Flock Update

Lambing is over for this year.  The ewes all did a great job, no issues with any of the arrivals.  Shetlands are excellent mothers!  My husband was home on duty for the last two and loved it.  So much so that we are now building a ram enclosure and planning to keep at least one of the ram lambs in tact as a future sire.  All of the ewes are in great condition and very milky.  Finally tally: 1 white ram, 1 black ram, 2 moorit ewes, 1 black ewe.  I really wanted to add some moorit ewes and I got them!  I think they will all be retained.  I'm also adding an emsket ewe that I've reserved from Theresa at Under the Son.  She has a nice list of shetlands available this year so if you are looking for additions you should email her.  Above is a pic of the flock eating from the new feeder my husband built.  Also a group photo of the new additions.  Now I'm on the hunt for a guard llama so I can let the sheep out at night to graze on my abundant pasture.  My husband would like to do less mowing!

Sable German Angoras

As far as I know I'm the only one in the country working on a sable german angora.  Lots of folks love the fawn/tort color and they are working on those.  I however love the color of a rich sable.  For years I've had siamese cats and love the rich sepia brown of their coats.  The most striking rabbit I ever saw was a sable with white boots, much like my snow shoe siamese.  So far I've not had a booted rabbit, but I'm am now on SWF generation 2 of some really nice sable germans.  I've been working on coat texture and color first.  My best buck has a white toe nail, but I think I can breed that out over time.  I don't breed often anymore.  My real day job takes up too much of my time to have a large rabbit herd so I try to keep it down to around 20 animals.  Here are pics of gen 1 of the sables.  I now have gen 2 in the nest box.  The nice thing about sables is that color is easy.  Because the sable gene in on the "c" locus you can breed sable "c chl" to a REW "cc" and you always get just REW and sable.  The babies in the nest I have two REW and two sables.  One of each sex in each color.  The father is my sable buck above and the mother is my 500 gram producing pure german doe.  These babies are now 99% pure german and should have very heavy production and excellent texture.  Not sure yet about toe nails.

First two lambs!

So far we have two new lambs.  Calico and Dolly had their lambs this week.  Calico on the 15th, a moorit ewe, just what I asked for.  Dolly our BFL/Shetland ewe had her lamb this morning, a black ewe lamb.  We have two shetlands left to go Clara and Brocade.  Wonder if I can get lucky and get more ewes?