Updates

I feel like I have been keeping a journal in my head.

1. Since the last day of the 'chicken massacre' I've had a lot of things on my plate. The morning after I had one chicken left I went out to tend to the ducks. Much to my surprise and delight I found my original hen wandering around the pen with the ducks, acting like nothing had happened. I brought her back into the barn to her very happy rooster. In the mean time I went ahead and purchased 2 roosters and three hens of the Fawn Silver Duckwing (dilute to the pair I have left). They are being shipped out Monday from South Carolina from a top notch breeder. His website is www.choicebantams.com. I encourage you to see them. Show Quality all the way. Even if I never show chickens (I can't do one more thing I swear!) I want something that is very representative of the breed. I'm also looking at larger breeds of chickens for next spring, but really wanted some more bantams as I enjoy the OEGB (Old English Game Bantams). I have put chicken wire in one of my large 14' x 12' pens. They are 4' high plywood, 4' chicken wire. I have made more roosts, cleaned the pen and have it ready and waiting for the new batch of chickens. I"ve learned my lesson. They'll be inside all winter and next spring if I get some chicks, I'll release them all so they forage around the farmyard like chickens are supposed to. Watch for photos!

2. Last weekend I was able to go to Albert Lea, MN for a Young Bird Pigeon Show co-sponsored by the three Minnesota All breed pigeon clubs. While there I brought four breeds. Three of the breeds I had BEST OF BREED. In the 4th breed, the English Trumpeter, I had 5th overall with my blue bar winner from this summers Squeaker show. A well earned, well respected placing for all my hard work with the color. In addition I had 5 other of the top 12 color class winners, receiving Best of Color with the Blue Class, Opal, AOC (Any of Color) Splash, Lavender Splash, Dun and Red Splash. I was surprised with a few of them, but happy nonetheless.

3. After the pigeon show I drove even further south into the forbidden land (Iowa) to Mason City for a dog show. I was SO PROUD of how Mac, my tri boy did. He stacked perfectly, effortlessly and for several minutes (which is pretty hard for an 11 month old to do mind you). He was 2nd in his class to a dog that had won the major the day before, and went Reserve the day I showed. Much to my surprise my little blue merle girl Zoe, was Reserve Winners Bitch on a 4 point major!!!! It was only her 2nd day out, and just a week over the 6month old mark! The judge was very forgiving of me trying to 'rush' her, but he told me I had a very nice girl. I couldn't be prouder!

4. After raining pretty much since Saturday noon and still raining now, I have been unable to work all week. Its frustrating when I have fall clean ups to do, shrubs to prune and cattle yards to clean. Now after what seems like a foot of rain (my rain gauge is cracked I found out!) the yards are a runny mess of mud and water, knee deep on the cows and higher on the calves. Their dry areas are only the loafing barn for the cows and under the lean of the hay shed where the calves can lay in loose hay the cows can't reach. And we'd been meaning to clean them out all summer when we had a dust bowl in there.

5. Even the sheep don't like the mud. I put a 4'x8' sheet of plywood in front of the door they jump into every night and every morning. It doesn't solve how muddy the rest of their winter paddock is, but I think it helps a little bit as they aren't splashing down into the muddy water. I'm even going to bring the horses in tomorrow to let their feet dry off...their loafing barn I found tonight is a standing pool of water thanks to the build up of hay around their barn from this dry summer's feeding.

6. I'm off tomorrow to meet up with Peeps in the cities. I'm officially a sheep addict now and you can blame Mary Ellen :) I really just wanted to see her again and chit chat but I told her it was silly to drive up to MN and not bring some sheep with!

7. I was invited by Gail Former to help assist/attend an A.I. day at Chris and Alan Greene's farm in Illinois. Its about 10 hours of a drive for me, but well worth it, considering I assisted in swine reproductive surgeries at NDSU when i was in college there. A very educational day I believe and I'll get to meet Maureen Koch there, as well as others. Gail told me she's going to ask Juliann to come there too. I hope she does...it'd be nice to see her again.

8. My black ram lamb is definetly scurred. Next to the other boys with their massive, thick, gracefully sweeping set horns, they look like toothpicks! His one scur will have to be trimmed as it is coming back towards his head too soon. On the good side his fleece is killer soft for a black. I wanted my black ram. I got him. I wanted soft. Got that too. But most everything I want to breed him to is related to him. Maybe I can sell him as a whether for a fiber animal. He's too nice to eat :) The other boy that is scurred or slow growing horns will be staying here. His micron was quite impressive (although not as impressive as the F1 Jericho boy, Jazz) and if i decide not to use him this year, he'll be used next fall. He's a gorgeous fawn color that looks to be turning even lighter now, with some nice crimp coming in at the base. Maybe Juliann wants me to bring him with on my trip to IL?

Well that's all the news and gossip up this way for the time being. I wanted to have only ONE post, but wanted to let you all know what was going on up this way!

1 is the loneliest number

I went out this morning to find two cats eating the remains of one of my last 2 hens. Now all I have left is my silver duckwing rooster. He's the biggest and probably why they didn't go after him. I lost six GREAT hens, and a gorgeous blue gold duckwing rooster. not to mention all the eggs and chicks I lost this year. Hundreds of dollars worth. Now my vet tells me that the cat feces leads to sickness in my ruminants and coudl be the cause of my stillborn/aborted fall kids.

Let's just say I had to protect my livestock from animals that crapped in their mineral tubs, in their hay, made my animals sick and killed generations of my chickens. My Grandpa said he'd take the majority of them and they can live their lives as house cats. I'm glad he can have some company again, and glad to be rid of the problem.

Now i need spayed/neutered animals that will tolerate poultry.

Or kittens that are raised with them. Most of my pigeon friends have done this and have loft cats that kill mice, and not the pigeons. At an early enough age the cats regards them not as prey. I'll have to give this a try next spring when I get my new chickens.

Less animals to feed

Well the pot bellied pigs are gone. I kinda miss them but glad they have families with children to let them spoil them :)

The ducks mostly went to the ethnic families to eat, I'm happy I can help feed people with my animals!! I still have eight ducks to winter over. The Saxony trio and the five Swedes. They sure are neat to have around.

Now with the chickens depleted I'm thinking of getting a larger breed. I LOVE the batams but perhaps some wyandotts or brahmas or d'uccles. There is always next spring to get chicks and raise them....that way they can free range and I don't have to feed them this winter ;)

I still have my miniature mare and foal for sale. Shocker is turning into a stunny boy. I was hoping to have him go for training as a seeing eye companion. He wouldn't be the first, but my friend who trains them doesn't have the time currently to do so. Annie should be bred back for a May or June foal for 2008.

I also will have beef available to purchase, either as breeding stock or ready for the table. Inquire privately for more information on any of the above animals

Chicken massacre

Well Becky's bad luck is coming this way. This morning I went out and was doing AM chores and noticed that I was missing over half of my chickens. "Typical" I thought. The two Roosters are always vying for the 6 hens affection. I only saw one rooster and two hens. While walking down the barn aisles I found several piles of feathers. "Barn pigeons" I thought. Nope, chicken. And not just one, FIVE. Its not my sisters dogs, they haven't been back for a long time.

It was our cats!! You know, the nine or so that don't hunt, crap in my mineral tubs, in the loose hay, scream and cry if you don't feed them at least 4x a day. About three days ago I stopped feeding them. Let them hunt! We used to only have hunting cats. Then one year they all had kittens and we felt like we needed to help support them feeding so many kittens. Well that was stupid! They never learned to hunt and the generations after never learned that trait.

The only time they seem to know how to hunt is when they get into my pigeon lofts. Those cats don't last the day. They've been living harmoniously with my chickens and ducks and the posse in the barn for a good year, and now all of a sudden they are attacking them...and with gusto! They eat too much cat food and my chickens are much too expensive to keep this going. Our farm dog and my Sadie are better mousers than all of our cats combined. Can you tell I'm disgusted? Free cats!!

I'd give anything for 2-3 hunters that are spayed/neutered that would live out their life here......no more cat food...........no more kittens.......no more eating the chickens!

Shetland Breeding Groups

Well these are not set in stone, but I think they are pretty close to how i want them. I really don't want more than three breeding groups, but I am holding over the other ram lambs for 'educational' purposes. In other words, I want to see how their horns and fleece continue to develop, how large they may or may not get and see if by chance next years ram lambs will be better than them and they need to move on or if they will be useful in next fall's breeding program. I've got the room, might as well educate myself with thier lines and such.

I'm sure the colors/patterns and sexes I'm hoping for won't happen, its Murphy's law at its finest! But nonetheless doesn't hurt to dream right?

Wintertime Jazz AI - Grey Katmoget F1 Jericho son. He was spotted at birth and his brother is an emsket katmoget so he also carries modifieds. He will have the largest group of girls with 12. He is 87% UK, single coated with the most crimp I've seen in a Shetland ram to date. He's consistent his entire length of his body and he is a mild mannered boy. He is only katmoget and black or white going back almost his entire pedigree so I'm expecting all blacks, or grey katmogets from these breedings.

He will be bred to:
Justalit'l Chloe - fawn katmoget - 31.25% UK She is homozygous katmoget, F2 Minder, son of Underhill Bartok. I am expecting all katmogets, most likely greys.

RYL Rachildas - white - 12.5% UK. She is white carrying black. She is conformationally beautiful, very crimpy from front to end. I'm expecting white, black or grey katmogets.

RYL Corild - jet black - domestic ewe with primitive fleece. This breeding should produce some stunning black or grey kat lambs.

Bono Creek Lavender Brown - dark fawn - 37.5% UK, F2 and F3 Jamie. These lambs will be 62% UK and should be striking lambs, possibly modified.

Winter Sky Maya - dark moorit - 31.25% UK, She is a Winter Sky Tennyson daughter, and she produced Heath this year, the ram lamb I'm using in a breeding group this fall. She is very consistent from front to back, dark gorgeous fleece. Her micron this spring was 22.8 with AFD of 8.2, and fibers greater than 30 only 18.8. These lambs will be to die for!

Winter Sky Buttons - moorit - 37.5% UK - Sandstone daughter, her micron was 21.8 and was the lowest micron in my tested flock. She is a smirslet sokket and so I'm expecting some spots from this breeding!

Firth of Fifth Assam Meleng - shaela - 25% UK - Sandstone daughter, She was born jet black and is now a shaela, with her daughter possibly going to be an emsket. I'm hoping for some modified lambs from this breeding.

Firth of Fifth Rooibos - fawn - 25% UK - Sandstone daughter. She was a dark moorit at birth and is now a fawn, gorgeous color. She lambed this spring the smallest ram lamb but he is a beautiful fawn who might be mioget. He is being kept to 'watch' for the winter. More modifieds expected here. All Sandstone daughter have the possibility of carrying spots so I could get spots from her and Meleng as well.

Firth of Fift Tailka - black gulmoget - 43.75% UK, a gorgeous gulmoget with minimal 'side color', I'm hoping for a gorgeous gulmoget or katmoget or even better gul/kat ram lamb to expand on my gulmoget line. Modifieds are possible here as well.

White Pine Twix - moorit - 18.75% UK - Twix is a very feminine girl with a lot of presence for such a small package. This breeding should produce some nice fleeced, correct lambs

Minwawe Lyra - black smirslet, bronget, sokket - domestic ewe with intermediate fleece. This breeding will hopefully produce some spots, either black or katmoget

Minwawe Skippy - fawn smirslet - domestic ewe with intermediate fleece that is quite crimpy. Modified, spotted lambs are expected.


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Firth of Fifth Barish AI - F1 53% UK, Timothy son. One of the last F1 Timothy sons. Barish is a gentle, katmoget with a darker face, lacking the 'badger' markings, however he is also down from emsket lines and the possibility of having some gorgeous modifed lambs from these girls is quite likely as well. He also could carry the moorit gene as his sister is a fawn katmoget.

Firth of Fifth Sikkem Temi - moorit - 28% UK, very crimpy, gorgeous dark colored moorit with loads of type, style and great conformation. These lambs will be very consistent with excellent conformation. katmogets or solids in black or moorit.

Love E Ewe Cleo - black - 6% UK. Cleo at nearly four years old is just now showing signs of iset in her flanks. She is Temi's and Twix's mom and both girls are nice improvements on her. I'm hoping that Cleo will throw me a gorgeous black ram lamb (again) with nicer horns and a great fleece and look like her daughters.

White Pine Skor - shaela - 28% UK, a modified extremely crimpy, consistent little typey ewe lamb with loads to offer. Bred to Barish this should be a great chance for getting more emsket lambs or emsket kats.

Firth of Fifth Rahu - white - 31.25% Uk, she is from Wintertime Black Forrest who is still extremely black with a short UK fleece. Rahu is loaded with crimp, consistent in fleece and has tons of phaeo on her legs and face. I'm hoping for a flashy gulmoget or katmoget from her or a nice white ram.

Wintertime Gracie - moorit smirslet sokket - 18.75% UK - another Sandstone daughter with potential for modifieds from this breeding, and conformationally nice lambs.

Minwawe Slipper - moorit smirslet sokket - domestic ewe lamb. This will be a line breeding. Slipper's mom is Barish's grandmother. Am excited to see what I get.

Little Red Oak Rose - black smirslet - domestic ewe lamb. I'm hoping to shorten the fleece and add some crimp to the fleece, while keeping the dark black color.

Little Red Oak Dot - black - domestic ewe lamb. She's a double coat who carries moorit, so moorit lambs are possible, or fawn kats.

Little Red Oak Wren - moorit smirslet sokket - She's down from Minwawe stock so will be interesting to see the simliarities if any that show up in the lambs. She has a very dense and thick fleece. Beautiful ewe. Moorits possible here too.


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White Pine Heath is a dark moorit with perfect horns, single coated fleece. He is a double Tennyson son, 28% UK and consistent from front to rear with loads of crimp and style. This group can produce mostly rich colored moorits, and most likely a nice group of finely fleeced animals with rich colors.

Winter Sky Layla AI - horned mioget - F1 Orion, 62.5% UK, very crimpy, even in her britch, goregous color and an awesome presence, even for a ewe lamb! This will be a line breeding back to Underhill Loretta Lynn, a nephew to aunt breeding. I'm excited about this breeding!

Firth of Fifth Pi Lo Chun - grey katmoget - 31.25% UK with a micron of 24, even and consistent fleece. Her markings are perfect for a katmoget and I'm hoping for a goregous fawn katmoget, but what I wish for doesn't always happen :)

Firth of Fifth Jasmine Phoenix - Ag, grey katmoget - 34.4% UK, micron of 25 with the most creamy colored fleece you could imagine. Her markings are also quite perfect but tend to fade throughout the year due to her Ag gene. Look for some flashy lambs here!

White Pine Musketeer - musket - was also smirslet at birth. Jasmine's ewe lamb. 33% UK with a very dense and soft fleece. I'm hoping for a moorit out of her but either way the fleece will be delicious.

White Pine Kit Kat - fawn katmoget - Jasmine's other ewe lamb, 33% UK. I'm hoping for another gorgeous fawn katmoget with even crimpier fleece.

Beechtree Kershope - Blue Faced Leicester - 56% UK, her sire is a colored ram so I'm hoping for a flashy colored mule lamb.

Beachtree Callaway - Blue Faced Leicester - 56% UK, she possibly carries color too and am hoping for another great fleeced mule lamb.

Ducks available

I have many drakes available for butcher. Our exotic sale is this weekend in Perham and if I do not have them sold by friday, they are going to the auction.

The photo above shows my trio of Saxonys and my quint of Swedes. The male is the silver, all the other 4 are hens. If anyone is interested in either group of ducks as breeding groups, I'd be persuaded to let them go.

Sheep Breeding Groups

My life would much less stressful if I just knew who to breed to who. Each ram lamb I have offers such a different set of outcomes. I have many directions I could go with each ewe bred to each ram.

This spring I thought I'd get one, maybe two ram lambs and use them exclusively this fall. I had decided to move on my modified yearling ram as everything was quite related to him. I was hoping all my ram lambs were awful, ugly, coarse babies. I really wanted some lambchops and lamb brats! (Gail V got me hooked on those!)

Of course most of this realization came true. I did end up getting two F1 ram lambs. A jericho and a timothy. I did move Bourbon on (thanks Gail!). But as I sit here and wait for my micron tests to help me make a more educated decision on my other ram lambs, I'm up in the air.

I have all my ewes and ewe lambs paired up with one or the other of the F1 ram lambs. They are both katmogets but both are only heterozygous for it so I can still get some solid lambs (50% on paper but I'm sure it will be more skewed than that). If the microns come back for my 4 ram lambs I raised, plus the one from Gail V, and they are excellent, then I'll have some last minute switching to do. But to who and how many?

Remember my ram lambs are all quite related to the ewe lambs and I have seven Sandstone daughters too that I cannot realistically breed them back to. again.

So now I'm out being quite critical of the ram lambs. I'm really feeling fleeces.....at the neck, the mid side and the britch. I'm checking for cow hocks, horns that aren't questionable, staple length, color, overall build, bites and making notes mentally on who looks the nicest, who has the strongest conformation, strongest fleece, strongest horns etc. My nicest horns are on a non NASSA regsiterable boy. he will have quite a short, single coated fleece. Will I keep him? The two F1 boys seem to have short UK style fleece too. And that's great for my ewes as most are intermediates. But what about next fall? Will he be worth hanging on to for an entire year and then realize I can't use him because the fleeces on the F2 daughters will be that much shorter? I'm only guessing, and probably poorly at that.

Another one of the boys is much more square in the rear, wider, broader, more masculine head, intermediate fleece, fawn, and crimpier fleece. However he is also non NASSA regsitered, and his one horn looks 'iffy' as compared to the nicer horns on the other boy. He is also related more so to the ewe lambs from this year as he is also a double Sandstone grandson.

That leaves the NASSA registered boys. Gails is a double coated moorit. Horns look nice, larger size.......maybe he'll be a better match for the ewe lambs from 2008? The black and the fawn/migoet boys I think are scurred are quite crimpy, soft, but their horns are iffy. I don't know what will happen with them. And I hate to purposely breed for a ton of scrurred ram lambs. Most of my girls have the potential of being poll carriers down from Sandstone. These two boys are double Sandstone and therefore could be poll carriers. mated back to the Sandstone daughters might create a ton of new polled ram lambs at my place. That would be a pleasant surprise, but one I wasn't working towards.

I hate thinking outloud. My head hurts from thinking about this too much. I want the best lambs I can get. If I decide to pass on all the ram lambs I bred, then I'd have my freezer full at least :) And a less stressed head!

Anyone care to help me wager a guess as to who to keep? I hate to have 7 breeding groups!

Breeding Groups for Goats

Well the goats have been put into their breeding groups. I am using three registered bucks that I purchased in May while on my once in a lifetime roadtrip. I didn't sleep more than 4 hours while driving three days from my house in Minnesota to Knoxville Tenneesee, back to Ohio to a goat show to pick u more, to South Bend, Indiana to pick up more and then finally home. Before I left I also had two goats shipped in from Washington State. There are maybe two other people in Minnesota raising registered Pygmies so I had decided early on to go out of state to bring in some new blood.

Anyway my groups are as follows:
Jeff's Classics Prince Caspian - a light caramel registered buck. will be bred to Pinta, Abby, and Siete. Caspian was lucky during quarantine to breed the doe that accompanied him here. Strawberry Field's Sharon. Miss Sharon is due any day, I'm hoping for some medium or dark caramel does!

Spring Vale's Solar Enery - a medium caramel registered buck. Solar is being bred to Santa Maria, Maddy and DeNae. I am hoping for medium to dark caramels here as well.

Blackshire Connan 1xGrCH is a dark grey agouti registered buck who is getting Krista, Miriam, DeLila and Sharon (she'll be later but will be put in to his breeding group after her kids are a few weeks old).

Photos of the girls are on my website: www.freewebs.com/ramsayfarms/

Importing UK Semen

Sorry not another post about sheep! (but soon I promise!)

I have done the initial queries into importing Simmental Semen from the UK. I contacted UK Sire Services and had emailed a gentleman by the name of Rob Wills. I emailed him in regards to having semen that is ready to export to the USA and here is part of what he wrote back

"Thanks for this. You will be aware that we are nearly 100% full blood in the
UK.....concentration on shape, fast growth, milk, early finishing rather
than colour. The exception is that we like our Sims light coloured for cross
breeding in the dairy sector. (40% of the national dairy herd goes to beef
to add another income stream for the cross red calves). Light colour x
Holstein calves are chocolate coloured. Dark Sims tend to make the calves
look like HE crosses. We have quite a selection of bulls with semen collected to US Health Certs. Go to www.uksireservices.com and have a look on our database."

Two seconds later I was in heaven looking at their line-up of Simmental Bulls. That is what I was trying to breed for here!

I then contacted the American Simmental Association in regards to having the offspring registerable with the ASA. Their response was as long as I have a copy of their "Foreign" Registry Certificate, an affidavit stating the animal is indeed a fullblood registered individual, and a $25.00 registration fee (my cost) before any offspring is regsitered. Everything else has already been paid for (DNA markers, disease tests etc).

All I need to pay for is the shipping, the cost of the semen straws and the $25.00 reigstration for the bull into our American Herdbook.

Now I just have to decide on which bulls. Below are a few photos I borrowed from the UK Sire Service website to give you an idea of what I'm looking for!


Blackford Hawk


Darsham Playboy


Wroxall Luke

Why Simmental, Part 5 (AND LAST!)

Cruising down the cattle highway.......I couldn't find the girls out north! I kept calling but I figured the gale force winds had something to do with it.



They aren't at the stock pond.......man that thing is low! I did walk out to the top of my knee high boots and the water is still deep where there IS water.



When I did find them they were laying down, and when I called it startled them and they all jumped up and came running towards me!





I just had to take a photo of another two year old mom with her 6 month old bull calf. He's looking good!



The red bull calf I'm going to keep. He's related to most of the red cows so he will be bred to dad's black cows. (he keeps blacks, I keep reds, less confusing for him!)



One of my pretty girls from AI. She's a keeper too! See how much darker she is than the adult cow behind her?




Poppa Valiant standing proud amongst his harem of ladies and his offspring.



They decided to go for their daily run (literally) and went running back to the stock pond for their afternoon drink. Valiant the ever watchful protector stands guard while the women and children drink. what a guy!

Why Simmental, Part 4

A few of our yearling heifers that we did AI with this summer. I didn't have any 'traditionally' marked calves last year so that was kind of a bummer, but these girls sure are gorgeous!