Breeding Group – Painted Rock Moses
Moses with St. Jude's Sophia and Blue Ewe Lavender
Chicory Lane Eli's Friday - Bred to Jefferson, but with Moses as a back up.
Painted Rock Nellie
Sophia
Never Winter Parfait, Lavender, and Sophia
Never Winter Farm American Jacob Sheep Blog
Passion.Beauty.Commitment.Conservation.American.Jacob Sheep
Never Winter Farm American Jacob Sheep Blog 
November 1, 2011 at 1:29 pm
Very nice. I’d love here how you made your choices about who went with which ram.
November 1, 2011 at 3:15 pm
Zest is out on Rent A Ram, so I am not using him this season. Moses is reserved to a buyer for next season and I needed to use him on as many as possible before he departs our line-up. I got really nice lambs from him last year out of Lavender and Parfait, so those are repeat breedings. I like him for Nellie, but any of my rams would have been a nice combo for her. I just decided that it would be a nice combo to try. Shadrach’s lines are saturated here and I will possibly part with him after this season, so I repeated his breeding of Spirit which gave me Blueprint. Erica needed a ram that would provide genetics for opening her denser fleece and Shad should work for that. Fleur did not “take” last year, so I figured that Shad would be the most determined to get her bred. He is her grandsire, but that did not worry me and I think it could be a really nice combo. Carmen should be a really nice ewe for Shadrach and I love using recessive lilac to make lilac lambs, so rather than breed her to lilac this year, I wanted to use a lilac carrier instead. These are just a few of my thoughts. Mainly, I just follow my gut and don’t overthink things. We’ll see how it turns out. I am also excited to see Poppy’s lambs. Oxford does not carry lilac, but I am noticing that using lilac to non lilac seems to bring out a deeper black in the lambs. This is a test of that possibility and should produce a nice lilac carrier offspring what I am hoping have strong black color intensity. I wonder if anyone else has made note of this trait?
November 2, 2011 at 4:45 pm
Interesting. I haven’t seen that a black + lilac gives better intensity unless one of the parents had good intensity. I’ve heard people say you can tell a lilac carrier by its lack of color intensity. I don’t believe that. Dr. Sponenberg (think it was him – have to check) mentioned that traits like graying, fading, intensity, sunbleaching, etc are carried separately from the color gene. In that case the way to get good color intensity is to use animals with good color intensity – no matter the color. Good luck, though 🙂 Setting good color intensity is a hard one.
November 2, 2011 at 7:45 pm
I hope Sharon will chime in because apparently, in her years of breedng other species, it is well established that using dilute blue in dog (for example) intensifies the black. I think there is a good possibility that it may be applied here. However, there are more ways than one to skin a cat and I am sure there is more than one way to work on intensity. Sweetgrass probably knows the secret, but that secret is locked away. Hahaha.
November 1, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Very helpful, thanks!
November 1, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Who is Jefferson?
November 1, 2011 at 8:13 pm
Jefferson is Ridgecroft Washington x Brighton Louise. He is owned by Sharon Lehrke of Sovereign Farms in Florida. He was on the same transport down from Cheryl’s with Eli’s Friday.
November 1, 2011 at 8:20 pm
He is Harshbargers Jefferson and is full sibling to Cheryl Terrano’s Lincoln. You can see his pedigree on her ram page, I believe. It is a cool pedigree.
November 1, 2011 at 9:09 pm
Nice wooden fences on your property. I would love to be able to put out a huge bale of hay for the sheep to eat at their leisure, too bad the snow and rain here would ruin it!
I just love how majestic your sheep look, I never get tired of those 4 horn poses!
November 1, 2011 at 10:14 pm
Thanks! Chai Chai,
I often put a tarp over the top of the round bales and some are fed under covered run in sheds. But, with really wet conditions, you’d have a lot of waste for certain. Not to mention sheep that like to play king of the hay bale and pee on top!!! The tarp usually prevents that from happening though. haha.
I do love my fencing, but to tell you the truth it isn’t the best for sheep. They do break horns trying to reach through spaces as the grass is always greener on the other side (literally.)
We installed all of this fencing several years ago when we cleared to turn the property in to a proper hunter/jumper horse property. Those days are gone and the sheep now rule the land.
Shari
November 3, 2011 at 12:54 pm
Loved seeing the close up of Eli’s Friday… before I recognized her, I thought, now that is a pretty ewe! 🙂 I will have to show her to her namesake (my son, Eli who was born the same nite 🙂
Katrina Lefever
November 3, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Katrina,
She is VERY loved here! She is a stand out sheep and I’ve been saying that I believe she might be the most beautiful sheep that I’ve seen (of all breeds.) So glad to have her and by the way….she has the body condition of a three year old ewe. She is obviously hardy and has been well cared for by Royal. Thanks Royal and Sue for letting me buy her!!!!! Thanks Katrina for breeding her!
March 1, 2012 at 6:42 pm
No posts for a while, just wondering how lambing season is going!
March 1, 2012 at 7:09 pm
I should have first lambs in less than a week! Stay tuned. How are things in your neck of the woods?
March 1, 2012 at 7:27 pm
Big storm yesterday, should have kids and lambs starting in late April through May.