Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Shetland Ram Fleece Samples

Here are photos of the Shetland rams. Unfortunately the blacks do not show up well as far as their crimp (or lack of) so you have to trust me :) I tried doing some against the light so you could see the tiny crimp. They turned out ok.

White Pine Romeo. He is a black scurred yearling ram out of Barish and Rahu. F2 Timothy. He was not microned last fall. He has a intermediate fleece that is very soft. He is extremely crimpy in the front half of his body, but falls slowly to a looser crimp to straighter in the britch (don't most Shetlands?) He's being kept right now as his mom is one of my softest ewes and Barish is also quite soft. He will bring length back to some of the shorter fleeced girls, AND he carries the polled gene. If not, he is available for sale. Nice, square, blocky build. Looks a lot like his father, and has amazingly soft fleece.
UndetheSon Mochican. F2 Brent F3 Jericho. He is definitely double coated per his histogram, but has a very dense, wavy fleece. Still has nice horns and is a fairly mild mannered ram. He is available for sale.
WhitePine Masonville. Unregistered black krunet ram. His parents are Jazz and Maya (Tennyson daughter) and she was only NCWGA regsitered. He is my last male NCWGA ram and if not sold, will be sent to the freezer. He is also very soft. Very black. He is for sale.
WhitePine Lyons. He is not black, but not shaela. I'm thinking warm black. His mother was fawn, and his daddy is Jazz. Lyons was the ram I showed at WS&WF last fall. He has a low micron but a slightly higher CV, so we are retesting him and will see if we will use him this fall.
UndertheSon Arapaho. F2 Orion and lots of Jamie. He is also very dense but has a more straight lock structure at last rib. He is a very gorgeous dark moorit. He was used on our four finest ewes. He is available for sale.

This is FirthofFifth Barish, my F1 Timothy gray katmoget scurred ram. He has amazingly small crimp throughout with just slight falling at the britch. He is very square in the legs, mild mannered and very soft. AFD was 20.6 as a yearling.
A photo of his sample against the light to show the tiny crimp at last rib, mid side.

Wintertime Jazz, F1 Jericho, F2 Drum Ram, etc (87.5% UK) has a shorter staple but is spotted, ultra fine, and conformationally is just stunning. I am planning on collecting him this fall for those that might be interested.
Jazz's fleece up to the light. Just beautiful!

This is WhitePine Rico, a bersugget (flecket/spotted Ag) F2 Orion out of FirthofFifth Aman and RYL Rachildas. He carries moorit. His fleece is compared to the softest silk you can think of....and melted butter. He is somewhat narrow in the rear but otherwise a nice example of a ram. For those looking for fleece improvement, here he is. I did not micron him last fall but am sending this sample in. It would be a pity to not have him used on someone's flock, especially one who has very correct rear ewes.
A photo of Rico's fleece again. He is for sale.

2 comments:

Rayna said...

You just keep tempting me w/ Rico, don't you? :P

susan said...

Ok, I found the shetlands.

Taking the pictures up to the light was a good idea. It is so hard to get a good picture of the small details of the fleece. This seems to work good.

You make me want to go out and sample my rams.

Were dumping rain right now though with the flood waters starting to rise. Not the best time for hanging out and taking samples.

I sure hope my girls decide to wait a few more weeks to lamb. In the past their favorite time was always when the flood waters were rising.

Susan

A long time coming!

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