gray gulmoget and black Shetland ewe lambs. — Tulip and Iris

Lambing season is finally finished and it was a long, drawn out affair this year. We started on February 20 and finished on April 18. I’ll focus on our Shetland flock this post.

I bred eight ewes and only four produced lambs. That’s not how it’s supposed to work.

The yearlings did not get pregnant and this is what I think happened. Shetlands cycle in the fall when temperatures are consistently in the 60s. There are always exceptions, of course, and we’ve had many exceptions, until this year. I don’t remember that fall was unusually warm, and I had them in breeding groups for the same time frame I always do. The ram in their group, Stoli, is a proven ram and I left him in with them from September 24-November 27, but I think they just didn’t cycle early enough for him to catch them. Very disappointing. He did sire a single from a mature ewe.

I will try again this fall and leave the ram in longer, and I’ll be taking note to see if Stoli is possibly shooting blanks. Which would not be good for either one of us.

moorit and fawn gulmoget Shetland ram lambs. — Moss and Oakley.

Andrew sired six of the seven total lambs. The breakdown is four rams, three ewes. And I had zero problems, as usual, with these hardy little sheep.

All the rams will be offered for sale and at least some of the ewes.

I’ve sold Andrew, he’s with a new flock in Mississippi now, and I’m looking for a replacement this year. I need more white in my flock, so the perfect candidate will be white with a finer type fleece, dense and not too long. My experience has been a more open fleece collects a lot of VM, and a really long fleece sometimes will cot.