2011 Youngest Lambs

KRK Mercy lambed last this year with a set of gorgeous twins by AV Louis. This is her first lambing and she's doing a great job.

Her ram lamb, Gremio at one month old.

Every since I caught him for his three week shots, Gremio has a strange fascination with creeping up on me and bleating in my ear. Strange fellow.

Katherina...the first lamb with true black in a long time. A pretty ewe lamb all around.

Shedding Sheep and 2011 Lambs

DWB Vienna
CKN Amelia x KRK Johann
Almost a yearling.

DWB Verona
Katahdin/Dairy cross yearling.

Sheep!

Aravis, Parsley, Juliet, Beatrice, and Touchstone.

DWB Parsley with her twin ram lambs, Jaques and Touchstone.

DWB Paris
Yearling ewe out of CKN Aravis and KRK Johann.

DWB Narissa
Triplet ewe lamb.

KRK Mercy
Three day old twins, Katherina and Gremio.

Louis
9 Years old.

DWB Katherina
Love the black speckles. We rarely get true black here. She's my only Louis daughter this year. A keeper for sure. :-)

DWB Florence
Love this triplet ewe. She's now officially one! :-)

VJ Athens and her ewe lamb, Beatrice.

KRK Ben-Hur
Now a yearling! He produced some excellent lambs this year.

CKN Aravis and one of her twins, Benedict.

DWB Troy :-)

Ewes for Sale 2011

DWB 17M Viola
February 13th
Twin

Sire: KRK 1068 Judah Ben-Hur (Triplet. QQ.)
Dam: 0003 Juliet (Triplet. QQ.)
Full Katahdin. Recorded 50%.
Available July 1st
$125

This is a rather poor picture of Portia. She's the lamb facing away, but this gives you an idea of her markings. Better picture comings soon. :-)

DWB 21P Portia
February 21st
Twin
Sire: KRK 977 Johann (Triplet. RR.)
Dam: DWB 10P Hagar (Twin. ?)

Full Katahidin - 65.6% Recorded
Available June 1st
$175

Adult ewe
DWB 10M Dotty

January 29th 2009
Triplet - RR
Sire: AV Louis (Twin. RR.)
Dam: CKN 1104 Amelia (Twin. RR.)

Full Katahdin. Recorded 18.7%

Dotty has lambed twice producing and raising five healthy lambs.
She is a small ewe. Her mother was a good 250lbs, but Dotty was bred much younger and doesn't look as impressive. She's a good mom with excellent lines.

Available June 1st
$175

I know this is a bit of an unflattering view... Another picture coming. :-)

Adult Ewe
0004 Opehlia
March 2009
Triplet - QQ
Commercial Katahdin

Gave us twins this year.

Available June 1st
$150

Red ewe. All three lambs are her 2011 triplets.

Adult ewe
KRK 42 Rosalind
February 17th 2003

Twin - QR

Sire: NF 574

Dam: BSA 114
Registered Katahdin

I've had her for two lambings and she's given me six lambs. Excellent mother. Carries her babies very low. Real sweetie. Good home only. :-)

Available June 1st
$200

Washington County Fair

Okay!
The Washington County Fair went well. The poor camera got left at home so all I have are some rather poor ones from a cell phone. Still, its better then nothing. They aren't perfect of the sheep and their worse of me...anyways....Yeah.
So, our competition didn't show up so we had the any other meet breed all to ourselves. At least everyone placed exactly how I thought they would. A good learning experience.

Yearling Ram
KRK 977 Johann

And again....

And again....
He's perfect on a halter but a big ol' brat when you try to make him move without one. Hopefully he'll handle himself better at State.

And again...
The judge liked him.

Yeah, so he's my baby...

Champion Ram
KRK Johann and KRK Ben-Hur
Champion and Reserve

DWB Hagar

And this is the same ram picture as above. For some reason when ever I try to delete it Google is like "oh snap" and kills everything. Time to give up. You just get to see that pic again. ;-)

Champion Ewe Line Up
DWB Hagar, KRK Mercy, DWB Paris, and DWB Texas
Hagar took Champion and Paris Reserve

And this is the Flock and still waiting for my rams.
Thank you to the people who stepped in to help! That was awesome.

Over All Champion Ewe line up with Hagar.

Over All Champion Ram line up with Johann

So, yes it was a good fair!
Our sheep are down at the State fair now. We will show on Monday the 30th. Be sure to stop by the sheep barn (the Forster building) to see the Katahdins!

Thanks for reading,
Miss Pickwickian

Summer Chaos

This summer promises to be a busy one!

We are now officially entered in our county fair (Washington County). That's the last week of July. It was a pretty hard decision on who to take, especially on the lambs. I ended up deciding on Johann, Ben-Hur, Hagar, Mercy, Texas, and Paris. We'll see how they do...

Because of all the other insane things we are attempting this summer we are not going to do the Canby or Clark fairs. (Although I will be at Clark helping show.) We will only be at State and Washington county.

With everything going on I'm really trying to move out anything for sale.

We currently still have three February doelings. Two Nubian grade milk line girls and one commercial Boer. We also have an two year old American Nubian doe in milk.

All of our sheep that we wish to sell have been sold or reserved. Yeah!

We have two adult Holland Lop does available and 9 babies which will be weaned in two weeks.

Please inquire or pass on the info if you hear of interest.
Thanks so much,

Miss Pickwickian

Those Photos I Promised

So...these are the pictures I sized down a month ago or so...

Louis

Pig or sheep?
Aravis

How handsome is my Louis?

Leipzig
Katahdin/Dairy Cross

Leipzig again.
Meaty!

The Senior Ewes in Pasture

Run for your lives!

Our two of our oldest ewes...Aravis and the new gal, Athens.

Dotty...the yearling that raised twins.

Cool pic

And this is the new gal from KRK that came from Montana.
She's just weaned off her lambs, so she's a bit thin, but she's gained some weight and lost some of that scraggly hair since this picture. She raised triplets this year and quads last!
Now officially the oldest sheep on site, besides Louis.

Gene Check, Inc Results

Today we got our blood test results back! All our sheep were OPP negative. We started testing three years ago and so far have always been negative. Yeah! Thank you, God!

I had 7 sheep Scrapie resistants tested as well.

CKN Amelia- RR
CKN Aravis- QR
002 57 Juliet- QQ
003 54 Ophelia- QQ
Maggie- QR
Geneva- QR
DWB 18P Lisbon- RR

So yes...so, so results. I knew Aravis, Amelia, and Lisbon were at least QR. I, obviously wish that Aravis was RR (and then I would know the status of a bunch of my sheep since they come from her), but QR is certainly not bad. :-)

So here is what I know now....

~Rams~

KRK 977 Johann- RR
Louis- RR
KRK Judah Ben-Hur- QQ
DWB Leipzig- at least QR by genetics...triplet is RR

~Mature Ewes~

CKN Amelia- RR
CKN Aravis- QR
DWB Parsley- at least QR by genetics
KRK Rosalind- QR
Athens (new Montana ewe....don't have numbers yet)- Unknown...checking with KRK to see if she'd been tested.
Maggie- QR

~Yearling Ewes~

DWB Hagar- unknown
Ophelia- QQ
Juliet- QQ
DWB Dotty- RR
KRK Mercy- Unknown at this point. Checking with KRK.

~Ewe Lambs~

DWB Texas- at least QR by genetics
DWB Symphony- RR
DWB Venice- at least QR by genetics
DWB Paris- at least QR by genetics
DWB Lisbon- RR
DWB Verona- at least QR by genetics
DWB Genoa- at least QR by genetics
DWB Vienna- RR
Geneva- QR

Obviously I'd like to know everyone's exact status, but this is getting closer. Juliet and Ophelia are commercial ewes that were traded for a ram lamb last year. I was a little disappointed that they were QQ, but since they are unrelated to my RR rams, it is much better. I just won't be breeding them with Ben-Hur.

Anyways...all in all I was pretty pleased. :-)

Also got my lamb registrations right, although some got returned all wrong and transfers didn't get completed. Ah well...KHSI registry has moved and things are all new and different. We all need some slack. The new look is very nice. :-)

I have a bunch of photos I took several weeks ago, that I need to post sometime...

Thanks for reading,
Miss Pickwickian

Annual Testing

Today we did one of my least favorite thing related to our critters...drawing blood.
Thankfully we have a very nice friend who is willing to do it for me so I just have to hold the sheep. I can deal with about anything, but not blood so much....

We did our OPP testing plus some genetic testing for Scrapie resistance. All my rams to this point have been RR, but our new ram is QQ, so I'd like to know more what my ewes are like. All of the ewes I have are at least QR and a couple are confirmed RR, but I'm looking forward to these results.

Normally for OPP and CL testing we use WADDL, but for the DNA testing we use Gene Check, Inc. We sent everything in to Gene Check this time, which was actually cheaper too. I guess it is good to get a test from a different lab anyways.

Sorry no pictures for this post...not my favorite thing to take pictures of...

I'll be posting the results!
Miss Pickwickian

Meet KRK 1068 "Judah Ben-Hur"

Born January 19th 2010
~ Triplet ~ QQ ~
Out of Napolyn (an AV ram owned by KRK) and a ewe from Montana.
60 day adjusted weight, 71 lbs
Weaning weight 97 lbs
Dam weaned 300lbs of lamb!

Johann and Ben-Hur
Don't look to closely in this picture...Johann shed out his main and it hasn't come back yet. He's very embarrassed.

Current ram line up.
Louis, Johann, Leipzig, and Ben-Hur

8 year old Louis and 4 month old Ben-Hur

Thank you so much KRK Katahdins for this amazing young ram! We really look forward to what he puts in our flock.

You can meet Ben-Hur at the Washington County or State Fair this year! :-)

More on the ewes that came home later...

Thanks for reading,

Miss Pickwickian

Drowsy Waters Farm