe. She is also a great producer and has a great look about her. Although, we are looking for some spotted lambs in moorit, we know that the odds aren’t good of getting all of that, but excellent quality ewes are what we are after. We would like more ewes like her, regardless of color and pattern. We bred her to Bond this year because it made the most sense. It’s a breeding that I wanted to do last year before we decided to do AI.

Whispering Pines Irish Lace

Finally, a moorit-based ewe to talk about. Granted, she’s a gulmoget, but it counts. This is one of the few breedings where we are guaranteed moorit-based lambs (if she is bred). We are looking for a moorit-based spotted gulmoget here, so I’ll just say it. As I said, Bucky could very well carry two katmoget genes, but that’s okay. I also want more ewes that look like this one. She has longer legs like her grandfather, Wintertime Black Forrest, and I like the look of it, quite frankly. As a bonus, after shearing, it occurred to me that she has no side dusting whatsoever. I like that. I’ve always liked the gulmoget pattern, but I’ve never been a big fan of the side dusting that accompanies it 99% of the time. I think we have Black Forrest to thank for that because I don’t believe the other Dillon gulmogets pass that on. In our case, Firth of Fifth Leyland (Forrest’s son, and Irish’ father) was solid sided, and he apparently passed that on to Irish. I have no idea where Forrest got it. Anyway, it’s always nice to have something fairly rare, and I hope we can propagate that gulmoget trait (starting this year).

Whispering Pines Primrose

She has always been one of our favorite ewes -- great personality (if a bit selfish), and conformation to boot. I would really like to get some nice ewes out of her before we end up selling this ewe. We have a shot at a solid moorit here, and spots are also a good possibility. I’m looking for a slight improvement in her fleece type and fineness, but the lamb must also possess her other wonderful traits. She only looks to be carrying one lamb, however.

Sheltering Pines Queen Anne’s Lace

I don’t know if there’s any chance of getting moorit out of this one, but we don’t need white either. That’s the problem with patterned sheep, you soon get too many of them. I think we have a shot at a solid black here, and that’s what we are looking for. This ewe is a good example of what the breed can be. Her fleece is really quite spectacular for a three-year old – crimpy, silky, nice length (around 4”), and white! I was going to sell her last year, but felt she was too nice to let go yet. I’d like to get one like her in a different color. I just think it was a no brainer breeding her to Pompey. I never considered another option. As a side note, she sheared like butter and so did Pompey, so there’s that as well.

Whispering Pines Shiobhan

Now, we can get moorit here, and that’s what we want! This could be a good one! We could get white, and we could get black, and we could get katmoget, but we could also get what we want here, and the fleece could be something special. I would call this ewe pretty close to my ideal in terms of type, structure, and fleece. Not quite, but close. I considered breeding her to Buckaroo, but I felt Pompey gave us the best chance at what we want in terms of improvement. No regrets there; I think it was the right move. Shiobhan is 72% UK blood, which is the highest amount in our flock.

That’s it; a total of 14 ewes. Four of those will surely single. Persia and Onyx always have, but it’s not a given. If the rest twin, that will give us 22 lambs. Out of those, we’ll likely get 10-12 ewe lambs. Can we get several solid black and moorits out of 10 ewe lambs? We sure hope so. Will they be keepers? We hope so. Are the odds good of getting all of those things? No, but we only hope to add a few really nice keepers each year, so that’s all we can hope for. That’s why we have goals, right?

I think we know we won’t quite get there this year, but we’re looking for a good step forward. We had a good year in 2010, and we expect the lambs this year to be nicer, with a little more variety in terms of color and pattern. It will be interesting how things play out. Having built a nice flock, we want to improve from within and keep moving toward our goals.

Happy lambing to everyone!

Micron Results - Rams

2011-03-18T18:29:00.000-07:00

Well, the micron results are in and I wanted to share some thoughts on our rams first, then I'll have something to say about the ewes on Saturday or Sunday.

Let me first say that I'm very happy with these results overall. There were very few surprises, which is what I think really excites me.

So here they are by age:

Whispering Pines Rowdy: AFD: 25.3; CV: 20.5; SF: 24.5
Whispering Pines Little Buckaroo: AFD: 24.3; CV: 17.4; SF: 23.1
Whispering Pines Egyptian King: AFD: 23.2; CV: 21.4; SF: 22.7
Wintertime Bond: AFD: 23.6; CV: 18.6; SF: 22.5
Sheltering Pines Pompey Magnus: AFD: 25.6; CV: 20.9; SF: 24.9

What did I expect? I made my predictions in my last post, and here is what I thought based on my subjective evaluation:

Rowdy: 24-25 with a 20% CV. I missed by 0.3 microns, but nailed the CV.
Bucky: 25.0 with a CV closer to 15% than 20%. I missed by 0.7 microns, but nailed the CV.
EK: 22.5-23.5 with a 20% CV. I got this one. His CV was 1.4% above what I thought, but very close.
Bond: 24-25 with 20% CV. I overshot this one by 0.4 microns, but nailed the CV pretty closely.
Pompey: 26-28 with 20% CV. I missed this one by 0.4 microns, but was spot on with the CV.

So, does that mean I'm pretty good at correlating my hands and eyes with the science of micron testing? Not really. I feel like I got lucky. I think the CV is pretty easy to gage, and there's really not much of a difference in my rams in terms of the averages. So, I really should be pretty close, shouldn't I? No one can guess fleece fineness within 0.7 microns, so don't let me mislead you. As you will see with the ewe lamb predictions, I'm not that good. But I think I'm decent at predicting within a small window, which is about all one can do. Now if I can improve on my ability to predict what a fleece will do in the future, then I'll have a skill worth something.

Who am I most excited about? Pompey, for sure! As I said, I really felt like his fleece was finer than I predicted, but he is five years old, after all. Except for Black Forrest, Pompey is the finest five year old Shetland ram I have seen! And his comfort factor is 80%! That is just tremendous for a ram of his age! He also had a 65 Dg/mm CRV, which is just a fancy way of expressing crimp. That's a really crimpy fleece for a five year old as well! And his spinning fineness (SF) was an amazing 24.9 microns, which means his fleece basically has a 25 micron handle. I'm pretty excited about this ram, and hopefully, his lambs reflect his many good qualities.

I was also excited that Bond came in under 25 microns as a two year old! That is my target for that age, and it's very difficult to achieve in my experience (not that I had anything to do with it). He won't be as fine as Pompey as a five year old, but that's still a fine fleece that I am excited about! Plus it's a pretty blue-grey, which is one of my favorite colors.

I didn't use Rowdy, but his fleece is very nice as well. Not extra fine, but it is shaela, and has excellent uniformity and lock structure. It's also silkier than many of the rams we've had here, so that's something we will continue to monitor this year. I would really like to use him this fall if I can. Awesome ram! I just wish he was finer. Other than that, he's just as nice as Egyptian King.

Bucky is what I thought he was. His uniformity and consistency is stunning! And a spinning fineness of 23 microns is nothing to sneeze at! He has a great handling fleece and excellent crimp as well! He has so many things I like in my rams, and I hope to have some nice spotted lambs out of him this year! I think he will improve the ewes he got! If he produces like I think he will, I will use him more this fall.

Egyptian King has the prettiest fleece, in my opinion. Granted it is black, and who gets excited about that, but it just has the tiniest crimp. His spinning fineness was 22.7, so even though he is just a yearling, I would still consider that extra fine.

So, overall, I'm very pleased with these results. It's taken some time to get fine fleeces that are consistently crimpy and uniform from front to tail, but we're making progress. Sure, two of these rams aren't from my breeding program, but it's also taken me quite a few years to assemble a ram lineup this nice, so I'll take wins anytime I can get them.

Ram Fleeces

2011-02-26T16:13:00.000-08:00

These rams are the best that we’ve had here at Whispering Pines. Sure, they pale in comparison to some of the rams I’ve seen, but we feel lucky to have this group. Each gives us unique traits, and yet for all their diversity, each shares something in common -- fine, crimpy fleeces with very nice density!

These fleece pictures were all taken at the last rib.

Pompeya
Pompey will be five this year. The old man of the flock. His fleece is very crimpy and soft for his age. I’m not an expert on fleeces, but I would say that his micron results will be between 26 and 28 microns with a 20% CV. I have a tougher time figuring out adult microns, so I’m giving myself more of a window than I did for the lambs. His fleece feels like it is on the lower end of that range, but that doesn’t seem possible, given his age. I might be picking up on his low CV and silky fibers. Silkiness is definitely a confounding factor.

Bond

Bond is a great ram, and his second fleece looks great! He will be two this spring. A very crimpy fleece and he passed that on to his lambs. His color is wonderful as well. I would say that he will micron between 24 and 25 with a 20% CV. I would be delighted with those numbers for a two year old ram! Especially one of his quality. That would be a big jump from his yearling results, but you can’t expect two year old rams to remain at < 21 microns. That’s pretty rare. In fact, after looking over maybe a 100 micron reports, I’ve only seen two rams stay at that level as two year olds. Stephen’s ram Fudge is one of them, and Pompey is the other. I’d love to hear if other breeders have seen that. Garrett probably has.

Little Buckaroo

Little Buckaroo is a yearling. I’ve liked how his fleece handled since he was a lamb. Very small crimp and nice luster combine to make him feel finer than he probably is. I would say he will micron at 25.0 with a CV below 20%. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was at 15% or close to it. It’s a shorter fleece, but he has so much potential as a flock sire.

Egyptian King

Egyptian King will be a yearling this spring. What a fabulous fleece. He is our densest ram, and probably the crimpiest. He has very tiny crimp. I hope he shears well so we can use his fleece. I hate losing nice lamb fleeces. I would guess that his fleece might be in the neighborhood of 22 to 23.5 microns with a 20% CV. He looks finer, but he doesn’t feel finer (if that makes any sense). You can get a good feel (no pun intended) for fineness by looking at the crimp. There is typically a strong correlation between the two. Genetic lines tend to skew that correlation a bit, but it’s still there. The great thing about this ram is that his fleece is uniform from front to tail. He doesn’t fall off at all in the britch area. I should have sampled him in all three places just to compare, but I didn’t.

Rowdy

Rowdy is a ram that we elected not to use this year. His fleece feels really fine, and it’s a pretty shaela! I suspect his fleece handle is attributable to his silkiness and not fineness. I think he might be in the area of 24 to 25 microns with a 20% CV as a yearling. Not too shabby. I plan on using him this fall, but I say that about all of our rams. Rowdy isn’t as dense as Egyptian King but they look a lot a like. I mean I really have to look to tell them apart.

Rowdy isn’t as fine, and isn’t as crimpy, but his fleece is a bit longer. I doubt it will spin up longer, however. He has a different lock structure is all. Rowdy’s mother is Christmas Holly, a ewe that I really like. I posted her fleece picture the other day.

I definitely liked the Bond sons better than his daughters last year. We have two other nice sons that we retained, but neither is quite up to par with these guys. Even the ones that we took to market were big improvements on their mothers, however. I asked a lot of Bond last year, and I got more than I had a right to expect. I wonder if my affinity for Bond’s ram lambs has anything to do with testosterone. Maybe the added muscle and frame made them appear so much nicer. But their fleeces were also nicer, so that doesn’t add up.

Ewe Lamb Fleeces

2011-02-25T16:58:00.000-08:00

Here are the lamb fleeces that we retained this year. A good proportion of the lambs we sold last year also looked like this, but we couldn’t keep all of them. I thought it would be fun to project what I think the micron tests will reveal. We’ll see if I’m even close. It’s tricky because the lower CV’s make the fleeces feel finer than the averages might indicate. But looking at the tips of the fleeces as well as the uniformity makes me think most, if not all, of these fleeces have lower CV’s. I hope I am right. If they have higher CV’s than I think, they might also be finer as well.

Shiobhan

QAL’s daughter out of Height’s Orion. Great density and softness. Probably between 24 and 25 microns with a CV of about 20%. Nice length for such a consistent fleece. Very uniform from front to back. Her fleece might have a higher CV than I think it does, but I don’t think so. She’s very close to her mother in type and fleece, but I like her a little better. Perhaps because we spent so much on AI? I might be biased. Bred to Pompey.

Peridot

Tiger Lily’s daughter out of Bond. A great improvement on her mother. Great density and length. A soft fleece that will probably micron around 26.0 with a lower CV (between 22% and 24%). Bred to Pompey if she’s bred at all.

Ruby

Pearl

Ruby and Pearl are both Bond daughters out of Itasca. Both are our finest lambs. I don’t have micron results, but I feel confident in saying that. I would guess that their micron values will both be between 22.0 and 23.0 with 20% CV’s. Very soft fleeces with tiny crimp. I think one might be a micron finer than the other (who am I kidding, I can’t tell such things). Not bred.

Blue Diamond

Constantinople’s daughter out of Blue’s Clues. A fawn katmoget. I would say that this one will probably micron between 24.0 and 26.0 with a 23% CV. I like the fleece a lot. It has some nice length which makes me think it might have a higher CV than some of the other lambs. It feels soft, however. I’ll be disappointed if she tests at the upper end of that range, but we’ll be keeping her regardless because she is exactly what we want. Bred to Egyptian King.

Blue Sapphire

Onyx’s daughter out of Blue’s Clues. Grey katmoget and possibly a gulmoget. I think this one will micron between 23.0 and 25.0 with a 20% CV. She might be finer, but her fleece type is much like her father’s and he microned in that range. Still, he had one of the nicest Shetland fleeces I have ever seen. Bred to Egyptian King.

Emerald

Sparkles’s daughter out of Bond. A bolder crimp style, but a soft and silky handle. Nice length. I think this one will probably micron at about 25.0 with a 24% CV. Not bred.

Blue Topaz

Violet’s daughter out of Blue’s Clues. I would expect Topaz to also test very similar to Emerald. Not bred.

I don’t think I’ll be way off on these, but I’d be shocked if I was within +/- 1 micron on all of them. Hopefully, I’ll be off on the high side…by a lot. Wishful thinking. If you noticed, I have them all projected to be pretty similar in terms of fineness. That's what I think they will be. They all have different fleeces, but the fineness doesn't seem wildly different.

Adult Fleece Pictures

2011-02-22T19:17:00.000-08:00

Here are some adult fleece pictures from our flock. These were not taken from the neck or shoulder, but from the last rib. They are good representative samples of what each sheep looks like throughout.

Christmas Holly will be two this spring.

Persia will be three year's old this spring.

Constantinople will be four.

Cor de Nuit will be five this spring.

QAL will be four.

Itasca will be three this spring

These are all nice Appendix A-type fleeces. Not too long, not too short. The thing that’s misleading about these fleeces is that they spin up so nicely, and the yarn has such elasticity. It gives us so many options in terms of products that can be made from them. There is no need to separate the two coats, because the fibers are very consistent. The fleeces appear shorter on the hoof, but that’s because they are so crimpy. Most are four to six inches when stretched. I would much rather have that than six-to-eight inches with no crimp at all.

We don’t expect all of our sheep to be super fine, but we do expect them to have soft, crimpy fleeces. The above ewes are not super fine, but they have wonderful fleeces that can be used in “next-to-skin” items. There is very little waste with these fleeces since the uniformity extends quite far back on the sheep. The britch wool is usually very functional. I really dislike Shetlands that fall off greatly in the hind quarters. Many do, but it limits what you can do with the fleece. You can do lots of stuff with that back one third of the sheep, but why feed a sheep for 12 months and only get half to two-thirds of a fleece that you like? The point here is that there is more to a Shetland than the front 25%.

Breeding Groups

2011-02-05T14:18:00.000-08:00

It’s been a long time coming, but here are the breeding groups we put together last fall. The choices were largely a matter of personal preference, since I think we could have randomly assembled groups and done fine. I feel like this was the first year where I was completely satisfied with each of the rams we used. I’ve seen a lot of rams at different farms over the past few years, and although there are several good ones out there, I don’t think any are better than these guys for our farm’s needs. I’m not saying that they are the very best rams, just the correct ones for our goals.

The final groups arose out of the potential for each ewe to give us exactly the type of lamb that we want. It was largely a matter of probabilities. We don’t dabble in all types of Shetlands here at Whispering Pines. We are serious about re-establishing the breed’s roots in this country, and I firmly believe that the only way you can do that is to study what Colonel Dailley imported and what the UK folks are currently maintaining. The 1927 Flock Book standard was written to preserve the purebred Shetland, and that’s what the Colonel imported.

Over the past 25 years, that original vision has been distorted by breeders to the point where we have an entirely different animal in a lot of cases in this country than what they have in the Shetland Flock Book and Shetland Sheep Society. My philosophy is that Shetland sheep came from the UK and should look like those sheep, not what breeders in the US prefer. We breed with that thought in mind on our farm.

Here are some examples of what I am talking about. These are UK style fleeces:

I completely support breeders who like more diversity in their flocks. Some like the long, flowing fleeces that you see in some of the old pictures. There’s nothing wrong with breeding for that. But we’ve worked hard at researching the original importation, and we feel that it contained diversity in type, and still adhered to the Flock Book standard. We know it did because the sheep were inspected prior to being imported. I feel that we have drifted far off course in this country over the past 25 years, and although there remain solid examples of the UK type, it’s clear that the fine fleeced Shetland is currently endangered, and we aim to do our part in re-establishing that presence in America.

I just wanted to give readers some background for the rationale we used to arrive at these groups. It’s very easy to just throw sheep together to get spots and cool colors. It’s much more difficult to breed toward specific goals around quality. Quality in this case, means correct structure, and fine, consistent fleeces. It doesn’t mean we have the best sheep or anything crazy like that; it just means that we have researched this heavily, and no longer breed for everything that can be pulled out of the Shetland gene pool. That’s the wrong way to breed any livestock, but for some reason, breeders in the US don’t see it that way. That’s okay, but we’re going to take the road less travelled and work hard at aligning ourselves with our sister organizations in the UK (where Shetland Sheep came from back in 1980).

Here the breeding groups:

Pompey Magnus

S’more Sparkles
Sheltering Pines Queen Anne’s Lace
Whispering Pines Peridot
Whispering Pines Shiobhan
Sheltering Pines Cor de Nuit

Pompey is an exceptional ram, and we felt he added several qualities to our program this year. These are some of our top ewes, so I fully expect big things with this group. I’d also like to pull some moorits out of this lineup. Peridot was a late entry here, so she might not be bred. She carries mioget, so we would certainly welcome a lamb out of her, but it’s not imperative.

Wintertime Bond

Sheltering Pines Persia
Sheltering Pines Constantinople
Sheltering Pines Onyx Velour

Bond remains one of our best and finest rams, so the objective of this group is to reinforce conformation and fleece quality, while adding fineness and some interesting spotting. We did not breed Bond to any of these ewes last year and I am excited by the possibilities. I don’t think we can expect moorit-based lambs here, but it’s possible. All three ewes had great lambs last year and we kept all of them.

Whispering Pines Little Buckaroo

Wintertime Itasca
Whispering Pines Primrose
Whispering Pines Irish Lace

This is a much smaller group than it should be, but most of our ewes went with the proven flock sires. Still, we can hope for some exquisite spotted lambs here, with correct structure, and fleece type. I put Itasca in here at the last minute on a hunch, but also because I like how her line has crossed with Jericho in the past. Wintertime Blues and Jazz are Jericho sons out of Itasca’s mother, and those rams are excellent examples of the breed. This is also the only group with the potential of giving us horned rams as these ewes all carry at least one horned ram gene as does Buckaroo.

Whispering Pines Egyptian King

Whispering Pines Blue Sapphire
Whispering Pines Blue Diamond
Sheltering Pines Christmas Holly

This is my favorite group because it’s our future. Egyptian King is a tremendous ram with a dense, fine black fleece. It’s exactly what we like here. These ewes share some of the same qualities. I don’t know if King carries spots or moorit, but I’m hoping to find that out this year. If not, we should have some nice black spot carrying lambs. In this group, we have two Blue’s Clues daughters and a Pompey Magnus great granddaughter. Egyptian King is Bond’s son. This group represents our efforts to bring in and retain specific things that we felt our flock needed. Now we are reinforcing and crossing some of those lines in a strategic way.

Our flock is small but we hope to be closer to our goals next fall and breed fewer sheep. This may be the last year we breed 14 ewes. Out of these groups, we’ll probably only end up with about 12 ewe lambs, and we’ll probably retain eight of those (ish). Our plan is to only keep 15 ewes next winter, which means some really nice lambs, yearling, and adults will move on in the spring. Our plan all along was to increase the presence of this type of Shetland out east, and that means moving sheep into other flocks and helping new breeders get started the right way.

Whispering Pines Egyptian King

2011-02-03T17:34:00.000-08:00

Whispering Pines Egyptian King (Sheltering Pines Cor de Nuit x Wintertime Bond) is a ram that
I really like. He had the most amazing fleece at birth that we have had here, I think. It was very fine and crimpy from the chin all the way to the tail. It looked identical all the way back. So, we hung onto him to watch him develop, and we liked what we saw. I was initially disappointed that he wasn’t a ewe, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he could help us create more lambs like him in the future. That’s my goal. He’s not flashy or anything, but very correct!

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You never know how an animal will produce, but this ram has so much potential. His fleece has the best density of our rams, and no britch whatsoever. He’s not quite as fine as Bond, but he has better front-to-back uniformity.

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I can’t wait to see this guy’s lambs.

Wintertime Bond

2011-02-02T17:30:00.000-08:00

Bond is just a gorgeous ram. I liked him as a lamb, and he is maturing nicely as a yearling. He threw some nice lambs this year, and we look forward to seeing what he can do with some of our top ewes. He is actually Pompey’s grandson. As I've said, it’s a line that I like.

Bond’s yearling fleece test confirmed what I thought. His average was 20.5 with a standard deviation of 3.9, which is quite amazing really. That’s even better than his father’s test at the same age! Plus, he’s a full poll!

In addition to his grandfather, I also like the bloodlines on his mother’ side. V Creek Sarah is a good looking ewe! Her five year old micron test was 23.7, 5.3, 22.5%, which is also pretty special for her age.

Bond’s conformation is excellent as is his tail! I noticed that he seemed to improve all of the ewes he was put with last fall. He also carries spots and moorit, which turned out to be a nice bonus! He’s a great ram, in my opinion. Speaking of bloodlines, Bond's father, Nightcap, is also a very nice ram. His two year old micron test was: 21.4, 5.0, 23.4. That’s absolutely remarkable for a two year old Shetland ram! I’ve seen him in person, and I’ve seen some of his lambs, and I’m just impressed!

I really wanted to use Bond on more ewes this year, but I just couldn't do it with 18 ewes and four rams. Still, I think these rams can help the breed a lot, and I need to use them as much as I can. I'm planning on using Bond this fall again, so there's always that. I'd like to pull out one or two Pompey ewe lambs and put them under Bond, but I haven't decided yet on that. A lot can happen between now and fall. I may not be able to breed this fall, who knows? We almost didn't this year. I do know that we won't be breeding as many this fall as we have in the past. It's just time to pull back a bit and enjoy what we've built.

Bond is 57.4% UK.

Two different skeins

2011-01-31T04:54:00.000-08:00

This is a photo of two skeins of yarn that were wrapped on the same niddy noddy. The grey one is from our very fine (low 20's) and crimpy ram, Bond. The teal one is from the britch wool of Captain Kidd, his britch wool was long and wavy, with little crimp, and is coarse, somewhere in the low 30 microns.

I washed the skeins and hung them to dry in the exact same fashion, with no weights. Notice how Bond's yarn is so much shorter? I thought this was a good illustration of how finer/crimpier fibers have so much more elasticity than the wavier, less crimpy fiber. The grey skein will stretch to the length of the teal one, but then bounces right back to its natural length.

Both have their applications. Bond's wool will be used for a very nice hat for Rich. The remainder of his fleece has not been spun, and I will spin it very fine for a lace scarf. I deliberately spun it thicker, but the whole time the fiber was fighting me, screaming to be spun gossamer thin. So I will succumb and spin the balance of the fleece as fine as a spider web. Can't wait.

The teal yarn is for either more market bags, or else I will use it on a weaving project - placemats or table runners or something, once I figure out how to weave. But definately not for anything requiring next to skin softness or any elasticity (socks/mittens/hats).

Little Buckaroo

2011-01-30T09:19:00.000-08:00

Here is a very promising fawn katmoget ram out of Persia and Todhill Jericho. When we elected to do AI last fall, I had hoped for two nice ewe lambs out of Persia. What I didn’t think I would get, however, is a scurred, moorit-based ram lamb! I was looking at the database, and only located two moorit-based lambs out of Jericho. I think Buckaroo is the only poll carrying ram. He’s the only scurred Jericho ram lamb that I’m aware of anyway. Which means Persia is a poll carrier (information I did not have when we brought her in). I did know that both Persia and Jericho carried moorit, but I just didn’t expect to pull that out of them. Anyway, we did, and I’m excited to see how he will produce.
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I’ve liked this guy from birth! He is just solid, with an awesome set of legs. The spacing is excellent! I also love his fleece! It’s very uniform and crimpy, and has a wonderful handle! It really is as uniform as it looks in the picture. He has the lowest standard deviation of any Shetland we have ever had (3.7 microns). I have seen that type of consistency from other Jericho offspring, so perhaps that is a characteristic of that line. His fall micron test average was also in the low 20's. I don't generally put very much stock in fall micron tests on lambs, but at least it gives us an idea about where the fleeces might head. And, to be honest, I wasn't expecting a super fine lamb when we selected this breeding pair. I was expecting incremental improvement over his mother, while reinforcing some attributes that we really like. I think we achieved that. His mother is really nice, however, so it was difficult to project exactly what we expected to get. I think that's how it is when you cross bloodlines with which you lack experience. You can feel pretty good about the odds of getting something really nice, but you don't know exactly what it will be.

It’s tough to fully evaluate rams at such a young age, but I think Bucky is going to be a good one. Will his conformation end up being as nice as Pompey’s? It’s hard to say, but I like his leg set better already. Quite frankly, his legs are the nicest we've had in a Shetland. The only ram I've seen with nicer legs would probably be Theresa Gygi's "Apache". His potential to improve our flock is too great to get caught up on the negatives. To be honest, we don’t have another ram with some of his important attributes. We may never have again. Who knows? He is another sheep with a fleece that you just want to sink your fingers into.

Buckaroo is 68.75% UK.

Pompey Magnus

2011-01-08T09:38:00.000-08:00

Here’s a polled fawn katmoget ram who I like a lot.
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I actually purchased him last year, but we just picked him up recently. I just thought he was a ram that could help us. When I started looking at moorit-based rams, he was at the top of my list. I just haven’t seen many moorit rams with his combination of goodies. I really wanted to jump start our polled program, and needed a polled ram who could move us along. I like Bond a great deal, so I really didn’t need to look far before I found a ram that could do the job. Why not his grandfather? I mean, if Bond could be produced in just two generations, couldn’t I create something special with the ewes that we have here? I think so.
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I brought him in because I felt his father, William The Conqueror, produced exceptionally well. Sheltering Pines Salicional and Bombarde are also top quality offspring from that ram, and they have produced exceptionally well. More importantly, I like how so many of Pompey’s lambs have looked. He is a producer.
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What do I like about him? Well, he has a wonderful fleece and conformation, and is brown-based. I targeted him for our program for all of those reasons. Sure, it would be nice if he wasn’t a katmoget, but what can you do? If you want quality lambs, you need quality sheep. I think this guy is one of the nicest polled rams in the country, quite frankly. If you look at his proportions, legs, body length, etc., it’s all top notch in my book. He is 43.75% UK for anyone who cares about those things, which, quite frankly, I don’t...all that much.
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He will allow us to continue our fleece improvement program without compromising conformation. He doesn’t carry spots, however. Oh well. He will get ewes that I think will benefit from his many qualities. I really should put all of my ewes with him this fall, but I just can’t do that. I have so much I want to accomplish with our flock, and he is but a piece of that puzzle.
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I have to thank Juliann Budde for selling him to us. He has helped her a lot over the years, and I hope I don’t let her down with how we use him. I feel a lot of pressure to use this ram correctly. I have a vision for what we want here on the farm, and that’s why he is here. I often feel like you have to pick and choose between fleece properties and conformation when choosing a Shetland ram. I don’t have to do that with Pompey. His fleece has nice density, deep color, luster, and his three year old micron test was 25.7 with a sub 20% CV. His four year old test went up a bit, but maintained the low CV and other properties. Judging by feel, I’d say his five year old test will be somewhere in between.

Anyway, I think Pompey will move us a step in the right direction and we are happy we have the opportunity to use him.

Siobhan

2011-01-07T10:38:00.000-08:00

And last but not least is Siobhan, which I guess is an irish name, but I had no hand in naming her. She was born on St. Patrick's Day. This one is a bit of a long story, but, for us, it was worth the research and hard work.

Okay, we went looking for a white ewe last spring with the intent on producing an exceptional white ewe lamb that we could AI. That was the plan. The next step was to find one. It turned out to be tough, but we did find Queen Anne’s Lace, who ended up being just what we needed (thanks Juliann). I've seen a few white ewes that I've liked a lot, but they weren't available when we were looking. That's probably a good thing, because the longer we've owned Queen Anne, the more we like her. Plus, she sheared like butter, so that's a nice thing as well!

The next step was to find an AI ram that we liked. To be honest, I’m not in love with a lot of the ram’s that were imported. First, I considered Heatheram Lightning, primarily because he was white and we wanted to improve the odds of getting that in a lamb. Ultimately, we decided on Heights Orion, who I liked a lot better. I like Jericho better, but I wanted to stay away from grey katmoget rams, since, you know, we were already using two of them last year. Plus, I knew from talking with people that the odds of getting a good Orion lamb increased substantially with the use of a good ewe. There was really no point in investing in AI unless we were very confident in the choice of ewes. Queen Anne wasn't our best ewe, so it was a risky venture, but her fleece had certain properties that we were looking to reproduce, so it made sense. There were some other reasons as well, but I won't bore you anymore than I already have. The point is that Queen Anne had some wonderful traits, and if we did no better than to reproduce her, we would've been in good shape. We did better than that, however!

Anyway, we are quite happy with this lamb. Her fleece is so dense and uniform and she has a knockout conformation! She is about as good as we could've hoped for. Plus, she carries moorit from her father and gives us the option of getting black, moorit, or white. Those are all bonuses, but we'll take whatever good fortune comes our way.

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I don’t have any gripes about Siobhan! I think she’s a pretty amazing F1 Orion (72% UK). I want to copy her fleece as many times as I can, and at the same time, attempt to shave a micron or two off of it. I’ve found it very difficult to get extra fine fleeces with great density, luster, and length. It’s a balancing act that we may never achieve, but if we can’t, I want all of our sheep to look and feel like this one.

Siobhan is also in the mix for nicest shetlands we've ever had here. It's difficult to compare lambs since they all grow at such different rates, but she has a great frame already. Given that she's older than the other ewe lambs, we'll have to wait a year to really compare, but her conformation is top notch. When we did AI last fall (on a very limited basis), my goal was to reproduce Queen Anne's unbelievable fleece consistency and softness, while improving on her overall conformation (which is actually pretty darn nice already). We weren't looking for spots, a poll carrier, or moorit, however, we merely envisioned combining some cool blood lines to get something really nice...in white. Mission accomplished!

Again, none of our sheep are perfect, but I really like this one!

Blue Sapphire

2011-01-07T10:22:00.000-08:00

We had a specific vision in mind when we put Onyx with Blue’s Clues last fall. We were looking for spots, but wanted to improve her fleece uniformity. This girl has turned out to be our favorite Blue’s Clues lamb this year! She has pretty much everything I could want. An awesome fleece, conformation, tail, etc. You can take everything I posted about Blue diamond and repeat it here, except that I like this one’s fleece a little better. I think it’s closer to her dad’s than anyone else’s! She's a tough one to photograph, however, but this is the best I could do. I don't have a single good picture of her, and I literally snapped this one today.

In terms of markings, she is a spotted grey katmoget, but she may also be a gulmoget as well. Until I breed, I won’t know. Just like Blue Diamond, she has a lot of white on her, which, in this case, made it impossible to label her completely. And, of course, who likes to be labeled anyway?

This girl is 61% UK. Over the past few years, our UK content has increased in our flock, but that’s not part of an intentional strategy. It’s just turned out that most of the sheep I like tend to have that high of a percentage. That may not always be the case in the future. It’s just something that I’ve noticed. She is an F3 Jericho, for what it's worth.

I've also noticed over the past few years, that I like a lot of the Jericho offspring. I know he has a lot of grey katmoget relatives in North America, but some of the nicest shetlands I've laid my hands on had their blood lines directly traceable to him. We don't have a lot of Jericho blood lines in our flock, but we do have a few nice ewes now that are F3's.

Anyhoo, in my opinion, Blue Sapphire is the nicest shetland we've ever owned. I like Blue Diamond's conformation a little better, so she is close behind, but this one is special!

Blue Diamond

2011-01-06T11:35:00.000-08:00

I liked this fawn katmoget from the moment she hit the ground. Her fleece is dense and soft! I love her conformation as well. She has a nice long body with nice leg length.

In terms of genetics, if you follow our blog at all, you know that we were quite high on Sheltering Pines Blue’s Clues, this lamb’s father. He had a spectacular fleece that I really looked forward to reproducing in his lambs. Her fleece won’t be like his, but it’s very nice. Blue’s Clues was a Wintertime Blues son, and a Todhill Jericho grandson, which makes this lamb an F3 Jericho and 55% UK. Her mother is Sheltering Pines Constantinople, who has an excellent conformation and overall Shetland type. I would say that this lamb captured the best parts of each parent, to some extent.

Here is a picture of her parted fleece. Nice length, crimp, and luster! It's very soft as well! It's a fleece that you just want to sink your fingers into. You know the type.

So, this lambing was the result of some genetic lines that I think a lot of (if you haven’t gathered that from some of my earlier posts). Anyway, I look forward to shearing next year to see how this girl’s conformation and fleece looks like after a full year of growth.

Emerald

2011-01-06T11:12:00.000-08:00

This ewe is very nice as well. She’s out of Wintertime Bond and S’more Sparkles, who are two sheep that I like a great deal. I like this girl as well. Her brother was amazing, and although I wouldn't quite put her in his class, she's very nice. She’s an F3 Orion, and a Pompey Magnus great granddaughter (52% UK). Not too shabby!

She was spotted at birth, and still maintains some faded spots on her face. I’m guessing that she’s only a carrier. She also carries polled and might carry moorit.

I would say that her fleece resembles her mother’s a great deal in type, but it is finer, and more uniform, which is what we were shooting for with this breeding. Aside from being another grey katmoget, she is a ewe we are quite excited about. We elected not to breed her this year even though she was plenty big enough. I'll talk more about our breeding strategy in the coming weeks, but she certainly fits into our program. It's hard to do better than the bloodlines that she has.

Anyway, we like what we see so far in this girl and we'll see what we can do with her in our program.

Peridot

2011-01-04T11:22:00.000-08:00

We originally had this ewe lamb on our sell list, but her fleece really changed throughout the summer and it is very nice now! It never was bad, just not my preferred type. As she matured, it became my preferred type. So, I’m not exactly sure what might happen with her. She carries mioget from her mother, and could very well carry spots as well. Test breedings will flush that out at some point. Maybe not this year, but sometime. She is out of Wintertime Bond and Whispering Pines Tiger Lily, and is 42% UK. Here’s a good example of us sticking to our vision and eventually producing something better than what we started with. We started with Under The Son Tiara and Clover, and through careful selection ended up with a ewe that seems right now to be much closer to what we are breeding for. We’ll see how it goes. Those sheep had excellent conformations, which proved to me that you can start with that and work on fleece along the way. Hopefully, we can keep that forward momentum going.

Blue Topaz

2011-01-04T10:39:00.000-08:00

Long time followers (I shouldn't presume that we have long time followers) probably recall that we thought pretty highly of Pike Hill Violet. This little gem is her daughter out of Blue’s Clues. She seems to have good qualities from both. Her fleece doesn’t have as much density as some of our lambs, but it has good density, as well as great lock structure and luster. We were always impressed with Violet’s fleece. It had great density. We liked this girl so much that we elected to sell Violet. I hope she continues to breed and produce wonderful lambs like this one! We hated to part with her, but we think her daughter has great potential. I’m very interested in how this lamb produces, and whether she carries moorit. I know she carries spots and, in fact, you can see the white on her face right now.

After much thought, we did, however, elect not to breed Blue Topaz this year. She was big enough, but we felt we wanted to cut back on the number of lambs this spring, which made it easier to hold over some of the lambs from this past spring. Oh well, next year.

Christmas Holly

2011-01-03T08:32:00.000-08:00

Sheltering Pines Christmas Holly is a yearling grey katmoget ewe who we like a lot. She had a nice yearling micron test, and is correct in most ways. She’s also more refined than some of our sheep, which isn’t a bad thing.

Holly is soft and very pretty. I also like her background. She’s out of Wintertime Thayu (a Black Forrest son), and Little Country Possum (a Pompey Magnus daughter). I brought her in for that reason. Those are nice genetics and I wanted to see what I could do with them with some other bloodlines that we have. Last year, we bred her to Bond and got a nice polled ram who we are keeping. We really like him as much as any ram we’ve had born here. He just fits our vision of things. The fact that he is out of bloodlines that we also like a great deal is a nice bonus.

That’s it for the adult ewes. We decided to only keep 10 adults so we could make room for some of the lambs that we liked.

This year’s lamb crop was our best yet, which made it possible to let some nice adults and lambs go to other farms. We look forward to seeing how they produce for other people.

Sheltering Pines Constantinople

2011-01-02T12:08:00.000-08:00

I saw this ewe last year at Stephen’s farm and knew I had to have her. She is built just like I prefer, with long legs and body, level topline, and straight legs. Her fleece has nice density and fineness. She also has what I consider to be a perfect Shetland head. She’s just correct and typey. Her lambs this year were top notch as well!

She’s probably our largest ewe in terms of height and weight. She’s quite striking to look at out in the pasture, I’ll say that. She also has nice bloodlines that I respect. Just look at some of the nice Shetlands in her immediate background: Greenholme Holly, Northwind Holiday, Sheltering Pines Isadora, and Sheltering Pines William The Conquerer. And that’s just on her mother’s side! On her father’s side you have Thelonius Monk, Bartok, and Minder. That’s a nice collection of genetics to go with her looks.

Wintertime Itasca

2010-11-29T04:10:00.000-08:00

Itasca was a good pickup for us last summer. Her bloodlines are very impressive as is her fleece. Her fleece is very soft, crimpy and dense, it made a wonderful 2 ply sock yarn with a perfect amount of elasticity and bounce.

Her mother is Whistlestop 0427, who has provided some pretty amazing lambs in her life (Wintertime Blues, Wintertime Jazz, Wintertime Ruby, and Itasca). She carries polled and moorit, and has a good conformation, but her fleece is her main selling point. Jen knit these socks from Itasca's wonderful wool.

We look forward to seeing what she can throw next spring, as she had two of our nicest lambs this year.

Whispering Pines Primrose

2010-11-27T07:13:00.000-08:00

Primrose has a similar body type to Irish Lace, but not quite as tall and long. Still, proportionally, she meets my standards. She’s very square and level. As a two year old, her fleece is dense and uniform, with a nice micron. It’s a nice handling fleece. She’s a smaller, more petite ewe. I like most things about this ewe. She is an F4 Jing and F4 Jericho ewe.

Whispering Pines Irish Lace

2010-11-23T04:33:00.000-08:00

This ewe is probably close to my ideal in terms of body type and carriage. She is level and square, but also has a nice body to leg ratio. She is a product of a breeding we did last year between Firth of Fifth Leyland (a Black Forrest son and grandson):

and our own Buttercup. Buttercup was a smaller ewe who had nice body length and overall conformation. I always liked her conformation a great deal. Great legs and topline!

Leyland had longer legs (like his father), but not my ideal body type. It was nice, but not exactly what I like. Irish Lace probably gave us a nice combination of those two sheep. Her fleece is longer, but not quite as dense as her mother’s (who was very dense). She has nice lock structure, and fineness, and I just like a lot of things about her. In my opinion, she is an excellent Shetland, which is a little odd for me to say because she looks nothing like Sparkles, who is also extremely nice. I like them in different ways, I guess.

S'More Sparkles

2010-11-18T08:54:00.000-08:00

Sparkles is another foundation ewe that continues to make the cut each year (and a lot of good ones have not). I like her conformation and fleece a great deal. All of her lambs seem to possess traits that I like as well. She’ll be three this spring. She has a longer fleece than some of our sheep, and also has very nice density, which is sometimes lacking in the longer-fleeced sheep we have seen. Sparkles is an F2 Orion. She’s just a collection of nice genetics that I like. She is also our only Ag sheep, for what it's worth. She’s another ewe that I still have passion about. She is correct. There are several ways we can go with her breeding for this year. I’d like to pull moorit out of her, since we lack a lot of brown-based ewes in our flocks. Genetics aside, I just think she’s an excellent Shetland.

We are keeping her daughter from this year:

And this is her incredible ram lamb who I expect great things from:

Sheltering Pines Cor de Nuit

2010-11-16T05:06:00.000-08:00

As I’ve said in the past, she has one of the nicer conformations I’ve seen in a Shetland. She’s stockier than some, and certainly more so than I personally prefer, but she is so square and correct. She is shorter in the legs than I like as well, but since Shetlands come in all shapes and sizes, I don’t get all that concerned with variation around the ideal. If I showed, I’d probably use her. Her fleece has wonderful crimp, luster, and density. She routinely produces around five pounds of fleece. I’d like to have more sheep like her. She scores high in our rating system.
Her bloodlines are quite nice as well. She’s a Thelonius Monk daughter. Her mother is Justalit’l Lana, who is out of Bramble Dixen. All of those sheep have produced well. It’s all about production here at Whispering Pines. You produce correct lambs, or you don’t stick around. Cor will be five this spring, so she has stuck around.

We elected to keep one of her twin ram lambs this year, Egyptian King above.

And Juliann has his spotted twin, Saturday Night.

Now we just need Cor de Nuit to produce some ewes for us!

Sheltering Pines Queen Anne's Lace

2010-11-13T04:32:00.000-08:00

I like this ewe as well. She has a very nice overall combination of goodies, but her fleece is her strongest point, in my estimation. I haven’t come across many Shetlands with the kind of uniformity and consistency that she has. And it’s uniform from front-to-back, with great density and luster. As a result, it feels soft and is a pleasure to spin and wear. It’s the type of fleece we’re after for sure.

Queen Anne is out of Bramble Nick, is an F3 Greyling, and also has Jamie and Heatheram Lightning in her immediate pedigree as well. I like good bloodlines, and she has some very good sheep in her immediate background.

Sheltering Pines Persia

2010-11-10T05:23:00.000-08:00

Persia is one of my favorites. I like her bloodlines, but she has a conformation that excites me as well. I like the long legged Shetlands. There’s certainly a limit to that, but it’s an elegant look that appeals to me more than the fat, stubby-legged sheep you see in some pictures. It’s a personal preference. As long as it remains proportionate to the length of body, I think it looks good. Her fleece? Also extremely nice. It has nice uniformity from the shoulders to the britch, and it has nice density. Here is a hat made from her skirtings, which is remarkable soft and wearable.It also has a nice silver grey color and luster. I liked her when we brought her in last year, and I haven’t lost any of my enthusiasm about her.

Ewe a day - Onyx Velour

2010-11-08T06:55:00.000-08:00

Well, it’s that time of year again. A time when we are forced to review our entire flock and decide which ewes to breed to which ram. I’ve always found this to be an exciting time. I enjoy planning for the future. It’s a time to reflect on the successes and failures of the past, so that we can build on them for the future. We do believe our breeding program is heading in the right direction. There are multiple signs that we are doing some things right, even if it doesn’t seem to happen as fast as we want it to.

With that said, we want to continue the tradition of introducing our flock, and then ease into breeding groups (which will give me time to actually come up with them). Our intent was to get our flock down to 18 ewes this fall, and we accomplished that. We ended up selling a couple that we really wanted to keep, but I feel more comfortable with 18 than 20. I would feel even more comfortable with 14, but I don’t know if that’s in the cards anytime soon. Maybe.

I'll start with the adult ewes and work our way into the keeper lambs.

Sheltering Pines Onyx Velour

She’s three this fall and still looking very nice. She’s nicely built for a Shetland, and her fleece is quite nice. As a three year old, we’re quite happy with her micron results. She has flaws, but most of them do. The important thing is that her flaws are relatively small by my score card, and breeding her to the right ram could produce extraordinary lambs, like this year. If you look at her overall value, she has a great conformation and nice fleece for a spotted gulmoget. Onyx is a Thelonius Monk daughter, and is an F2 Dillon.

Morning Glory’s Ram

2010-09-20T07:03:00.000-07:00

Morning Glory's ram is very similar to Tiara’s guy. He has great luster and his conformation is right there as well. He’s also a half-poll. I would rate both of these rams quite similarly. Tiara's has longer scurs. Both are out of Bond. I think their fleeces will be very similar as yearlings. Both are good prospects for a flock looking for polled genetics, interesting colors and markings and higher quality fleeces.

Sire: Wintertime Bond S29187
Dam: Whispering Pines Morning Glory S27358
DOB: 4/24/10
Sex/Mult: Ram/Twin
Genotype: AbAt/BbBb/SSS?/MMM?
Color: Fawn
Pattern: Gulmoget/Katmoget
Spotting: May carry spots
UK Content: 37%
Poll genetics: Half poll

Tiara's Ram

2010-09-13T04:36:00.000-07:00

I really like the conformation of Tiara's ram. Even as a lamb his backside was really solid. He is a half-poll mioget katmoget out of Wintertime Bond. His fleece has the nicest luster of the group, I think. His fleece will also be longer than the other rams we’re offering, so if that appeals to you, he might be a good choice.

Sire: Wintertime Bond S29187
Dam: Under the Son Tiara S24624
DOB: 5/2/10
Sex/Mult: Ram/Single
Genotype: AbAa/SSS?/MmMm/BbBb
Color: Mioget
Pattern: Katmoget
Spotting: May carry spots
UK Content: 35%
Poll genetics: Half poll

Jasmine's Ram

2010-09-09T04:17:00.000-07:00

Jasmine is one of our own ewes out of V Creek Fantasia. We’ve liked her fleece from day one, and we were hoping to add some additional fineness to it by breeding her to Bond last fall. This ram is the successful result. He would be a great flock sire for someone breeding for spots, pattern, and fine fleece. He is a half-poll.

Sire: Wintertime Bond S29187
Dam: Whispering Pines Jasmine S29812
DOB: 4/20/10
Sex/Mult: Ram/Single
Genotype: AbA?/BBB?/SSSs/MMM?
Color: Black
Pattern: Katmoget
Spotting: Carries Spots
UK Content: 38%
Poll genetics: Half poll

Cor d Nuit's Spotted Polled Ram

2010-09-07T06:09:00.000-07:00

His solid black twin brother will be staying here, but this ram is for sale. There is a lot to like about this ram! He’s built like a brick house for one thing. His fleece is very uniform from front to back (as is the case with all of these guys). I don’t believe he will be as fine as some of our ram lambs, but I do believe he will test at or below 25 microns. If it goes that way, I will be happy. He is out of some great bloodlines.

He would also make a great flock sire for someone into spotted sheep. He will improve a lot of flocks, and add some fineness as well. And, he is polled! If he doesn’t sell, we will hold onto him and see how his fleece develops as a yearling. So much potential here!

Sire: Wintertime Bond S29187

Dam: Sheltering Pines Cor D Nuit S22529

DOB: 4/18/10

Mult: Twin

Genotype: AaAa/BBB?/SsSs/MMM?

Color: Black

Pattern: Solid

Spotting: Smirslet

UK content: 51%

Poll genetics: Fully polled

Cosmos's Ram

2010-09-05T15:19:00.001-07:00

It seems like everyone else, we have an abundance of rams this year at Whispering Pines Farm. We’ve had a good ratio of rams to ewes the last two years, but, as luck would have it, we have had a good number of remarkable sheep whose only flaw is their gender. Of our entire ram crop this year, we are using a couple this fall, but have decided to offer up seven exceptional rams that we think can help farms improve their flocks in a variety of ways. I will blog on each one separately, micron tests are pending.

Cosmos' is one of our youngest rams (DOB 5/9) so we’ll have to continue monitoring him. We like what we see so far, however. He’s very flashy and soft, and we love the bloodlines. He is 43% UK out of Dillon, Timothy, and Minder, but he also has a good domestic line that I admire for its conformation. He has short scurs right now. We will overwinter this guy if he doesn’t sell. He is one of the better all around spotted moorit rams that I’ve seen. He’s not spectacular in any one area, but is very good in all of them. He has the potential to be quite impressive as a yearling.

Sire: Wintertime Bond S29187

Dam: Whispering Pines Cosmos S29814

DOB: 5/9/10

AaAa/SsSs/MMMM/BbBb

Color: Moorit

Pattern: Solid

Spotting: Yuglet Sokket

Poll genetics: 1/2 poll

Fiber Fun with the Family...

2010-07-05T19:36:00.000-07:00

My cousin was in from out of town, and she came out for a visit with Aunts and cousins. We watched the sheep, had a nice lunch and then I introduced them to needlefelting. Great visit, very talented group!

Ram Lambs for sale

2010-06-08T08:41:00.001-07:00

I’m amazed at how much lambs change from birth to two months. Some lambs you don’t like at all at birth, and they turn out to be amazing, while others go the other way. After spending the past two months constantly evaluating our lambs, I feel confident in offering the following ram lambs for sale. Some will no doubt turn out better than others, but I feel confident that each will make a positive contribution to the Shetland gene pool. If they don’t sell, most will go to auction, which is a shame for the breed, but it’s also reality. The good news is that the ones that do end up being flock sires, will help the breed in a big way! These are the best rams we’ve ever offered!
I’m going to break them down into polled/scurred vs. full horns.

Full Horns

Both of Pyrenee’s Morn’s ram lambs are the pick of the litter this year (to borrow Julianne’s terminology). Both have stunning fleeces, but I have a preference for the lighter of the two. He has an absolutely perfect Shetland head!

Both of these guys need to be part of someone’s breeding program, and I’m going to do whatever I can to make that happen. I’m no longer breeding with horned rams, so I’m unlikely to keep them myself. They are 58% UK out of Blue’s Clues (a Jericho grandson), and Pyrenee’s Morn (a Greyling granddaughter). That makes them F3 Jericho and F3 Greyling! The genetics don’t get any better, and I challenge you to find better rams anywhere either! Both could carry spots and moorit from their father.

Scurred

Morning Glory’s fawn gul kat is extremely nice. He’s definitely flock sire caliber!

Right now, he appears to be single coated. His fleece won’t be overly short, and it is crimpy and uniform from front to back. I like this guy a lot. There’s no point in keeping him because we don’t have enough ewes to set up another breeding group. With this lamb, you are getting Sheltering Pines, Under The Son, and Wintertime genetics in one animal. His father is Wintertime Bond, who is as nice a polled ram as you are going to find. He may carry spots as both parents do.

Tiara’s mioget katmoget ram is also very nice.

Don't want to be crass, but frankly, this guy has the best rear end of any lamb we had born this year.

Tiara's lamb is also out of Wintertime Bond, and has a similar genetic background as Morning Glory’s. Very nice! He may carry spots. Both parents do.

Jasmine’s ram has turned out very nice! He is a grey katmoget out of Wintertime Bond and Whispering Pines Jasmine, who has Bartok and Greyling in her background! Jasmine’s father is Sheltering Pines Cihat who is out of domestic lines. This guy has very small buds at this point, and carries outstanding spotting genetics. He’ll throw some wild spots! He is single coated, and I expect his fleece to be in the 3” to 4” range as a yearling. I’d love to see him in someone’s breeding program. He would add a great deal to the Shetland gene pool! I really can’t find any flaws in him right now. He would help to improve most flocks.

Cor de Nuit’s lamb is also very nice. Excellent conformation and spotted! The negatives? Not much.

His nice dense fleece will probably be in the 4” to 5.5” range. Wintertime Bond is the father. Right now, he has rough patches on his head, but at two months, he’s not showing buds.

If you are interested, we’ll do a complete evaluation (which means, I’ll ask someone who has more polled experience than I have). I do think this guy is going to be an excellent spotted Shetland ram, however. This guy goes back to Bramble Dixen and Justalit’l Lana, two excellent poll carrying shetlands! He is 51% UK.

Constantinople’s ram lamb out of Blue’s Clues has longer scurs than our other lambs, but he is very very nice!

He has a dark blue fleece like his father, and I really like how it looks right now. He may carry moorit and spots since both parents do. He is an outstanding flock sire prospect! He is 55% UK as well!

Polled

Christmas Holly’s black ram has an excellent conformation and will most likely have a 4” to 5” yearling fleece.

I wasn’t initially sure he was polled, but he appears to be.

I can’t find many faults with this guy either. I love his genetics. Wintertime Bond is the father, and Sheltering Pines Possum is the mother (a Pompey Magnus daughter). Wintertime Black Forrest is his great grandfather. Lots of great potential in this ram! This ram could carry both spots and moorit from his father. He is 47% UK.

That’s the complete list right now. I think there’s a little something for every breeder here, and all of these rams are top shelf! Two years ago, we could’ve only dreamed about having rams of this quality. If any of these rams had been ewes, they’d be keepers!

Ewe lambs for sale

2010-05-31T14:45:00.000-07:00

Lambing wrapped up here at Whispering Pines last week, so we have finally completed our list of available sheep. It gets tougher each year to decide which lambs to keep, and after much debate and flip flopping, we decided to let the following ewe lambs go. All are sired by Wintertime Bond, who is a spectacular smooth polled ram. As a result, each of these lambs carries one polled gene.

Tiger Lily and her lamb are both for sale.

This was a tough one because both sheep are lovely and correct. We could make a strong case to keep both, but then we’d have to sell something else to make room. So I do think someone will be happy with either of these ewes. The lamb is a grey katmoget, who carries mioget from her mother. She may also carry spots, as Bond does, and Tiger Lily may as well.

It’s difficult to predict where here fleece will go from here, but it looks to be a very pretty single coated fleece at this point. There doesn’t appear to be two distinct coats, but that could change. I do expect this lamb to be very nice. Excellent conformation! The fleece is soft and crimpy.
Primrose’s girl is a black smirslet who will have a longer fleece. I would say her fleece will end up similar to her mother’s (probably 5” to 6” in length). This lamb has an excellent conformation as well. She carries moorit as well.

The last ewe lamb that will be available this year is Irish Lace’s. This was the last lamb born here this year, so I can’t make any bold predictions about how here fleece will turn out, but she will be double coated. She is a fawn katmoget who carries spots. This one has great bloodlines (Wintertime Black Forrest, V Creek Sarah, and Sheltering Pines Pompey Magnus), and is 45% UK. She is very correct.

I think all of these ewes can add a great deal of quality to the Shetland gene pool. We would certainly be keeping them if we were willing to accept a larger flock. As a result, I think this is a great opportunity to add some great bloodlines to your flocks, without compromising on quality.

May lambs

2010-05-14T09:40:00.000-07:00

Under The Son Tiara lambed a few days ago and produced this nice fawn katmoget ram, who will be a half-poll. I like the legs on this guy. He has a nice wide base. Obviously, he carries mioget as well. I can’t say whether he carries spots. Bond is the father.

Cosmos also lambed the other day, giving us a really nice spotted moorit ram lamb. He will be a half poll as Bond is the father. We’ve been blessed with some really nice ram lambs this year, but how many do we really need? I’m struggling to find a place for all of them here on the farm. Each brings something a little different to the program, but we only have so many ewes to put with them.

Primrose on the other hand, came through with a spotted moorit ewe. No, that’s not a misprint, we actually had a ewe lamb after what seemed like 50 rams. I’m not even sure what the tally is right now. I think it’s like 14 rams to 12 ewes or something like that. That doesn’t seem like a bad ratio, unless you consider the fact that it’s now two years in a row where our best lambs have been rams. It’s all a matter of perspective, I suppose. I’m really not prepared to sell any more adults this year, and I would have to make some difficult choices if we had been faced with even one more ewe lamb that we thought belonged in our program. So, maybe it’s been a blessing in disguise. We’ll see if I still feel that way in the fall when I can’t make up my mind about which ones to use.

So, all of our ewes have lambed except Irish Lace. We expect her to lamb around the 20th, and then we'll call it a lambing season!

Shetland Sheep - Adult Ewes for Sale

2010-05-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

We have some wonderful ewes available to go to new homes. All are registered breeding stock. Really great ewes, hard to part with but we are committed to a flock size of 20 ewes. So, here are their photos and names, much more detailed information is available on on web site or contact us directly with any questions!

http://www.wpshetlands.homestead.com/

Whispering Pines Tiger Lily:

Pike Hill Violet:

Sheltering Pines Broomhilda

Whispering Pines Dahlia:

Whispering Pines Cosmos:

Under The Son Tiara:

Shetland Sheep - Ewe lambs for sale

2010-05-03T08:16:00.000-07:00

We are close enough to the end of lambing that we were able to put together a preliminary list of sheep that are available from our flock. We have 4 ewes left to lamb, so there will probably be some additions to the list.

Today I will post the two ewe lambs we are offering for sale.

Wintertime Bond (S29187) and Whispering Pines Tiger Lilly (29810) had a sweet little grey katmoget ewe who carries mioget. She may also carry spots. She carries half poll, since Bond is a polled ram. Her UK content is 42%. We expect she will have a longer length fleece, somewhere in the 6 - 8 inch range. Her mom is also for sale, so she would be available before weaning if you wanted to take both of them.

The other ewe lamb we have is out of Sheltering Pines Blues Clues and Pike Hill Violet S25080. She is a very fancy grey katmoget, with really sharp markings. She might carry brown, and is spotted. She carries horned genetics, and is 42% UK.

We are very happy to answer any specific questions you may have about these two ewes, please contact us via email or phone for more information and for our terms of sale.

Lamb update

2010-04-25T15:14:00.000-07:00

Tiger Lily, our yearling mioget gulmoget, had a grey katmoget ewe out of Bond. She’s a good looking ewe lamb at this point, but I can’t say for sure whether she carries spots. We have to be happy whenever we are given ewe lambs!

S’more Sparkles also lambed the other day and gave us these spotted wonders. The male is an Ag katmoget, and the ewe is a spotted katmoget, who I also believe is Ag. I’ll look her over good when I get more time.

The ram is the most interesting lamb we’ve ever had born here. He is almost completely white, with very little black even on his under carriage!

Morning Glory also came through with a couple of neat lambs, a fawn ram, and a black-based ewe. Both are gul-kats!

I really like these two so far! Bond is the father, so both may carry spots, which makes me very happy.

That leaves us with four ewes left to go. Two will likely hold out until well into May as they were the last ones we put in with Bond.

More lambs!

2010-04-22T09:45:00.000-07:00

Here are the pictures of Cor de Nuit’s black ram lambs.

It’s too early for me to tell whether they are polled, but I think the solid black one is. Both have soft fleeces, but the solid lamb’s fleece is so incredibly uniform from neck to tail.

He’s going to be very fine, in my estimation. I also think he’ll be polled, but I’ll need some time on that one.

These rams go back to some really interesting lines. Cor de Nuit is out of Justalit’l Lana, who is out of Bramble Dixen. Bond is out of Little Country Night Cap, who is out of Sheltering Pines Pompey Magnus. I like those lines, and I like these rams!

As I said, both lambs are out of Wintertime Bond, who really threw some nice lambs this spring! Bond’s yearling micron test was: AFD: 20.6/Sd: 3.9/CV: 19.1/SF: 19.7/CF: 98.5. His spinning fineness number is an entire micron lower than his average! He is very uniform from head-to-tail, and we’ve been able to get that in some of his lambs! Plus, he carries spots, which wasn’t something I counted on, but thought might be the case. He’s just turning out like I had hoped. Once I saw him after shearing, I knew he was something special. Great conformation!

Last year, V Creek Fantasia had twin yuglet socket katmoget ewe lambs within 10 minutes of each other, and this year, both had their water break within 10 minutes of each other. Jasmine lambed first (not sure if she was born first) and gave us this grey katmoget ram lamb. He carries spots and will either be a half-poll or a clean poll.

Dahlia then gave us this stunning half-poll yuglet socket kamtmoget ram! After I got over the initial disappointment of him being a ram, I soon realized that he was quite nice. His fleece is very uniform from neck-to-tail at this point! He’s quite striking! Bond is the father.

Not to be left out, Wintertime Itasca came through with these absolutely stunning grey katmoget ewe lambs!

These two look even finer than Cor de Nuit’s black ram! Both look very similar in fleece and color, and may carry both polled genes! Bond is a clean poll and Itasca carries it.

We love these two girls! They are 55% UK. I believe both carry spots as well. It would have been nice if they had been moorit-based, but let’s not be greedy. Both could carry moorit, as both parents do.

Violet also lambed yesterday! We had been watching her for 24 hours, and after dinner she decided to lamb out in the pasture. That’s pretty unusual, but it worked out fine. Both of these ewes could carry moorit as well (again, both parents do).
These are the final two Blue’s Clues lambs, and both are ewes, and both are spotted! I like them so far! They are both grey katmogets, and 42% UK. Violet is a strange color for a katmoget. She looks fawn, but is actually black-based. Both lambs took on that color scheme.

That’s where we are so far! We still have seven ewes left to lamb, and two will probably be late. I would expect the other five to lamb within the next week.

Spring Lambs

2010-04-19T08:08:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while, so I want to try and get caught up on the lambing front. Much has happened (but not fast enough).
First, here is Fantasia’s ewe lamb out of Captain Kidd (a Cor de Nuit son from last year). She’s quite the looker. We haven’t named her yet, but she’s a grey yuglet katmoget. I like her.

The next one is a black ram out of Christmas Holly and Bond. I also like this guy a great deal. He looks like the total package at this point (except being black, of course). Christmas Holly is a Little Country Possum daughter who may carry the polled gene, and Bond is a full poll. I think this little guy is going to be polled, from the looks of things. He is 47% UK. I’ve also proven that Bond carries spots, so this guy might as well.

Sheltering Pines Pyrenee’s Morn is another ewe that we like a lot, and she recently had two grey katmoget rams out of Blue’s Clues. Both are nice and 58% UK. I like them, but I’m more than a little bit disappointed that we didn’t get a ewe lamb out of this breeding. That’s the way it goes I guess.

Yesterday, Onyx Velour had one of our wildest spotted lambs this year, a grey yuglet socket katmoget out of Blue’s Clues. We’ve had a number of ewes single this year, and as disappointing as that is to me, I have to be grateful when they kick out gold like she did. This is one nice ewe lamb! My only question is whether she is also a gulmoget, because, quite frankly, I have no way to tell on a lamb with this much white. Does anyone have a suggestion? I have a hunch she is, but I’m really not sure. It looks like she might have the gulmoget patches where they should be, but there’s not enough black to say that for sure. It could just be the katmoget markings coming through.

Lastly, here are updated pictures of Constantinople’s lambs. They are maturing nicely. She is a fawn yuglet katmoget, and certainly my favorite lamb so far this year (although Onyx’s is close).

Cor de Nuit gave birth to…pause…you guessed it…two black ram lambs. How do you get two black ram lambs out of a breeding that consists of two grey katmoget parents? I mean really? Anger aside, they do look really nice! I’m particularly taken with the solid black one. Bond is the father, so both will either be polled or half-polled. The solid black ram will almost certainly be the finest Shetland we’ve ever had born here. He is something else! These guys are 51% UK. I don’t personally care how much UK blood our sheep have, but I thought I would start including that as a point of reference. Maybe I should state it the other way and call them 49% domestic lines. Anyway, as I suspected, Bond does carry spots, which opens up a lot of possibilities with some of the other ewes he was bred to. Yes, they will most likely be black rams, but at least they may be spotted!

We are anxiously awaiting the next round of lambs, and are quite happy with the results so far (black ram syndrome aside).

I just realized that we missed a few lambs in recent posts. This one is Shioban out of Queen Anne’s lace. An awesome ewe lamb for sure! I really like everything about this girl.

The next one is Bucky out of Persia. Another awesome ram lamb, who, as luck would have it, is a fawn katmoget. So there, we actually defied the genetic odds with this one, but in a good way. Both parents are grey katmogets. I’m very happy with this guy as well, but he really needs to grow into those legs. I think he’ll look much like his mother as an adult, with those long, elegant legs. It’s a look that I really like in a Shetland. I really dislike the short-legged Shetlands.

Lambs

2010-04-06T18:25:00.000-07:00

We finally have some lambs to talk about! Yesterday, Broom Hilda gave birth to this black half-poll ram. His fleece is very dense, soft, and has nice luster. Wintertime Bond is the father and the lamb is 63% UK. Broom Hilda is a Wintertime Blues and Alafair daughter who is either shaela or emsket. We’ll know more once her new fleece starts coming in. Both mother and son are for sale!

On Easter, Constantinople kicked off the season with our first Blue’s Clues lambs. I must say that we are very happy with this breeding!

The ram is the darkest blue-grey katmoget we’ve ever had born here on the farm! I’m a sucker for that color. It’s too early to make predictions about his fleece, but so far so good. It looks a lot like his father's. He also carries spots! I think he’s going to be a good one!

His sister? She’s okay too, I guess. I really like her fleece. Her's looks even more like her dad’s than her brother’s does. It's extremely uniform from head-to-tail! Again, how can anyone know at this age what the fleeces will be like, but they have potential!

The lambs are 55% UK.

Bond's Group

2010-03-19T07:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I posted information about Blue's Clues' breeding group, so today it's Bond's turn. Grab some coffee because this is long.

I liked Bond as a lamb and still do. His mother is V Creek Sarah and I’ve never seen her in person, but I hear she is nice. She is fine, carries polled, has nice bloodlines, and is a grey katmoget. That’s what I know. Bond’s father is Lil’Country Nightcap, who I have seen in person and like a great deal. Nightcap’s yearling AFD was 21.1 microns, which is outstanding. Bond is also a Sheltering Pines Pompey Magnus grandson. Why is this relevant? It’s not really. I just like that ram a lot. His three year old AFD was 25.7 microns. Those are just numbers, but I like shetlands who can reproduce that. Anyway, my point is that Bond comes from good genetics and has fineness in his pedigree on both sides. When you can combine structure and fleece characteristics in one sheep, you have something. Here we have three generations (son, father, grandfather) of fineness and structure. You could probably extend that back one more generation, but I’ve never seen his great grandfather in person. I know he produced well, however (Bombarde, Salicional, etc.).

Genetics aside, what do I like about Bond, and what does he bring to the table? He has nice density, fineness, and consistency on top of what looks to be a great conformation. He was a knockout as a lamb! I’m always somewhat reserved when I talk about ram lambs because they grow so much in that second summer. I do think he will mature out as a stunning ram, however. He has great legs!

Bond is one of those rams who I expect to have a strong impact on our flock. In three years, I expect to look back and be impressed with what he did for us. You never know, however. He has too many ewes to mention in detail, but I’ll comment on a few:

Wintertime Itasca. I love her fleece. We could get something quite remarkable here. Sure, they will most likely be either black or katmogets, but they should be nice. Both of these sheep are a cut above in my mind. It probably depends on what you like, however. Itasca’s fleece is very crimpy and looks to be a little short, but his has a nice length. I think I could’ve put her with Blue’s Clues as well. Itasca is out of Whistlestop 0427 (Blues’ and Jazz’ mother), and Wintertime Landslide. That makes Itasca a half sister to those spectacular rams. I don’t know all that much about Landslide.

Whispering Pines Jasmine and Dahlia. These two are nearly identical. I like both of them, but I don’t know what to expect here. Sure, they’ll be grey katmoget lambs, but I just don’t know what else to expect. I just felt Bond was the best fit for what they have/lack. This is also a good test to see whether Bond has spots or not.

Sheltering Pines Cor de Nuit. She was actually put in with Bond as a backup, but I think he bred her. This was a no brainer for me. She has one of our nicest fleeces and carries polled. I would expect her to have some of our nicest lambs when all is said and done. Yes, more grey katmogets. All I can say for sure is that she is bred. Her micron is 28ish with an 18% CV. Not bad for a four year old. I really hope she gives us ewes as nice as the rams she had last year. All of her lambs so far have been knockouts. Cor has a fabulous pedigree (Bramble Dixen, Thelonious Monk, Justalit’l Lana, etc.). By all accounts, Dixen was an amazing polled ram. She’s a third generation of amazing fleeces. All I know for sure is that if I was going to a show, and could only take one sheep with me, she'd be the one.

Whispering Pines Primrose. Another spotted ewe. I think she could have a really nice lamb out of Bond. They are both nice, but he complements her pretty well. I’d really like a moorit here. She went in late with him, so I don’t expect anything until late April. Will the lamb be spotted? I’m not counting on it, but one can hope. I still like her fleece as a two year old. It has a nice lock structure and handle. It has a bolder crimp, however, which is something he can help her with. So, we could get something pretty nice here. I don’t have new micron results on her but I would anticipate 29ish with a 25% CV. Hopefully better. It feels better than that.

Morning Glory. An excellent ewe that needs to be finer. It’s really pretty simple. She’s not coarse, but she’s not as fine as she needs to be. Her fleece is pretty typical of a NA Shetland. Pretty good lock structure and about six inches long. We think Bond can improve her fleece, that’s really the whole deal here. I like this ewe a lot, so we’re hoping for nice lambs. Her parents were both nice, which always influences my decision process.

Whispering Pines Cosmos. Onyx’s daughter has great potential. She’s really a nice ewe and her fleece is more like Morning Glory’s. They are virtually identical. I would characterize both as double-coated, but the length is not extreme. So, I don’t know what to expect here either. She’s not as level as Morning Glory, but her parents are, and Bond looks pretty good in that area right now as well. These two ewes are probably the nicest Cihat daughters that we kept. Cihat was a Darius son, and virtually a carbon copy in many ways. Cihat’s fleece was much nicer, however. So, I’m looking to pull some of that out of his daughters. It’s a crapshoot, however. There is some strong double-coating in the pedigree, which I don’t have an issue with, but can I make them finer though in one generation? I really don’t know. That’s what makes this fun. It’s a goal. Cosmos is another one who was in Crimson Autumn’s group for one cycle, so she’ll lamb late. Better late than never.

S’more Sparkles. I love this F2 Orion! Great density and silkiness. Just a great fleece. I’d like to shave a few microns off of it, but that’s about the only thing we need out of her. Her son last year was very nice. Sparkles has a very full fleece with good length. It’s about as long as I like in a Shetland fleece, but it spins like a dream. I’m not sure how well this year’s fleece will spin. It’s not as fine, but it still handles well. I think she’ll micron in the high 20’s, but should have a decent CV. Even though her fleece might test similar to Primrose’s, it’s a much different fleece. It’s much denser with less tip.

Sparkles is probably our prettiest ewe as well. Her head, body, and markings are pretty remarkable.

Whispering Pines Irish Lace. She is a Black Forrest granddaughter out of Firth of Fifth Leyland and Whispering Pines Buttercup. She is a product of our attempt at combining the best of her parents. She is an improvement on both in many areas, but she isn’t built as nicely as her mother. It’s very hard to get the best of both parents. It almost never goes that way. All of Leyland’s lambs had interesting lock structures. All had more tip than we’re used to. Her fleece is more typical of the NA shetlands that I’ve seen. Those Leyland lambs were all cool, mind you, just different. We really didn’t have a strong opinion on the fleeces one way or the other. They handled fine, which is all we cared about. Irish doesn’t look bred, but she would be late anyway. She and Primrose will probably be last. Anyway, I like the idea of combining the Black Forrest line with the Pompey Magnus offspring. I like the way her fleece handles, but it’s longer than I prefer. I think she’ll have nice lambs, however.

Sheltering Pines Christmas Holly. A nice ewe that is the result of the same line cross I just referred to. I still don’t understand her fleece completely. I’ll have to look closer after shearing. I would call it double-coated, but the inner portion is very fine and crimpy. This is a straight line breeding on Pompey Magnus, however. We’re breeding a Pompey Magnus grandson to a granddaughter. She is fine and consistent, and so is he. I don’t often breed this closely, but breeders of other animals (like horses) often do, and I don’t feel all that uncomfortable doing it once in a while. Her last micron test was: AFD: 20.8/ CV: 20.3. Again both of her parents tested quite low as yearlings.

Sheltering Pines Broom Hilda. A nice ewe with great genetics. As a black ewe, she is not as nice as Itasca, but her fleece does have a nice handle. She’s out of Wintertime Blues, but she didn’t inherit his fleece type. Given her bloodlines, I think she could have something really nice out of Bond, but who knows. Her fleece is also crimpy underneath. I don’t care for it as much as Holly’s, but there’s really nothing wrong with it either. It’s just not my type.

So, I talked about more ewes than I should have, but there are some interesting breedings here. Most probably won’t pan out like I had hoped, but I would be shocked if we don’t get some really outstanding lambs here. I’m only asking for three or four really nice ewe lambs! We’re looking for improvement in most cases, although there are several that I would like to clone. If we get duplicates, we’ll probably sell the mothers. You never really know where the nicest lambs will come from. They might come from some of the ewes I haven’t even mentioned. That’s happened before.

Last year, we ended up with really nice lambs even though we didn’t keep all of them. That’s the way it works on our farm. We have to keep a cap on our numbers, so some nice sheep are always for sale. Some are lambs, and some are adults. I really can’t say who they will be at this point. I like all of them. It really does depend on what the lambs are like. Last year, our nicest lambs were rams. If they had been ewes, the choices would have been very difficult.

The one thing I’ve decided is that the choices really need to come down to quality, rather than patterns, markings, or color. If you start chasing those things, you’ll end up with cool looking sheep, but how good will they be? It took me a while to wake up to that fact. Of course, it has led me to a lamb crop that will be 80% grey katmogets, so maybe I need to rethink that. The choices will be tough enough as it is. Do I really want a flock that consists of mostly grey katmogets?

Blue’s Clues Group

2010-03-18T08:24:00.000-07:00

This group is really about one thing – fleece. All of the ewes in his group have excellent (or very good) conformations, but they don’t have his fleece. I like their fleeces as well, but he has what I would call my gold standard. His father was like that as well. Overall, his father (Blues) remains one of the nicest Shetland rams I have personally seen. He’s probably as close to my ideal as it gets. I hear his brother Jazz is just as nice, but I’ve never seen him in person.
As a result, I’m hoping for the following from this group:

Lock structure. I haven’t paid a great deal of attention to this until this year. It’s an undervalued characteristic, however. It directly impacts how well your sheep meet the standard because it translates into how open or closed your fleece is. In functional terms, it impacts how well the sheep shed the weather. I think density plays a bigger role, but both are important.

Density. All of these ewes have excellent density, but I wanted to ensure that we maintained that in their lambs. We value density a great deal. To me, it’s like wearing a windbreaker vs. a winter coat in January. That’s not a great idea where we live.

Consistency. This is reflected in both the uniformity from head to britch, and the standard deviation of the fibers themselves. This ram has both. His CV was 18% and it looks that way from his neck to his britch.

Fine crimp. I love fine crimp and don’t care much for the bolder style. I also don’t like the straight fibers because they don’t meet the standard. It is possible to have double-coated sheep with straight outer fibers, and a fine crimpy under coat, but that’s not against the standard. But it’s not what I like in a Shetland fleece. I’ve seen both single and double-coated fleeces that have the type of crimp that I like, but his matches my preference exactly. As I’m writing this, I’m wondering why I didn’t put more ewes under him.

Fineness. Blue’s Clues is a fine-fleeced ram, but most lambs are. The trick is projecting their yearling micron results out to where you think they will be as three year olds. I usually add about two microns a year to the lamb micron results in my projections. It’s difficult, however, because some fleeces are hard to project. Fleeces like his often go down between the first and second years, but most are not like that. Anyway, without getting into a thesis on fleece genetics, I feel that his projects well, but I would have liked a lower AFD for his age. Not a big deal for me since his CV is so low. His spinning fineness is a very nice 23.2 microns, which is a function of the CV. To make a long story short, if all of his lambs had his fleece, I would be doing reverse handsprings up and down our street. He is that good (I can’t even do a handspring, reverse or forward).

Color. I didn’t put a lot of emphasis on color and pattern this year. That should be obvious because what idiot would breed all of his ewes to grey katmogets? I mean, who does that? But that blue-grey katmoget fleece is to die for, and I feel fortunate that both of our rams have it this year. I like it better than emsket, but that’s just me. I have no idea what an emsket katmoget fleece would look like.

The following is a short discussion of what I expect from each of his ewes. Keep in mind, I am very very critical:

Pike Hill Violet. This ewe has about everything one could want except his color, consistency, and uniformity. She has good uniformity, but her CV is not as low as I like (around 25%). She also lacks the blue-grey color, but that’s not a big deal (or is it). I really liked her as a two year old last year.

Sheltering Pines Onyx Velour. I don’t have many complaints about this ewe either. She is a little longer bodied than Violet, but her fleece isn’t as nice. Again her CV is around 25%, but I don’t feel that her density is quite as good as Violet's. She could also stand to be more uniform. She has a bit more britch wool than I like. But this is one great looking ewe though. Obviously, I want to make a good fleece better here and improve her overall fineness and lock structure. Would I like a spotted gulkat here? Yes, but that’s secondary and not the reason I put her with this group.

Sheltering Pines Constantinople. I think this ewe is on par with Onyx and Violet in the conformation department, and I like her fleece a lot as well. She’s shorter stapled than the other two, but wasn’t as fine as a yearling. So, obviously, Blue’s Clues could improve that. But don’t get me wrong, she is a very high quality ewe in just about every way. She has some wool on the poll to boot! She carries spots and her mother carries the polled ram gene. I would have put her with Bond if not for the size difference. Constantinople is a pretty leggy ewe. I also like that in a Shetland. She, Persia, and Onyx are very elegant looking ewes for that reason. I don’t like short legged shetlands. Some of the UK rams are shorter in leg. It depends on the bloodlines. There’s probably some ratio involving body length and height, but I haven’t found it yet. I know what I like, but I wouldn’t apply that to the entire breed. If anyone knows of good guidelines around that, I’d love to hear from you. I know there are guidelines for body-to-leg height.

Sheltering Pines Pyrenee’s Morn. This is another really nice ewe with a very dense fleece. She has the best density of the four ewes here. She also has an ultra low CV (around 18%). She had two very nice ram lambs last year that also possessed great density. It’s a longish fleece with a nice blue-grey color as well; pretty uniform from front to back. There is great potential with this breeding.

So, that’s Blue’s Clues’ group. We’ll likely get all grey katmoget lambs here. That’s what I’m expecting, and surely some of them will be homozygous kats at that. I like having double-patterned shetlands.

Breeding Groups

2010-03-16T13:25:00.000-07:00

Let me apologize in advance for the way this is going to come out, but I lost the source files for the pictures and didn't know how to make picture files out of a word document. Hopefully, these jpeg's will do the job.

Now that lambing season is upon us, I thought I would finally get around to posting the breeding groups that I planned last November. As always, there were some last minute changes. We put Crimson Autumn in with a group, but I'm not at all optimistic that he bred any of them. As a result, we cut his group short and put all of his ewes in with Bond. Crimson was just too small for this breeding season. A shame? Yes, but his loss (and ours) is Bond's gain.

Sheltering Pines Blues Clues

Blues Clues is an amazing ram out of Wintertime Blues and Wintersky Alafair. I like his parents a great deal, which always puts me in a difficult position when it comes to buying their offspring. I never want to do it, but when you see good bloodlines pay off with a ram like this, it's very difficult to say no. You all know what I mean.

So, what do I like about this guy? Almost everything, but his fleece was the real draw. If the pictures come through, hopefully you'll get a feel for what I mean. He has a fantastic lock structure; almost like lace. And it's the deepest blue-grey color! I'm a sucker for that color in a nice fleece. Crimp? He has it. Very fine! His micron was a bit of a disappointment. But it's a good example of why having low CV fleeces is so important. They have a nice handle and they feel finer than they sometimes are. His numbers were: AFD: 24,4/CV: 18.2. Nice, but the average is nothing spectacular. But his uniformity is something special. He looks virtually the same from neck to britch. I've never seen that before in a shetland. Rarely anyway. So, if I can get uniformity, color, crimp, density, lock structure, and low CV in one animal, I'll take it every day of the week and twice on Saturday (no work on Sunday, of course).

And that's not to mention his bloodlines. That also contributes a great deal to my thought process. It fits in with the genetic puzzle I'm assembling. He was a good addition.

Fleece pictures:

We bred the following ewes to him:

Onyx Velour

Violet

Constantinople

Pyrenees Morn

All are top notch ewes, but if I could add his fleece to them, I think I would call it a successful lambing season!

Wintertime Bond

Bond is pictured above next to the parted Blue's Clues fleece picture. He is a pretty spectacular shetland! Overall, I think he is a better ram than Blue's Clues, but that's just my opinion. His fleece has a different lock structure, but it is finer than Blue's Clues'. Here are some pictures for comparision.

Bond's Fleece:

He's a handsome boy isn't he? And yes, he is a full poll. We've never bred with a full poll, but I like this guy. He too has that magnificent blue-grey fleece that I like so much! He's not quite as uniform from head to tail as Blue's Clues, but that's something to work on over time. Great density as well. How fine is he? Pretty fine so far. His numbers were: AFD: 20.2/ CV: 20.5! Not too shabby. I like 20/20 in a lamb! Especially one that is this nice! His father and mother also had very low numbers, which isn't a foolproof indicator of how he will turn out, but I like it nonetheless!

His ewes were (everyone else):

Sheltering Pines Cor de Nuit

Sheltering Pines Queen Anne's Lace

Sheltering Pines Persia

Wintertime Itasca

Sheltering Pines Broom Hilda

Sheltering Pines Christmas Holly

Whispering Pines Morning Glory

Whispering Piness Jasmine

Whispering Pines Dahlia

Whispering Pines Tiger Lilly

Whispering Pines Cosmos

Under The Son Tiara

S'more Sparkles

Whispering Pines Irish Lace

Whispering Pines Primrose

Bond was busy as a beaver last fall. It's hard to say how many are actually bred. As I said, some got put in with him rather late. I'll post the rationale behind this group later this week. Believe it or not, I don't use a random number generator to pick groups. It just seems like it.

Having said all of this, I think one things pretty clear - if Bond doesn't carry spots, I'm pretty much screwed in the spotted lamb department. It would actually be a bonus if he did. I wasn't counting on it when I brought him in.

Whispering Pines Captain Kidd

A stupid name? Yes. I had a pirate theme in mind at one point last year. Kidd was one of our nicest lambs last spring out of Cihat and Cor de Nuit. He has excellent structure and fleece density. It's a crimpy fleece as well, just not fine. But for a spotted shetland, I'm pretty happy with him overall. He's also a half poll. So, I like him a great deal, but he wasn't fine enough to use extensively. His only ewe was V Creek Fantasia. I'm hoping for a nice ewe out of that breeding. At the end of the day, I would have liked to put Fantasia under Bond, but Kidd was too nice to not use.

Fiber group - Jen

2010-03-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

Had our next to last fiber group meeting on Saturday, we had it at the Lockport Historical Society. Very nice turnout, great work, and pleasant conversation for a cruddy, cold, rainy Saturday morning.

Our sole 4her made his niddy noddy from pvc pipe to complete his collection of spinning supplies for his exhibit at the fair this summer.

We had a little show and tell, Rhonda brought her natural dyed skein, and also brought her albatross of a roving that she's been spinning on her cd spindle.

Then we all dug into a needle felting project which everyone seemed to enjoy, lots of creativity!!!

Our next (last) meeting is April 17th at my house, we'll go over fleece preparation and will play with dyes. Should be a lot of fun!!!

Flock hat - Jen

2010-03-11T13:30:00.000-08:00

I just finished this hat the other day, it's pretty cool because its made of samples of wool from all the sheep in our flock. We did some sampling in the fall for micron testing, and i washed, carded and spun up the individual locks, spun them in the lock and did a quick ply job. Then used my v. simple brimless cap pattern, size 6 circ. needles, cast on 90, 2 inches for the brim, 4 inches for the hat, then decreases. Easy peasy! I'm posting it to my etsy shop and hope it sells, I'm saving up to send some wool I was given out to process into roving to make into rugs.

Can't wait for shearing, we are going to have wonderful fleeces this year!

Ewe A Day - Persia

2010-02-13T09:24:00.000-08:00

Well, It took a while, but here is the last ewe in the annual Ewe A Day posts.

Sheltering Pines Persia is another one of my favorite ewes. She has a great fleece and excellent conformation. Overall, she ranks very high on our ewe scale. She's one that I think stands out in our flock, but at the same time, is highly improvable. She has an incredibly beautiful blue fleece. It is very nice! Her markings are also very nice, but her strength is probably her conformation.

Persia is out of Justalit'l Too Unique and Sheltering Pines Starry Night. She has some nice relatives as well. She has Bartok on both sides and is an F3 Minder.

After reviewing the entire ewe flock this year, it has become clear that it will be tough to part with any of them, which is going to make choices very difficult this spring. You always expect lambs to be better than their mother, but the reality is that it doesn't always go that way. In fact, most of the time it doesn't play out that way. I'll post breeding groups next, but all of our groups targeted fleece improvement. That was a challenge because that meant sacrificing spots and moorits. This is the first year that we really didn't breed for those things, because, quite frankly, we just didn't find the correct combination of conformation and fleece in a spotted moorit ram.

There are always constraints that you have to deal with in a breeding program, but I didn't feel like we needed to take a step back in the fleece and conformation departments just to produce flashy spots or moorit. We still hope to get plenty of both, but it wasn't a focus, and I remain convinced it was the right thing to do.

At any rate, I'm very happy with our ewe flock right now. I wouldn't necessarily say that any of them have everything, but they all bring something important in our main areas of focus.

Ewe A Day - Christmas Holly

2010-02-10T16:04:00.000-08:00

Sheltering Pines Christmas Holly is another ewe lamb that we brought in this year for a specific purpose. I didn’t initially care for her fleece, but it’s much different at the skin than at the tips. Her fall micron test confirmed my suspicion (AFD: 20.8, CV 20.3). Hopefully, that carries through to her yearling test but I never get excited about lamb micron reports. Too much can change between the fall and spring tests. This is why I use micron testing. Her fleece feels soft, but is it fine? We'll re-test her in a month or so.

So, what do I like about Holly? I like her bloodlines, for one. She’s out of Little Country Possum and Wintertime Thayu. So, she’s a granddaughter to both Wintertime Black Forrest and Sheltering Pines Pompey Magnus, two rams that I think highly of. She also has Greyling in there. I also like her structure. She’s a bit more refined than some of our ewes, but I still haven’t decided how I feel about that. I guess if I was showing, I wouldn’t want that, but I personally do like the look. I’m less concerned about that than I am fleece, and overall conformation.

Possum is a poll carrier, so Holly may or may not carry that. I think she’ll end up being a foundation ewe for years to come, but probably won’t show her real potential until next fall.

Ewe A Day Broom Hilda

2010-02-09T17:23:00.000-08:00

Sheltering Pines Broomhilda is a black F2 Jericho ewe out of Winter Sky Alafair and Wintertime Blues. She is about 70% UK. Blues is quite simply one of the nicest Shetland rams I’ve ever seen in person. I still don’t have a handle on her fleece (pun intended), however. Right now it’s about five inches long, but there is some nice crimp underneath it. So far, she looks like a winner to me. She had a nice micron test (AFD: 25.2, CV: 22.2), which is about where I thought she would be. Whether that will hold or not, I can’t say.

Hildie is quite the melting pot of genetics. She is an F3 Holly, Drum Ram, and Jamie, and an F2 Jericho.

I’m not a person who collects certain genetics for the sake of doing it, but if I can see improvement potential, I’ll sometimes take a gamble. I really didn’t need another black ewe after our experience with black lambs this past year, but the upside with this ewe is enormous! I’m looking forward to seeing how she produces with the ram I put her with. That particular line cross is what convinced me to add her to our flock in the first place. Like I said, we really didn’t need another black ewe. At least she wasn’t a grey katmoget. I certainly don’t need another one of them either.

Ewe A Day - Queen Anne's Lace

2010-02-08T17:30:00.000-08:00

This past spring, I was looking for a white ewe with a fine, lustrous fleece. It seemed a simple enough goal. It wasn't. I was surprised at how difficult it was to find one that I liked. Either the fleece or conformation wasn't what I was after. I had seen Queen Anne's Lace at Stephen's farm before and I did like her, but Juliann had recently bought her, so I didn't think she'd be an option. Then, as I was looking into other options, I discovered that Queen Anne would be available after all. So, to make a long story short, I took her and she is better than I remembered.

She is a Bramble Nick daughter and an F3 Greyling. She also has Lightning in her pedigree and several other noteworthy rams. She has a nice conformation, but her fleece is her best feature, in my opinion. She's another one of those ewes who is nice in her own right, but who offers much in the way of future offspring. I just think she can produce some very nice lambs that fit in with our goals.

What do I like about her? I think she has a very nice shetland build. She's also a good size. She weighed in at about 90 pounds last fall, but she doesn't look that big. Last year was a good growing season, so I'll be curious what the weights look like this spring.

I don't have any other shetland fleeces like this. It's very uniform and lacy. I'll need to get some close up shots to do it justice. Her last micron test was: AFD: 29.4; CV: 17.0%. I love CV's less than 20% - especially when the entire fleece is like that, as this one is.

Anyway, lots of potential here. I have big plans for her. Thanks again to Juliann for letting us have her.

Ewe A Day - Constantinople

2010-02-01T16:54:00.000-08:00

Sheltering Pines Constantinople is another Grey katmoget (yes another one) out of Salicional and Starry Night. She has a large amount of UK breeding in her as well as some nice bloodlines. I love this ewe's conformation. She is square and has a very nice topline. Her fleece? Very nice density and uniformity. She has a low CV and wool on the poll to boot. Not all of our ewes have that.

Her bloodline includes Holly, Justalit'l Black Lambo, North Wind Holiday, and William the Conqueror. All of those shetlands have made a significant impact on the breed.

Ewe A Day - Whispering Pines Irish Lace

2010-01-26T18:01:00.001-08:00

Irish Lace is similar to Morning Glory in that they are both fawn gulmogets with longer fleeces. She is out of Whispering Pines Buttercup and Firth of Fifth Leyland. I should really have micron results in front of me when I make these posts, but her's is similar to Morning Glory's - decent for the quality of sheep she is. In other words, both of these ewes are very nice with lots of good qualities. They are the type of ewes you use to improve fleece, in my opinion. Of course, when I say "improve fleece" I mean "make fleece finer". I hate to group them together like this, because they are not identical by any standard of judgement, but they serve similar purposes in our breeding program. Irish Lace is currently my only Black Forrest moorit granddaughter. We also have a nice grandson, but I like this girl better overall.

Ewe A Day - Whispering Pines Morning Glory

2010-01-26T17:48:00.000-08:00

Whispering Pines Morning Glory is a solid ewe. She has an excellent conformation and a nice handling fleece. She's out of Sheltering Pines Cihat and Under The Son Betulina - both very nice sheep. This is one of his daughters that we kept. She has pretty much everything but extra fine wool. It's an excellent fleece with nice length, and her micron is still quite nice.

Ewe A Day - Wintertime Itasca

2010-01-22T06:07:00.001-08:00

Wintertime Itasca is a ewe that I really like (don't I say that about all of them?). I wish all of our ewes had a fleece like this. She looks like my vision of a Shetland ewe. She has a dense fleece with a nice yearling micron test (AFD: 25ish with a low CV (I don’t have the numbers in front of me at the moment). I also like her bloodlines a great deal. She’s out of Whistlestop 0427 and Wintersky Landslide. There’s a lot to like about this ewe. Itasca is a half sister to Wintertime Blues, Jazz, and Ruby (all four are out of 0427). Of course, she has rubbed off the fine neck wool. She did that during the quarantine period by sticking her head through the fence.

Color - Jen

2010-01-21T08:12:00.001-08:00

I dyed up border leicester locks over the fall, 10 different colors. My intention was to make up kits for needle felters, which I did, and I know of a few needle felters who are enjoying these kits. But I just recently got the idea to mess around with the colors to create blended yarns. I hand blended a few colors and then spun up a small swatch on my spindle, and its now my new thing. So now, when people come over, I make them pick three colors, and I blend them together and make a yarn swatch. I only rejected one, Will's,but mainly because I didn't blend them well, the result was ugly, and he lost interest. I mostly like the ones where the color family is the same. They yield yarns with highlights, almost as pretty as natural colored yarns from my flock.

So here are the colors:

And here are the yarn swatches.

From left to right:
Sapphire blue/Turquoise/teal
Lilac/yellow/aztec gold (Andrew did this one, thought it would be ugly, but its really nice)
Emerald green/Turquoise/Teal
Bright yellow/Pumpkin orange/Aztec gold
Vermillion/Fire red/Fuchia
Fuchia/Sapphire Blue/Scarlet
Fuchia/Sapphire Blue/Scarlet/Lilac (I call this one "Charlie Rose", uses the colors from the intro graphics on his show)

I will be loading three listings of 3 oz of the sapphire blue/Turquoise/teal combo (in batts) to my etsy shop shortly. I am in the process of dying the yellow/orange/gold combo and will post that as batts. Then probably the Charlie Rose, Andrew's and the reds. Unless I run out of white wool by then.

Ewe A Day - Primrose

2010-01-21T08:12:00.000-08:00

Whispering Pines Primrose is a looker. She is a yearling out of Sheltering Pines Kiraz and Windswept White Pine, who was a striking F3 Jericho who I liked.

I like this ewe a lot and hope to build off of what she brings to the table. She’s very square and level, which is quite unusual for a spotted Shetland (in my experience). Both of her parents were very nice, so she turned out much like I had hoped. Things certainly don't always go that way, as we all know.

She has nice, dense fleece with decent length (about six inches) that tested at 26 and change as a yearling. Her fleece is also quite uniform from front-to-back. She’s also probably my ideal size for a Shetland ewe at about 75 pounds. I don't like them much smaller than that, and that size makes for easier care.

Although we are focused on both fineness and consistency (low CV), our primary goal right now is health, conformation, consistency, and uniformity from front-to-back.

Overall, a very nice spotted ewe.

Ewe A Day - S'more Sparkles

2010-01-20T16:45:00.000-08:00

Well, my ewe-a-day has turned into a monthly task. What started as a cool idea now feels like work. We can't have that. Only a few more to go. This might be another sign that our flock is too big.

This is S'more Sparkles - an Ag grey spotted F2 Orion ewe. She has a 5-6 inch, dense, very lustrous fleece! She has an excellent conformation and tail! Overall, she's a very nice ewe who represents the breed very well. I'm not a big Ag guy, but I've always believed in quality first, color and patterns second. I haven't seen many spotted Orion granddaughters, although I'm sure they exist in fair numbers. We're looking for big things from Sparkles. Thanks to Tori for selling us Sparkles.