Micron Repots back!

I sent 12 ewe lamb fleece samples to Texas A&M for a whopping total of $15.00 I pretty much was reassured of the ewe lambs I wanted to keep, and who to move out next spring/summer. There were a few I was really surprised at, but most were where I thought they would be.

Sedalia, the spotted grey katmoget out of Jazz and Minwawe Sterling came back an amazing 22.3 AFD, 4.2 SD, and 18.8 CV with a comfort factor of 97.5 out of 100!

Rush, the cute little white ewe lamb out of Aman (F1 Orion) and Rachildas was 21.8 AFD, 5.5 SD, and 25.4 CV. Comfort Factor was 92.9 out of 100.

Others in Alphabetical order:
Name AFD SD CV Comfort Factor
White Pine Columbine 20.0 6.5 32.5 90.5
Minwawe Dark Chocolate 25.5 7.9 31.1 76.4
WhitePine Denver 24.4 7.2 29.6 77.7
Wintertime Galina 24.4 6.6 27.1 77.8
SheltrgPines Myra 25.4 6.2 24.4 80.3
SheltrgPines Nessebar 26.9 6.5 24.2 71.0
WhitePine Sheridan 29.7 9.6 32.2 55.7
Black Forest Tilly 25.8 6.4 24.6 75.0
Lil Country Uma 20.8 4.8 23.3 98.2
WhitePine Westminster 26.9 7.9 29.4 63.8

Ok so Westminster I knew would be higher. Her mother at the same age was 30 AFD and as a yearling was over 35 AFD. So Westie is an improvement on her mother. She is smirslet and is a Jazz baby so I think there is potential in her breedings if bred to the right ram, while she herself may not be spectacular. Another one that I knew would be rougher but not THAT bad was Sheridan. Sheridan is a defininte intermediate, border line primitive out of Jazz and Shasta, who both have UK fleeces and %UK in them. I guess this was a throw back? I've noticed since the sample that there is iset coming in...probably from her mom as she is Ag and that hides a lot! We'll see what we get from her this year and she may just go to the BFL next year for market lambs in 2009. She's built like a house and is the black ewe I showed at Jefferson.

For me personally, anything with a CV close to or over 30 is way too high in a ewe lamb. SD's above 7 are too high period and AFDs over 27 are unacceptable to me. While they may work for others in their programs, they just are not what I'm looking for in my breeding program. Several are available now and have been exposed to either Jazz or Barish, both my soft yearling rams that were 20.6 AFD, 4.5 SD and 22 CV so the lambs should be improvements.

I'm happy I kept this many this long, and now have the micron reports, health clearances and pedigrees to asist in my decisions on who to keep and who not to. they may not fit my program TODAY and therefore might make nice additions to your flock if you are looking for nice structured, nice pedigreed, nice temperaments with just a fleece that is not as soft as my other ultra fines.