Thursday 1 November 2007

Introducing .... Valley Road Spencer (and why our pasture looks like a singles bar!)

Bill Stearman dropped by this morning with our ram for the fall, Valley Road Spencer. He is a non-fading black registered Shetland, and has a recessive moorit gene. He has also been penned so far this season with a bunch of rams, and I have never seen such a happy guy as when he stepped into our pen today. Unfortunately, none of our ladies are quite ready for him, so he's somewhat frustrated.

You'll notice he has no horns, whereas most Shetlands have a gorgeous, full set. He does have a small set of scurs. I didn't want big horns around the kids, nor the electric fencing, so he is a good match. My plan is one outcross to Shetland this year to add (hopefully) some colour and crimp to the flock, then next year cross back again to a Texel/Arcott cross. I will likely lose some size in our 2008 lambs, but thankfully Spencer is VERY square (especially for a Shetland) and I shouldn't lose too much correctness. This year I'm breeding two young ones and an 11 year old, so breeding to a smaller size ram seemed like our safest option.


Meet Spencer, the one with the gleam in his eye ;-).




In his customary position since arrival ... head low, following the girls. "Pick me!" or, as Iain laughed when watching Spencer put his moves on "Wanna take a ride in my car, babe?".

Just another day at our teeny, tiny farm(ette)!

3 comments:

Lona said...

LOL! We just let the rams out with the girls yesterday. Unfortunately, dd's horse is also in that pasture, and she got it in her head to chase the mature ram around and around and around (while leaving the ram lambs to their own devices). I'm not sure that ram had any energy left to get into trouble...

V.R.Spencer is very striking! I'd love to have some black in our flock again. But it seems that Suffolks with "good" conformity have also had all the black bred out of them.

kkaci said...

Too funny! Horses can be a pain :-).

We'll get colour from Kivu (moorit or black), but not from Jasmine. Latifah's previous owner believes her sire was natural coloured, so she might produce some colour. This is the only year we'll experiment with colour; next year it's all meat conformation and colour is immaterial.

Are your Suffolks British or American conformation? I can't believe how TALL and leggy the American ones are.

K.

Lona said...

American. They are half-way to cow size, aren't they?