Showing posts with label American Blackbelly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American Blackbelly. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Sheep Weight Loss Program?

All of my sheep have had their lambs for 2012, Mrs Dark Brown Barbado was the last.  She had triplets last year, and was huge, so I was expecting a set of three lambs.  Here she is only a few days ago, I thought for sure she was going to lamb that day, if not.. that hour!



Her udder was also huge, but sneaking up behind her to take a picture was a but more difficult.

As you can see in this picture, Mrs Dark Brown Barbado is huge.  She is also a hair sheep if you are puzzled by her unusual look.  Her breed is Barbado, or at least that is the name they have in my area, in other areas they are called American Blackbelly, the rams have large curled horns.  These sheep do not need shearing, and shed like dogs.

A few days after taking her photo she had lambs, twin boys.

The father of the lambs is a Katahdin Dorper, also a hair sheep.  He is mostly white wtih only a black head and black saddle, but amazingly a large number of his lambs have been mostly black, with white, like this cute pair.

Some people are not familiar with Barbado sheep and often say they are wild, and prone to be mean, but we have never found this.  Even when we did have Barbado rams (they have huge horns) they were never mean.  The ewes were never more nervous than any of our other ewes, and this ewe in particular is very friendly.  As such if you are interested in getting Barbado sheep and have heard that they are crazy, disregard it.  When handled with kindness they respond.  I can approach this ewe in the pasture and pat her as though she were a dog.

Monday, October 25, 2010

The First Ram

We learned more about sheep so by fall felt we were ready to get a ram for breeding.  We had learned all about the advantages of hair sheep and as there were many sheep being sold at an Odd and Unsual Livestock sale about 2 hours away, we felt this would be a good place to find a breeding ram.

They were being sold as Barbado sheep, of course this name seems to be under debate, but that is what they were called at the time, being brown and black hair sheep, with horns. 

We found a handsome ram, and bid on him, and loaded him up with a few other ewes we purchased including some bred ones.
He was a very friendly ram, which was good because it set us up to admire this breed, when many others in our area told us that all hair sheep are "wild" in nature. 

However... we waited all winter... looking forward to cute spring lambs.. and got none.. (well not from him anyhow).

Turns out the ram was sterile.  So much for that year!

Read More about Barbado Hair Sheep, click here.