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| Our Sheep | |
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| Topic Started: Nov 22 2010, 04:38 AM (371 Views) | |
| TexasCountryGal | Nov 22 2010, 04:38 AM Post #1 |
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Having played "musical sheep" yesterday, moving a 6 month old "Texas Barbado" ram lamb to the Texas Barbado ram pasture, and isolating the Dorper ewes from the ewe herd, and putting them in the pasture with the Dorper ram, I decided to take some pictures to show off our sheep. All our sheep are hair sheep. They grow some wool in the winter, but shed most it during the rest of the year. They do not need to be sheared. Their meat is said to be smoother and move flavorful without the mutton taste than the wool lamb meat sold in the grocery stores in the United States. I would not know about the taste though because we have not eaten any of our lambs. We have "Texas Barbado" which are not a recognized breed, but being from Texas, we proudly call them Texas Barbado. Some of our ewes look like American Blackbelly sheep, and from what I have read, can be registered as such. They are the girls with the black bellies and black markings over their eyes. The whites are our White Dorpers and a fairly new addition to our herds. I HOPE to have the courage to eat the ram lambs in the near future. Being white and looking pretty much all alike am hoping I will be able to eat them because I will not know who I am eating. Maybe! I managed to capture pictures of all our sheep with the exception of The Old Man, our original ram who is 7 now, and the ram lamb we moved yesterday. This is Trouble, our first bottle baby. He is 3 years old. Posted Image This is April, our second bottle baby. She is 1 1/2. We were never able to integrate her in with the ewe herd as she always stayed at our back door, so we put her in with the Dorper ram when we bought him. Posted Image These are our White Dorpers. The ram is named Diesel, and he is VERY happy to be with the girls now! Posted Image This is Trouble and Flash challenging each other. Posted Image And these are out ewes. They have free range of our place with the exception of the ram pasture and now the Dorper pasture. Posted Image |
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| goldengal | Nov 22 2010, 04:48 AM Post #2 |
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Mistress, House of Dogs
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What great pictures TCG, and it is so interesting to read about them. I enjoyed that. Take care, Pat |
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| reactivate | Nov 22 2010, 05:39 AM Post #3 |
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I've never been in NZ but the people of Newfoundland reminded me of what I think of Kiwis. They are tough as nails and very nearly not understandable. Newfies can be especially difficult to understand at times. Must have something with living on an island. I have always been a great admirer of the people of NZ, mostly because of their prowess as sailors. We always have a few at the CORK Worlds in Kingston. Are your sheep 'typical' varieties for NZ and do you raise them for wool or food (or both)? The sheep I see around here look quite different. More like your Dorpers but perhaps smaller and frequently with a black face. I have no idea what they are called though. There is some sheep farming (if that's the correct term) on Amherst Island in Lake Ontario, just offshore from where I live. There is no place handy for them to have the wool processed so they have to ship it off to Nova Scotia (about 1500 Km) and they make and sell wool products when it is returned. There is not much demand for lamb as meat and everything I see in the supermarkets comes from NZ and is very expensive. |
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| reactivate | Nov 22 2010, 05:42 AM Post #4 |
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Oh oh, I made a booboo. I thought the OP was from Kahu. Oh well, most everything still applies. Perhaps Texans are a bit harder to understand. biggrin 04 |
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| TexasCountryGal | Nov 22 2010, 07:40 AM Post #5 |
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:GreenSmileyBounce: HAHAHA ! My parents say I do not enunciate properly ! My kids say they never understand anything I am say ! My significant other does not always hear me ! And I don't have a drawl because I am not from west Texas. So . . . perhaps my typing is as hard to follow as my verbiage. :LOPEArainbow04HL2.gif: |
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| agate | Nov 22 2010, 12:54 PM Post #6 |
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Nice TCG. How many do you have in total? |
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| Kahu | Nov 22 2010, 03:11 PM Post #7 |
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biggrin 04 Our climate is a bit too wet for hair sheep Reactivate ...... usually only for hobby farmers, or for breeding pedigree stock for exports. On the higher drier parts of the South Island High Country it is the Merino which reigns supreme ...... Merino Icebreaker - Glenmore Station
Shrek retires at 14 yrs Edited by Kahu, Nov 22 2010, 03:15 PM.
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| TexasCountryGal | Nov 22 2010, 03:50 PM Post #8 |
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Thanks Agate. We currently have 17 Barbado (Texas and Black Belly) ewes, 4 Texas Barbado rams, one White Dorper Ram and 2 White Dorper ewes. Here is our April when she was little. Posted Image Posted Image |
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| erka | Nov 23 2010, 07:11 AM Post #9 |
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Gold Star Member
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April is so sweet and the picture of her wearing a diaper is my smile of the day. |
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| Deleted User | Nov 23 2010, 04:23 PM Post #10 |
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Deleted User
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oooh 02 You wouldn't eat April would you??? scary.gif |
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| TexasCountryGal | Nov 24 2010, 09:34 AM Post #11 |
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Begete, No we would not eat April YET, she is not big enough and meaty enough YET! Just Kidding! There is no way we would eat her! She will grow old with us and live the Life of Riley! Would not sell Trouble, and would not have considered eating him when he was young and tender. He did go on a field trip to my daughter's school when he was 9 days old. I will look for and post the pictures in a bit. Neither April and Trouble are the color we were breeding for, but they are here to stay! We do sell the mature rams. We had hoped to eat our Texas Barbado lambs, but NO WAY ! They all look different and there is no way I could eat one knowing who I was eating. Now I do know women who trade lambs with each other so that they are eating someone else's lambs and not their own. With the exception of April, Texas Barbado are wild and difficult to handle. Once sexually mature, the rams are very dangerous. My brilliant plan is to add the white Dorper to our herd as they all (pretty much) look alike thinking I could have our lambs processed for our table. Only time will tell with this x-big city women turned country gal. Kahu, I remember reading about Shrek in our local paper a few years back. Very cool story. Goldengal, Agate and Erka, thank you for the kind words. |
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| Deleted User | Nov 24 2010, 10:30 AM Post #12 |
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Deleted User
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April is so cute. How long do they stay that sweet and cute? |
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| Darcie | Nov 24 2010, 12:16 PM Post #13 |
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Skeptic
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Looking at these pictures has killed my love of a leg of lamb and chops. holysheep.gif |
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| FuzzyO | Nov 24 2010, 12:28 PM Post #14 |
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I'm trying to separate the 2 notions. I wish lamb did not taste so good. |
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| TexasCountryGal | Nov 24 2010, 02:14 PM Post #15 |
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April should always be friendly. She only weighs about 75 pounds and will not change in appearance other than get a little wool on her in the winter. I think she is cute as an all grown up ewe. I was aching to take a black belly ewe lamb away from her mom and bottle feed her so she would be friendly too, but it would not have been right to separate her from her mother. Raising April gave me a real understanding of the children's rhyme, "Mary Had A Little Lamb," as before we put her in with the Dorper Ram she was always hanging out at the back door and would follow us where ever we went. biggrin 04 |
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