[Brucklay]

You've had it now Sally - they do look very nice girls - looking forward to hearing about their progress - oh and stop showing off that they are so tame - mine are just canny now, tame when they want to be and off when they see a syringe!!!

[Herdygirl]

Oh Sally they are just gorgeous 

[SallyintNorth]

Were they the castlemilks from Glasgow city? i was stood next to the city council man and he couldnt believe the price he got!

Tollcross, yes.  They're very nice wee girls.  He'd have got more for them if he'd sold them singly as per the catalogue; I couldn't take all 5 so didn't bid, same could be true of others.  Luckily, the people that bought the lot were right next to me and agreed to let me have the two I wanted. 

stop showing off that they are so tame

I guess being from a children's farm helps there 

[HappyHippy]

Lovely 
Hope they (and the boys) are settling in well ? 

[kumquat]

Sally.....they are stunners 


So tempted to get a couple of Castlemilks myself, reckon they'd fit in lovely with the Shetlands and Soays. Must resist temptation....

[SallyintNorth]

So tempted to get a couple of Castlemilks myself, reckon they'd fit in lovely with the Shetlands and Soays. Must resist temptation....

Why? 

[SallyintNorth]

Lovely 
Hope they (and the boys) are settling in well ? 

Aye    (The boys are little black weaners  for those who didn't know I got a couple from Karen on Friday, pics to come later - phone camera not good enough for all-black creatures)

Both boys and both Castlemilks now come up to me for food and will eat out of my hand, and will accept (though don't yet relish) a pat.  The ducks (Muscovies from goosepimple  ) and the Manxes are a little more aloof, but seem settled and are getting used to me.

The Manxes have been named - Pricket and Dot Cotton - but everyone else is still 'Poppet' at the moment.

[tizaala]

They look nice Sally, what lines are they from ? Are they registered ?
I'm having a very frustrating time at the moment trying to get genetic profiling done on a CM ram we want to use next year, the society has only 1 person trained up to run the program and they won't let anyone else have a copy. All the boys we bred last spring are line 1 significant  ranging from 0.122-lowest to 0.519 , very high , we will repeat the same matings this Autumn but next year will need a new ram to put on our lines. With such a small genetic pool to choose from we will have to be very careful not to get too close.
 

[SallyintNorth]

Tiz, I think they're beautiful but no, they're not registered.  At the moment we can't handle primitive tups here.  I am more interested in spinning their lovely fleeces and in crossing to find viable commercial uses for rare breed sheep, so I am not worried about registration, lines, etc, in mine at the moment.  Maybe one day... 

BH particularly likes the bigger of the Castlemilks - she's nice and square, got some heart room and a nice wide pelvis and proper back end.  The smaller was the other really nice fleeced one, is super pretty, also has a nice wide pelvis but is a little narrower in front.

The CMs will be run on this year, partly so's not to impede their early growth and partly so's I get the best possible hoggs' fleeces off them next summer    Then they'll probably go to a neighbour's Shetland tup (haven't asked her yet, mind!)  The Manxes are gimmers, Pricket had a lamb this year, Dot Cotton didn't.  Much as I'd love to promulgate the multi-horned Manxes  , unless someone nearby (and preferably over the Border in Scotland) pipes up with a Manx tup ^(*), they'll go to the Shetland this year.  (Really must ring her up  )

^(*) But thinking about it, probably not worth the hassle as the Manx girls aren't registered either. 

[Fleecewife]

A shetland tup sounds a good idea - not too big but the cross lambs are usually slightly bigger than both parents.  You retain the good taste of the meat AND you get some lovely fleeces from the cross offspring if you keep them on til past a year  or skins if they go by end Nov.
 
But you know all this 

[kumquat]

Sally.....they are stunners 


So tempted to get a couple of Castlemilks myself, reckon they'd fit in lovely with the Shetlands and Soays. Must resist temptation....

Still undecided whether to put a Soay or Shetland tup to them, adding a CM tup into the mix may cause me to implode 
May start a new thread to get some expert views (don't want to hijack your thread)

[SallyintNorth]

Sally.....they are stunners 


So tempted to get a couple of Castlemilks myself, reckon they'd fit in lovely with the Shetlands and Soays. Must resist temptation....

Still undecided whether to put a Soay or Shetland tup to them, adding a CM tup into the mix may cause me to implode 
May start a new thread to get some expert views (don't want to hijack your thread)

Hijack away, or start new one, whichever you prefer is fine with me 

Still don't know why you think you should resist Castlemilks...    They absolutely would fit in with Shetlands and Soays    Shetland x Castlemilk makes lovely ewes, for all the reasons Fleecewife says, plus they just have 'something about them'.  My Shetland-breeding neighbour had a couple of Castlemilk x Shetland ewes given, and she says they were amongst her favourites of all time.  Any such cross would be capable of producing perfectly acceptable white store lambs to a commercial terminal sire, which would sell at any store mart or make good breeding ewes for a smallholder or hill farmer.

[tizaala]

A bloke close to us has crossed CM's with Hebrideans , absolutely stunning , black with moorit underbelly, and chunky with it, very good eating he says.

[SallyintNorth]

A bloke close to us has crossed CM's with Hebrideans , absolutely stunning , black with moorit underbelly, and chunky with it, very good eating he says.

Ooooo.... that is the only problem with crossing - there are an almost infinite number of possibilities... 

[colliewoman]

IMO Shetlands and Castlemilks make the most wonderful crosses. But then I am biased as that is what my girls are
I put them as ewe lambs to a shetland tup last year and their lambs (born April) are 80% the size of their mums already .
The girls were getting so fat last year so with that and the neighboring charolais ram was trying his damndest to get in with my lil girls I broke my usual habit of waiting til they are in their second Autumn before tupping them.
I'm tempted to do the same again with this years ewe lambs as it worked so well and they have never dropped any condition.
They are great little sheep and I love them dearly