Category Archives: Rams

December 2022 to April 2023 Updates

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It’s been quite awhile since I have posted on our website.  I tend to post on Facebook more and forget to update the website.  Here are a few photos and happenings that have gone on over the winter.

In December, we were surprised, humbled and happy to be among the finalists in the All Canada GenOvis Recognition Awards 2022 – maternal breed category!
We placed 3rd!

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We added a new pup to our pack in January.  His name is Kozan and he was 4 months old when we brought him home from Manitoba.  He is settling in nicely.

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We had a very mild January this year, which was so nice for lambing about 50 ewes.
We had turned the rams out for 1 week last August and just lambed for 11 days.

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Our next group of ewes lambed from March 14 to April 1.  We were very happy with a drop of 200%.***************************************************************************************************
The January lambs are coming along nicely.  We will be taking their 100 day weights on April 20.  There are some like this one that stand out.

LAIing Ewes

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On Friday, we had OC Flock Management from Alberta, Laproscopically AI twenty four of our yearling Dorset ewes.
We used semen from two outstanding Australian rams: Gooramma ‘Guru’ 308-2016 and Gooramma 723-2015.
We are looking forward to March 18 when the lambs start to arrive!
Hopefully we have a good success rate.  Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

 

 

 

 

2019 All Canada Classic Sheep Show and Sale

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We attended the Classic in Humboldt, SK on July 19-21 with our Dorsets.
We were very pleased to have 1st place Junior Ewe Lamb, 2nd place Junior Ram Lamb, 3rd place Yearling Ewe and 6th place Yearling Ram.
The sale was well attended and prices were really strong, with a lot of animals going for over $1000.  The sheep industry in Canada is doing very well!

Our son, Carson and grandkids, Tyrell 9, Taylen 7 and Hunter 6 came with me and they were all a great help.  The kids took part in the Junior Show for the first time and had lots of fun.  They worked hard to halter train their ewe lambs for the show.

Ram Lamb "McDermit 90G"

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Today we took the 100 day weights for our January born Dorset lambs.
We really like how this twin born ram lamb is turning out. At 101 days old, he weighs 114 lbs. He gained 42 lbs since he was weaned 28 days ago. That’s an average daily gain of 1.5 lbs!
He is sired by McDermit 77E (see pedigree) and will be staying on the ranch to go on some ewes here.
If you are needing a quality Dorset ram, contact us. We have a pen of thick, wide, deep, long and correct ram lambs.
The pen of 48 ram lambs averaged 1.12 ADG in the 28 days since weaning, including the triplets and milk replacer fed ram lambs.

Watch a short video of McDermit 90G here.  The link will take you to our Facebook page, so hit the back button on your browser to come back to this post:
https://www.facebook.com/mcdermitranch/videos/325736638090559/

 

Exciting News!

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New Dorset genetics for Canada!
We have just ordered semen from these two powerful Australian rams and are really looking forward to seeing their lambs in the new year!  UPDATE:  It will be spring of 2020 when we get lambs from these rams.

Gooramma 308 Guru

Gooramma 723

New Stud Ram

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It’s about time we introduced our new stud ram:
BRIAR GLEN 100B, the high selling, $3800 ram of the 2016 All Canada Classic Sale in Richmond, Quebec.  He was bred by Briar Glen Farms, Alan and Marilyn McCorkindale from Sooke, BC.
We really like this ram’s thickness, length, depth and correctness.
We turned him out with our purebred ewes today, so will be looking forward to his lambs in January.
To view his pedigree on the CLRC website click here.

New Sheep From The Classic

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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)

Left to right: Reserve Champion Dorset ewe, Shereff 115B (fall born),
Furze 9C, Shereff 9C and Heeroma 38C (all January born).

Brien G&L 55A

Brien G&L 55A

2015 Shearing Day

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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.

525 ewes and ewe lambs waiting to be sheared.

The six shearers keeping busy.

Logan and Laverne shearing two of the Scottish Blackface rams.

Randy, going to get the next bunch of sheep.  He kept the shearing chute full all day.

 

Getting Closer!!

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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).

More New Sheep!

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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

New Scottish Blackface Sheep

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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.

 

 

Our New Stud Rams

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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.

Barn Burner Show, Olds, AB

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Last Friday, I travelled out to Olds, Alberta with Teresa Walker and her daughter, Jo Walker of Furze Farms to attend the Barn Burner Show that is put on by the Alberta Sheep Breeders’ Association.  We were made very welcome by the committee and the other producers.  I would like to thank them for their warm hospitality and for all their hard work in putting on the event.
There were 3 classes in the show – Terminal Rams, Maternal Rams and Market Lambs.  The Champion Terminal Ram was Jordan Livestock’s yearling Suffolk ram; the Champion Maternal Ram was Avery Katahdin’s yearling Katahdin ram and the Market Lamb class was won by Furze Farms with a Dorset ewe lamb.
We were pleased to have 2nd place in the Maternal Ram class with our January born Dorset ram lamb.  Our Dorset market lamb wether was in the top 3 of the 80-109 pound category.
Blair Dow judged the ram classes and Randy Smith judged the market lambs.  Thanks to both of them for judging at the show.
Also, thanks to Rolly Bateman for showing my other ram lamb for me.

Jelaine, Teresa and Jo

Showing in the Maternal Ram class.

 

“McDermit 404B”, placed 2nd in the Maternal Ram class.

Market Lamb wether.

 

Lambing Time

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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!

Spring News

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Well, spring FINALLY arrived (about a month late)!  So life has been very busy here on the Ranch.  We have been pounding posts for more cross fencing…..just wrapped up spring lambing….. got pictures taken and posted on the website of some of the January ram lambs that we are offering for sale…..sheared the flock yesterday….. and hauled 9 big bags of the wool to the collection depot.  Now we will be getting ready for our trip to Barriere, British Columbia for the 2013 All Canada Classic sheep show and sale at the end of this month.

Below are photos of some of the January born ram lambs.  See our “2013 Rams For Sale” page for more photos and information.

Ram Sale – Saturday, September 8

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Well, it’s just about here!  The first “Prairie All Breeds Ram Sale” at Johnstone Auction in Moose Jaw, SK on Saturday, September 8 at 1 pm.  I am on the planning committee and we have been busy getting the last minute things done.  We are hoping for a good turnout of buyers for the 80 rams and 60 ewes!  We have 14 different breeds of rams from 4 provinces coming!

Here at McDermit Ranch, we are getting ready to take 15 head – 5 rams and 10 ewe lambs. 

See you there on Saturday!