[Penninehillbilly]

Again I use the alphabet, also trying to keep to herbs or at least plants, this year D - Dandelion? Damson? Daffodil? Daphne? hope the babes will let me know which they like before registration time  .
 

We don't because our sheep seem to tell me their names somehow so they get what they get.     

most beasties I leave until a name comes to me, The cat came with a name, but I kept thinking of a completely different name when I looked at him (Desmond!) and he answered to it, so that's what he's called, did he tell me thats what he wanted?

[Hellybee]

if theyre mollies or bring themselves forward out of the flock, they tend to get named, girls definately, boys, loosely.  theres a good few Mollies that are still very friendly, but my real faves are Polly Molly, Eve, Seren and Mrs Bond.  and i love this years lot, they are Posy, Dinky, Tank Girl, Possum, and the two Lads x

[PipSqueak]

Out of interest, the Household Cavalry use the letter by year system for naming their horses, too.

[Blackbird]

Bionic, if you're stuck on "U" you could name one Ursula after me! 

[SallyintNorth]

I bet Lester has a nice fleece  

[Bionic]

Bionic, if you're stuck on "U" you could name one Ursula after me! 
[/quote


We are all done now but Ursula was the next name on my list 

[Brucklay]

With the goats we go by letters - this year f so Frost, flint, flash, fallon, falcon, foxie, frank and faith, I enjoy collecting a list of names throughout the year and seeing what suits them.


With the sheep we go off ewes name but a couple of exceptions as Marcia (renamed Dolly) had a wee Snowball and one of my x's had what looks like a Grey castlemilk called Mouse. All good fun and make sense to me!!

[SallyintNorth]

We have absolutely no system whatsoever, not for lambs nor calves, and I reuse names, sometimes within one year.  For animals we buy in we usually try to make a connection with where we got them - so Sparkle and Parky from Park House, Wiggy from Wigton, Woolla from Wooler, Irish from a dealer named Ireland (and her son was Paddy.)  But then the next Park House heifer has huge stand-out ears, so she's Radar

For a 'keeper' I do often look for an excruciating pun, but sometimes a name just seems to fit.

Pet had Petal, Petal has had Florry (Flora didn't suit her.) 

The Bazadaise bullock was Barry (because people call Barrys 'Baz'.)

My favourite was the second Jersey; on being asked how many I could have, BH said, "Two's plenty."  So I named her Plenty .  Then he seemed to be happy for me to have as many more as I wanted...   I should've named the third one Thora (2's plenty, 3's a herd  ) but I didn't like the name so she's Katy, after my mum. 

Pet lambs at the mo are BumSpot, Squint (had entropion), Alice, Gremlin and Rex.  In previous years we've had Deisel, Stinky Mouth, Snotter, Blinder, Violet Elizabeth (boy!  could that lamb scream!), several Georges, Once they're speaned and out there growing I mostly forget who is which.

Oh - in cattle, people seem to name each calf the sire plus the dam, so a calf out of Petal by Bradley would be Bradley Petal.  If she had a calf to Rambo it would be Rambo Petal.  (And if her mother did too, one of them would be Rambo Petals or Rambo's Petal or Rambo Petal II.)

I like naming things... 

[Penninehillbilly]

Oh - in cattle, people seem to name each calf the sire plus the dam, so a calf out of Petal by Bradley would be Bradley Petal.  If she had a calf to Rambo it would be Rambo Petal.  (And if her mother did too, one of them would be Rambo Petals or Rambo's Petal or Rambo Petal II.)

I like naming things... 

Wouldn't that be a bit confusing if you liked the cross (same M+F) and repeated it a few times? It's a system I've thought about but not kept enough for it to matter yet 
 
 

[SallyintNorth]

It would be confusing, yes!  But I suspect, from looking at pedigrees, that dairy cattle folk tend to use each bull once only on a given group of cows/heifers.  However since they keep all good daughters, you still get the problem - Hillie's mother and grandmother were still in the herd when I bought her, all called Scent.

[smee2012]

I believe the mounted police force's horses are also named by letters per year.

Our names for this year (ZSA dictated it had to be B): Buttercup, Busby, Bluebell, Bramble, Briar Rose and finally...Batman!

To be honest, we may only keep two of the ewe lambs and the rest will go for meat next year so we could have called them anything we liked!