Only four more days until our flock is sheared! I'm anxious to see how pregnant my girls look. It's hard to tell under all that wool! This picture of "Diva" was taken in the fall ~ imagine the fleece on her NOW! She's going to look SO different without all that wool. I think my girls look like itty, bitty, little deer after they're sheared. Diva's fleece is already spoken for. It's going to Michigan!
When "Zorro" is sheared, he looks like he's wearing a black & white tuxedo! Diva is bred to Zorro for an April lamb. This is the first year that I've bred two HST (solid colored with white on the Head, Socks, and Tail) marked sheep to each other! I was afraid, in the past, that it would produce "flecket" markings (spotted bodies). I prefer the main body of the fleece to be solid color ~ which is why I decided to breed specifically for HST markings. I'm using 3 HST rams this year. Zorro, Paco & Bravo. 
Paco ("Bluff Country Apocalypse") was the Grand Champion Shetland Ram at the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival's 2005 MSSBA show. He's a striking, moorit and white, HST ram with awesome horns. His fleece is reserved for 2006. Paco also lead Diva and Zaria (black & white, HST ewe) to the "Best Small Flock" award at the show. As far as I know (and I certainly could be wrong about this!) this is the first time an all HST flock was named best flock at a Shetland show in the United States. Needless to say, we are VERY proud ;-)
This is "Windswept Bravo". We purchased him from Heather & Mike Ludlam, of Windswept Shetlands, in Allegan, Michigan. Bravo turns one year old, this month. What an awesome ram he is! And he's got a gorgeous, incredibly dense, soft fleece. In fact, Bravo's is the only black, lamb's fleece that I will have for sale this year! It's going to be very interesting to see what these beautifully marked Shetlands look like after shearing on Saturday. I'll post lots of "after" pictures so stay tuned... If you are looking for a beautiful Shetland fleece to spin, e-mail me And keep your eye on this blog! I'll be posting more "before shearing" pictures of my flock this week and in just a few weeks, we'll have LAMBS!!!
I have to say...I love your Blog. A friend of mine sent me the link to it a few weeks back and I`ve been a compulsive reader ever since.I live in Lowland Scotland so we do have quite a few Shetlands around in the fields locally but it`s such fun to see them close up and get to know the personalities.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the shearing and lambing. Looking forwards to the pix.