I wrote a blog post about picking up the new ram in Oregon a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t ready to turn him out with ewes at that point, but today was the day. Yesterday I went through registration papers and made my lists. This morning we started sorting sheep. We brought all the ewes into the barn and as we looked at the list we either marked the faces or moved them through one gate or another. Then it was time to catch the rams, fit the marking harnesses and put them with their ewes.

Peyton is a Bluefaced Leicester (BFL) and the crossbred lambs he produces are ready to sell for market earlier and at a higher weight than the purebred Jacobs. Peyton gets the few ewes who are not registered and a couple of very freckled ewes. Freckling of the wool is a trait that is very heritable, and I don’t want to be tempted to keep lambs from those freckled ewes. There is also a 50:50 BFL:Jacob ewe that was sired by my previous BFL ram. Her lambs will be 75% BFL. Peyton has 7 ewes.

Ruby Peak Tamarisk is the new ram and we gave him about half the flock. I think he ended up with 30 ewes. He now gets to go out on the pasture instead of being cooped up in a smaller area.

Jasper (third from right) bred the largest group of ewes last year and produced some nice lambs, but he is also related to many of the ewes. He has 7 in his group.

Axle, a 2-horn ram near the front part of this group has 8 ewes and gets to go to a paddock in the south pasture. One of the challenges of using multiple rams is keeping them apart. Ideally they should not share a fenceline because they may fight through it. I’m taking my changes at the beginning of the season thinking that these rams will have enough to keep them happy until all their ewes are bred. Then I may have to do some rearranging.

At first I didn’t plan to use five rams but I wanted to see how this ram lamb (Jasper’s son, Rambler) would do. So he has a group of five ewes. One of the ewes is a big one (on the large size for a Jacob) and I almost wondered if we’d need to provide a ladder.

I have to allow some space for the non-breeding group also. I put a few 2020 ewe lambs out with the rams but saved some back. I may reevaluate these and put a couple more of them with rams. The ewe lambs usually breed later than the mature ewes and almost always have single lambs instead of twins. If we are going to shows next year I’d like to have a few of these lambs to show as yearlings and not worry about their condition and weaning lambs. But who knows if that will happen.

The goats are also in the non-breeding group, along with a few more lambs that are still for sale.

It didn’t take long to see some action. This is Jasper and Dilly.

Tamarisk and Terri and Betty.

Zinnia is one of Tamarisk’s ewes but I don’t know if she is bred. She certainly has green marks but they aren’t as solid as the others. Time will tell if this is adequate. I will change the markers to another color in about two weeks and I’ll be able to tell if ewes are marked again. They won’t stand for being mounted unless they are in heat.