The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Cattle => Shetland Cattle => Topic started by: daveh on August 13, 2015, 10:40:21 am
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My Shetland Abigail calved yesterday. A proud mum shows off her calf to a crowd of admiring Cotswolds.
Regards, David
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Lovely! I take it the birth was trouble free in good Shetland style?
How many cattle do you have? Is thsi her first calf?
:hugcow: :hugcow:
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Lovely cow :thumbsup: and super calf :hugcow:
The sheep look well, too! :D
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It's a strange old world when the sheep are bigger than athe calf and almost as big as the cow ;D
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Lovely calf. He looks to be as interested in the sheep as they are in him :thumbsup:
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Nice cow.
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It was a trouble free birth as far as we know. We were not there at the time as we had gone off to buy a Castlemilk Moorit ram. When we found them both, mum was gently talking to her calf who had been licked dry and was wandering about. It was her, and our, first time. The birth was a trifle unexpected as it was only 276 days since the bull, Lincwold Lowden, arrived. She must have made herself available on the day he arrived! We have another three heifers/cows who are due over the next week or so.
Regards, David
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More pictures showing the Cotswolds and the new CMM ram that caused us to miss the birth.
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Lincwold Lowden, arrived.
Was he Dianne and Alan Yarker's bull?
Good luck with the rest and more pics in due course.
Have you decided what to call the heifer?
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oooh Dave...lovely chook!
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If you like Vorwerks, I have a picture of different one.
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Awww, look at those cute babies :)
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Rosemary,
Yes, Lowden is the Yarker's bull. They very kindly loaned him to us. He obviously enjoyed his holiday! We are probably going to call the calf Boarshill Ermintrude.
If you think my Cotswold ewes are big you may like to see a picture of one of my Cotswold ewe lambs born mid February this year.
Regards, Dave
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They look fabulous. Do you sell their fleece?
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Bionic asked:
They look fabulous. Do you sell their fleece?
Well, I would if I had a buyer. This year they all went to the wool marketing board. We ran out of time to do any marketing. I had 18 fleeces in a wool sack that went to the collection depot. The sack was not full and the chap receiving the fleeces could not believe how heavy the sack was. It weighed 91 kilos. I will leave you to work out the average fleece weight. The attached picture shows our new Castlemilk Moorit ram making sure that the Cotswold castrate is not going to make his day by suddenly changing into a girlie.
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At Wonderwool for the last couple of years there has been a man there with Cotswold fleece and a couple of his sheep on show. His fleece are particurly good and he gets a lot of money for them. His top fleece had already been sold for £100 and was on its way to America after the show. The other fleece were between £30 and £50 each.
Now I'm not saying you would get that amount of money. He looks after his sheep in such a way as to keep their fleece lovely i.e. no vegetable matter in them and I think they are inside during the winter, but there would probably be a market, either on here, on line or at your local spinning guild, for more than you get from the WMB
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His top fleece had already been sold for £100 and was on its way to America after the show. The other fleece were between £30 and £50 each.
Jings.
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Rob's Pickwick flock is renowned, and he's been breeding for fleece for handspinners for generations. Don't get your hopes up that you'll get that sort of money, Dave!
I'm not sure where BWMB would classify Cotswold, but I guess they're paying about £1.00 - £1.50 /kg this year for it. So about £5-£7 per fleece for yours.
If they're spinnable - and it's a big IF - then yes handspinners would pay a lot more than that for a fleece. At 5kgs per fleece you should be able to get at least £15-£20 for nice usable ones, and £30 or maybe even more for any that are really nice.
For starters, have a read of the Assessing Fleece page (http://www.woolsack.org/AssessFleece)on the Woolsack website
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:wave: beautiful calf - magic of genetics, she's very near a replica of her Mam isn't she?
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>beautiful calf - magic of genetics, she's very near a replica of her Mam isn't she?
Yes, she is. When she grows on it will be difficult to tell her apart from her mum at a distance.
Regards, David
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We had two like that - Breeze and her daughter Bonnie. Once Bonnie was two, itwas really hard to tell them apart - Breeze's horns were longer ::)