The girls I am breeding with .

[Goldfields]

Didn't know if this shouldn't be in pet photographs actually. My lovely ladies, and they are just big pets. I had them yarded awaiting the arrival of a new ram and couldn't resist the photo opportunity. It's getting hard to tell which are the ewes and which are last years lambs. The ram's visit has been postponed till Monday now, our friend was busy on the tractor and would be home too late to bring it over.

[Goldfields]

Of course those throwing to their Dorper sire and shedding their fleece are standouts as being lambs.

[pbpatti]

One Ram for all of those beauty's isn't he the luckiest fellow. Your Ewes are really beautiful Goldfields, I love their faces. I do not know anything about Sheep/Lambs except they taste good..... Thank you for sharing your sheep with us. patti

[erykah1310]

Great pics goldfields! I love sheep and one day hope to get a small flock for pets more so than anything.
Thanks for sharing them

[Goldfields]

Some rams get a lot more girlfriends, Patti ,(some in the photo's are wethers), but I hope he'll be content. I think the ewe in the first photo, named Cheryl, is a noble looking beast with that Border Leicester roman nose, while the second one, 'Baa-bie' is a real favorite of mine. Probably friendlier than many dogs , LOL, she's a real sweetie. Love the lambs too for how inquisitive they are, and despite not being bottle fed, they are now so quiet I have to push and shove my way through them. Big wooly pets.
Erykah, if you get your flock before the Border Collie dies of old age he'll wear himself to a frazzle keeping them bunched up.
Our neighbors have just sold all their 3,000 sheep, and leased all their land for the next 3 years, so that is going to make things interesting. New people working around the area because it went to a number of tenders, not just one, and new stock. I was kicking myself that I didn't go to the sale and see if there was a cheap ram but apparently prices were good. Top price for a ewe was $252. Lambs are bringing around $200 or more still, for the export trade.

[erykah1310]

When Meiko passes ( IN MANY YEARS I HOPE) I have always said I would never get another BC, but after Elmo and the high energy again, I will get another BC, there are so many in rescue and what better life than tending to a flock of sheep for them?

[angeldogs]

Those are so nice looking sheep.alot of them.

[SamIam]

Originally Posted by Goldfields

Didn't know if this shouldn't be in pet photographs actually. My lovely ladies, and they are just big pets.

Would they be your pets, or your kids' pets?

[Goldfields]

We didn't have children, SamIAm, by choice, and I'd be a grandparent by now, so having dogs/cats/ponies,sheep and the like (I still hanker after an alpaca to guard the sheep) all our lives is a great substitute. I think so anyway.
Thanks, angeldogs. You'd be amazed by how intelligent they are as well, and how funny they can be. My biggest ewe, back when she was just a youing adult, got the crazies when my sister and BIL were walking through the paddocks with me, and she and an equally huge wether starting playing like dogs will, galloping back and forth but you have to add the bouncing and propping that lambs do. Scared the daylights out of my sister and BIL, who I think thought they'd be trampled, whileI laughed at this stupid pair of show-offs . They were such characters. That ewe is still with me and while I try to lock them all out of the yard so I can go in and spread the sheep pellets in the feeders without getting pushed over, she always waits in the yard, or bolts in before I can lock her out. To make matters worse, one of her twins is just as bad, very sneaky in how he can get past me.

[Goldfields]

Nearly missed you, Erykah. I have a big soft spot for the Border Collies too, so does my husband. During my last lot of showing I always camped on show weekends with a friend who bred and showed BC's. They're a great breed, obsessed, but terrific. LOL. Here is one of my friend's pups. It was hard to resist becoming a BC owner. You would indeed be supplying a good home.

[Melinda]

oh wow, so many sheep! and so regal looking, we have a llama/alpaca farm about 20 miles from us and they are constantly having sales, man if I had land I'd have a pair of alpaca's

[SamIam]

Oh I meant for your canine kids, since you have shelties and cattle dogs. I have a border collie australian shepherd cross, would love to get her a flock of her own some day.

[angeldogs]

That would have been funny watching the sheep bounce around like that.

The BC pup is cute.

[Goldfields]

Melinda, I know the craving well. The friend we get our hay for the ponies from owns an alpaca stud and has hundreds of them. I refuse to visit, that way I can't weaken and get one. The thing I worry about is that if they can kill a fox ... well, another friend has seen what a good stomping by an alpaca did to one, so I'd be non stop worrying that one of my dogs might fall foul of it. Below are some of the animals he had with him one day when he called in on his way interstate with them.
The only sheep my dogs get to mix with, SamIAm, are any orphan lambs I take on. Cuddles(cattle dog) goes straight into her "Nanny Cuddles " mode and the shelties think they are wonderful. Perkins needs taking down a notch or two, he gets a bit over excited. Strange when he can be so gentle with our indoor cat, and was a total gentleman when anywhere near my Chi'.

[Goldfields]

My friend called that pup the Panda pup , angeldogs, because of its markings.

[Melinda]

if I had a pair it would be for their wool....man its so soft, there is a woman with a flock of 20 here that does her own spinning and knitting, very very expensive, you can just buy it by the skein or something she's knitted for you. wonderful stuff

[Goldfields]

I should ask Rowan what a fleece goes for here. I believe that if you only have one as a herd guard(as I would) there is a guy who comes around and does everything that needs doing to them and I think he takes the fleece in return for his services. I might plan a visit to Rowan's stud actually, it'd be nice to get some photo's. I'm sure a friend up the road would come for a look too.

[hazelrunpack]

Beautiful sheep, GF! So these will just drop their fleece without being shorn?

Alpacas must be like mules, then? Fiercely protective against predators? Some of the neighbors have mules and they had to train their dogs to stay away from them, too... Reportedly, mules can defend against wolves, as well, which is a good thing around here...

[ancientgirl]

I knew I shouldn't have come into this thread. I can't look at those poor animals knowing they will eventually be on someone else's table, as well as their babies.



I need to go and forget I ever saw this.

[Melinda]

the ones raised around here are mostly for the wool (alpaca's and llama's I mean), hazel, yes you have to shave them, llama's also, and yes they are sold as guard animals to protect sheep, calves etc they are very fierce to be honest!! I guess I'm still a farmer at heart, I don't look at them and see meat on the table but know most end up there as did all ours on the farm.

[SamIam]

Alpacas can be fine with herding dogs, but I'd definitely buy from someone whose herd are used to them. Llamas I'd be very wary of, they're more effective against coyotes, but I would catch the llama before working the sheep.

To me the best way to see a sheep is in the eye of a dog.

Even if...

the dog loses

[Melinda]

*L* too cute

[Bina]

OH, I just love sheep and lambs.......and NOT on my plate. They are great pets.
And are much better grazers than goats that are more of the bush browser type; okay
goats actually eat garden flowers too. Baaaad critters.
Around here the farms have llamas or donkeys for herd protection, as well as those big Maremma or Pyrenese dogs for livestock guarding. Too many coyotes, sadly.

[Dog Dancer]

Goldfields your sheep are beautiful. Good luck with the breeding.

[Goldfields]

Originally Posted by hazelrunpack

Beautiful sheep, GF! So these will just drop their fleece without being shorn?

Alpacas must be like mules, then? Fiercely protective against predators? Some of the neighbors have mules and they had to train their dogs to stay away from them, too... Reportedly, mules can defend against wolves, as well, which is a good thing around here...

Hazel, I am not sure how much fleece a Dorper will shed on its own. We had a stud ram here last year and you may have seen his photo, he just had wool along his back, like a bad toupe. Mine are cross bred so as long as they had that much I'd be happy, you have to keep their kidneys warm during the cold months.
There is a thing with alpacas called beserk male syndrome and it's usually a male that is hand reared and starts losing respect, thinking of you as another alpaca so it ends up wanting to fight you, and they can be quite dangerous. But then, overhandle a colt foal and the same will happen, they get bitey and disrespectful too.
We have a program on TV here called "The Farmer wants a Wife",(concluded on Wednesday night) where women can apply to be on it, to meet one of 6 farmers, and if the farmer likes what he sees and hears he gets to invite 3 of the women for a farm stay. One woman, on her first trip with one of the farmers to sell lambs, spent the time crying over all the poor sheep. So, I ask you why would she consider herself suitable to be a farmer's wife? She is a vegetarian. I have nothing against her, everyone makes their own choices in life, and funnily enough the farmer chose her as the one to be a potential partner. It will be interesting to see if it works out. If it doesn't, she should have known better than to apply. Will she be able to guilt him out of rearing sheep and cattle? We'll know next year.
Bina, maybe because ours have Dorper in them, and Dorpers scavenge like goats, ours never get to come near the garden because they'd eat everything they shouldn't.
SamIAm, I used to love it when they had the sheep trials from New Zealand on TV here, those dogs are absolutely brilliant. Good photo's .

DD, thanks, and wish me luck weather-wise, we don't want floods again at lambing time. The thing I notice driving around now is that are hardly any sheep, but then people got out of them during the drought, lost sheep during the floods etc.. No wonder they are bringing so much.

[SamIam]

So if your ewes are Border Leicester, the lambs are Dorper X, what are you getting for a ram?

[Goldfields]

This next ram is to be a White Dorper/Damara cross , both Sth African breeds. The Border Leicester was used to increase height in my ewes.

[Goldfields]

Strike out the above answer, the new ram(below) is a pure White Dorper. Our friend is full of surprises. Not the most handsome ram but the girls love him. we probably have lambs on the way as I speak. LOL. He's a big boy, and very strong and fast, so I hope he doesn't butt me like last year's Dorper did. He'd knock me into next week.
Hazel, I asked Aaron about the fleece and he said he only has along the backs to shear on a pure Dorper each Summer, the rest they will rub off themselves.

[Bina]

Oh that new ram does look strong.....the sire of my goats was also a stocky strong brute.

[Goldfields]

He makes me nervous and he hasn't been here a day yet, Bina. I have two friends who nearly got killed by rams, one thought the pain she was feeling was from her ram repeatedly butting her, when in fact she was suffering a heart attack, and the other one suffered broken bones and her ram was so intent on pulverising her that her husband had to drive the car in between her and it to save her. This is when I wish I had a nice fit young cattle dog, instead of my nearly 15 year old pair. No stroppy ram would make a cattle dog back down. LOL.