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Posted: Wednesday 8 August, 2007

by Rosemary at 8:46pm in Anything goes 3 comments Comments closed

We are expecting three new arrivals at Longcarse in the next few weeks. We've bought three coloured Ryeland ewe lambs. This is the fulfillment of a long held ambition for me - a flock, albeit small, of pedigree sheep!

I've been a non-flock owning member of the Ryeland Flock Book Society for a couple of years - now I get to upgrade! Hopefully, someone from the Society will get back to me sooner rather than later and tell me how to register our new flock.

It all worked in rather well (apart from the FMD). I was intending to go to Lanark next week to the Rare Breeds sale and had sent off for a catalogue. However, I have to attend a meeting at work on the same day, so I was trying to work out how I could be in two places at the same time.

A friend of mine, who lives locally, has a small flock of Ryelands but she's been retaining her ewe lambs to increase her flock size. Dan suggested I give her a call on the offchance that she was selling this year. And she was! She had five ewe lambs for sale - two were going to Lanark and the best three were going to Carlisle in September. So we've bought the three bound for Carlisle.

I now have to think of names. When you register a Ryeland ram, you have to give it a name starting with a different letter each year (ewes just get a number!). The letter for 2007 is J, so in that spirit, I think the three girls should have names beginning with J. As you can guess, since they are getting names, we're not planning to eat them. We will eat their babies though...

I'll put up some photos when they arrive here - one is a lovely chocolate brown; the other two are lighter, more "latte" than "espresso".

Comments

Teresa

Thursday 9 August, 2007 at 7:23am

Congratulations on finally realizing your dream! The ewes sound lovely, can't wait to see the pictures. I've got a similar dream but mine involves goats... maybe in a year or two :)

Rebecca (living sustainably in rural Ireland)

Thursday 9 August, 2007 at 5:32pm

We have two breeding goats which we adore, they are such loyal creatures, and very affectionate. The milk is delicious.

I'd love to have some sheep too. Breeds other than texel or suffolk are hard come by in Ireland ... one day though. You'll have fun shearing ... will you do it by hand? You could use the fleece for so many different things, anything from wool, to mulching, to roof insulation!

Rosemary

Thursday 9 August, 2007 at 7:34pm

Teresa - can we be arrested for dreaming about goats and sheep?

Rebecca - not decided on shearing method yet. I'd like to have a go, but with clippers rather than hand shears. I don't think I could physically manage that, although Ryelands are quite small. Maybe I'll take up spinning (in the spare 20 minutes I have a day!)

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