We get some gorgeous sunrises here at the ranch and this morning, pink was the color! The Scotch Mule ewe lambs are very photogenic with their elegance and perky ears.
They got photo-bombed by a Dorset ewe lamb!
9 month old Scotch Mule ewe lambs in pink sunrise.
Replacement Dorset ewe lambs.
We had a beautiful, LONG fall this year. Here are a few recent photos from around the ranch.
Our five mature Blackface rams decided to pose the other day and I happened to have my iphone camera handy.
This is our profile page that we have on the Saskatchewan Sheep Breeders’ Association website.
We missed taking sheep to the Classic in Winnipeg due to getting the flu, but we were able to make a quick trip out for the sale on Saturday. It was a barnfull of excellent quality sheep!
We are pleased to announce these additions to our flock:
2 year old (pre-purchased) Dorset ram, Brien G&L 55A
Yearling Texel ram, Lot #302 Orchardview 60B (to put on the Scotch Mules),
and 4 nice Dorset ewe lambs ~
Lot #56, Reserve Champion Dorset Ewe and
Lot #72, 1st place Junior ewe lamb both from Shereff Stock Farm,
Lot #63 from Furze Farms and
Lot #65 from Heeroma Farm.
We are looking forward to seeing what these new sheep will add to our program.
Brien G&L 55A (Dorset) and Orchardview 60B (Texel)
We recently purchased a “Ewe Haul” from Zubot Welding. It has come in very handy already. Our grandkids, Taylen (3), Hunter (2 1/2) and Tyrell (5) wanted to try it out when they visited today, so we went for a little spin around the lambing pasture.
Zubot Welding has a great line up of sheep and goat equipment. Visit their website:
www.zubotwelding.com
Congratulations to Logan and his new wife, Charlotte!
They were married in Dunnville, Ontario on May 15, 2015. We are so pleased to welcome Charlotte into our family and to have her become a part of our ranch operation. Here are a couple of pictures just taken on my iphone. There are lots more beautiful photos on the photographer’s blog:
http://splashphotography.ca/blog/
Just scroll down a bit.
We let the ewes and their March/April born lambs out on the new grass yesterday, so they’re pretty happy. This is a group of Scotch Mules lambs and a few purebred Dorset lambs with a Scottish Blackface ewe for a babysitter. The rest of the moms were just over the hill grazing.
This ram lamb was strutting around today, so I whipped out my iphone and got a picture of him.
The March/April born lambs are doing very well.
933′s twin ram lamb at 3 weeks old.
Here are some of our freshly sheared Dorset ewes. We are happy with how the flock came through the winter once again, without any grain. Our hay wasn’t the best quality, but since we feed with a bale processor that chops the hay and lays it in a row on the ground, the sheep eat the good stuff and leave the stems that don’t have much nutrition. The stems aren’t totally wasted, because they lay on them for bedding.
Freshly sheared Dorset ewes.
This photo is of some of our recently sheared Scottish Blackface ewes at the water trough.
Yesterday we sheared the flock. Of course, it had to snow the day before….but thankfully they dried off by shearing time. It went very well.
We had 6 shearers: Lorrie Reed, Laverne Struck, Charles Struck, Russell Eddy, Ampie Esterhuyse, Logan McDermit;
3 wool handlers: Carter Nameth, Jordan Sveinbjornson, Jelaine;
1 wool packer operator: Daylon Schmidt;
1 sheep pusher: Randy.
525 ewes/ewe lambs and 19 rams were shorn in 8 hours!
Thanks to everyone for their help and hard work!
Bringing in the flock for shearing.
The six shearers keeping busy.
Logan and Laverne shearing two of the Scottish Blackface rams.
The crew that Logan shears with from March to May,
made the CTV news the other day!
Here is the two and a half minute video that aired on the news.
Click here to view.
Here are a few of our January born purebred Dorset lambs. We weaned, weighed and 8-wayed them this weekend. Some of them could hardly get into the creep area anymore.
We will be consigning some lambs to the All Canada Sheep Classic Show & Sale in Winnipeg this June, as well as to the SSBA Annual Summer Show & Sale in Prince Albert, SK in July.
Check back to our website for more pictures and information on the lambs, as it becomes available.
Click on the photos to enlarge them.
Our very first purebred Scottish Blackface lambs were born on March 19!
Twins ~ a ewe lamb and a ram lamb.
The sire and dam are from Ostara Farm, Danny and Kim Boyco from Camrose, AB.
This breed has amazing vigor! The lambs are up and sucking in no time and the ewes are fantastic mothers! Love them!
Ostara 27X with her twins. A ewe lamb and a ram lamb.
Ostara 27X’s ewe lamb.
WE HAVE TRIPLETS!!!
The first Scotch Mule lambs to be born on McDermit Ranch have arrived!
One ewe lamb and two ram lambs.
It has been a long 5 months, waiting to see what we would get from the Scottish Blackface ewes and the Bluefaced Leicester ram that we bought last September.
These little guys were up and going within minutes. They have lots of vigor and the ewe is a great mom.
We are really looking forward to our first ever Scotch Mule lambs! Start date for lambing is March 15, but they could come up to 5 days early.
These are some of our Scottish Blackface ewes, heavy in lamb to our Bluefaced Leicester ram. We bred the darkest faced SBF ewes to the BFL ram, and the ewes with more white on their faces were bred to our blackest faced SBF ram to lamb in June. So we’ll see what happens! Anxiously waiting…..!!
(Hoping for lots of twin ewe lambs).
This is Bo, our 10 month old Great Pyrenees, showing his serious, business side
as well as his big pup side. We bought him last summer at 12 weeks old and he hadn’t been “people-ized” very much. We unloaded him right out in the sheep pasture with our other semi-wild neutered male (picture with his head in the pail). He bonded hard to the sheep and he never leaves them. We take dog food out to them every day. They are awesome dogs and we are very glad to have them on the team, protecting our flock.
The SSBA has announced that their Annual Summer Show & Sale will be held in conjunction with the Prince Albert, SK Exhibition. The sheep show dates are July 30 – August 1, 2015. P.A. is only a 1 1/2 hour drive from Saskatoon.
We will be going with some of our Dorsets. It is a possibility that we will take some Scottish Blackface and Scotch Mules as well.
Hope to see you there!
This is our group of 250 mostly commercial mature Dorset ewes that will be lambing in June. We still have a few ewes with a bit of Border Cheviot in them like the one in the left foreground. Sheep don’t like to walk in deep snow, so they were following the tractor tracks to the fresh hay I had just put out.
February 25 Update: I shared this photo on Facebook and it went viral all over the world with over 13,000 people reached. I also shared it on the Weather Network and it became the photo of the day on February 24 as well as the most popular photo with over 31,000 views to date. Feeling pretty honored!
