Last night, our last winter-lambing ewe had a set of twins. We had 42 ewes lamb since January 3 and they gave us 79 lambs. These are all purebred Dorset ewes that were bred to our ranch raised flock sires, “The Tank” (McDermit 1187Y) and McDermit 1110Y. We are excited to see how they turn out.
Well, the Bluefaced Leicester ram has been turned out with 50 of the Scottish Blackface ewes!
We will have little Scotch Mules born in March and April!
Can’t wait!
Last weekend, we took a seven hour drive to Camrose, Alberta to visit Ostara Farm, owned by Danny & Kim Boyco. They are Scottish Blackface breeders. We purchased a registered yearling ram, “Ostara Flaithri 32A” (view his pedigree) and a registered four year old ewe, Ostara Ciara 27X (view her pedigree)to add to our Scottish Blackface flock. I will add a photo of the ewe soon.
Yearling ram, Ostara Flaithri 32A. (Photo credit: Ostara Farm)
Our new Bluefaced Leicester yearling ram.
On our way home, we went around by Lucky Lake, SK and purchased our first Bluefaced Leicester ram from Brad Peters. Now we can start producing the UK famous Scotch Mules!
It was a most enjoyable trip! The fall colors and scenery everywhere were beautiful. After picking up the BFL ram, we crossed the Diefenbaker Lake on the Riverhurst Ferry which was a first for us.
It is a cable ferry on highway 42, linking the town of Riverhurst on the east side, to Lucky Lake on the west side.The ferry leaves the west side on the half hour and takes about 15 minutes to cross the 1.5 kilometers. It leaves the east side on the top of every hour and runs 24 hours a day till the lake freezes over, usually in December.
Arriving at the Riverhurst, Saskatchewan ferry.
Out in the middle of Diefenbaker lake on the ferry.
Arriving on the east side of the lake.
The Riverhurst Ferry is Saskatchewan’s largest ferry, with a length of 35.6 metres (117 ft), a width of 14 metres (46 ft), and a weight of 90.7 tonnes. It carries a maximum of 15 cars on each crossing. It is powered by a computer controlled engine and powers a central drive cable. There are three guide cables, two mounted one foot from the left and right sides, and a middle cable running underneath the hull.
“Riverhurstferry2″ by Saskjon – Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
ANNOUNCING THE ADDITION OF SCOTTISH BLACKFACE SHEEP
TO McDERMIT RANCH!
We recently purchased a flock of Scottish Blackface sheep – 94 ewes and 4 rams. This beautiful breed originates in the hill country of Scotland. They are extremely hardy, fantastic mothers, and thrive in tough conditions. Here is a link to the Blackface Sheep Breeders’ Association:
http://www.scottish-blackface.co.uk/
This year, we will breed most of the ewes to the Scottie ram and some to a Bluefaced Leicester ram to create the
“Scotch Mule”.
Scotch Mule ewes are by far the most popular ewe in the UK. Here is a link to the Scotch Mule Association in the UK: http://www.scotchmule.co.uk/
Two year old Scottish Blackface ram.
Scottish Blackface ewes in the morning sun.
We turned our ranch raised stud rams, “The Tank” and “1110Y” out with two groups of our top Dorset ewes between August 10 and 27 for lambing from January 3 – 20, 2015. The days are lengthening and the nights cool off nicely. We had marking harnesses on the rams and it looks like most of the ewes will lamb within the first cycle. We are looking forward to a nice lamb crop out of these 50 ewes and 2 rams.
Some Of The Fall Breeding Group Of Purebred Dorset Ewes Due To Lamb In January 2015
We are pleased to add two new rams to our breeding program ~ McDermit 1187Y (aka “The Tank”) and Williams 149A who is a son of The Tank and some great old genetics from the Williams flock. We had sold The Tank to John and Edith Williams as a lamb in 2012 and since they have recently dispersed their flock, they gave us the opportunity to bring him back home. Thank you so much, John and Edith!!
McDermit 1187Y aka “The Tank”
Williams 149A, son of The Tank.
These are some evening photos of some of our flock sires.
We have a new crop of purebred Dorset lambs on the ground! The ewes started lambing around Christmas time so it has been pretty busy around here. Some of the weather has been extremely cold ~ like -35C ~ and the wind chill made it feel like -50C! It makes for lots of trips to the barn to check and bring new lambs into the nursery.
We had our family come for the weekend a couple of weeks ago, and our little grandkids, Brooklyn – 4, Tyrell – 3, and Taylen – 2 enjoyed feeding the bottle lambs.
We are excited to see how this year’s lamb crop turns out. We used 3 new rams aside from the Shaw ram, who is a proven sire. There are some very promising lambs again this year. We will have a pen of top quality ram lambs on offer by May so check back with us later for updates and pictures!
August has absolutely flown by! The days are noticeably shorter and the nights are cooler. Fall isn’t very far away!
We weaned the May born lambs the first part of August. We plan to keep most of the ewe lambs as we are still increasing the flock.
There will be a nice selection of ram lambs available for sale that will be big and ready to go to work this fall.
The January ewe lambs have grown like crazy on pasture this summer.
Some of the May born ram lambs that we will be offering for sale will be out of the same sire as these January ewe lambs.
We have consigned 5 rams and 10 ewe lambs to the Prairie All Breeds Ram Sale in Moose Jaw, SK on September 8. See pictures and information on our entries on this page.
We recently had the Shaw ram out for 2 weeks so we will be getting winter lambs between January 5 and 20. Hope the weather is decent!
Haying is all done and the bales are all hauled in off the fields. Our next project is some trenching and running electric wire for new water bowls. There is no shortage of things to do!
Just had to put this picture on of our cat in the lamb hay feeder!
This past July, we purchased a new herdsire: Shaw DAE 09W from Donna Shaw of Montaque, PEI. His first lambs arrived in December and January and we are very impressed with the thickness of them.
