Sheep - New Boy In Town

When I bought the Soay last year, I purchased three ewes and one ram. Ramsay thought he was in heaven. All the girls to himself. Until I moved and forced him to live with the the other ram I had, an American Blackbelly. Granted this guy was bigger then Ramsay, but he wasn't going to let that bother him one bit. So that ensued a fight, constantly. And Ramsay, being half the size of the American Blackbelly, won hands down anyway. So, Mr. AB and his girlfriend found a new home. I was thrilled with the lambs that he produced. They were beauties, but didn't do well on the wet land that I'm on now.

Ramsay's first lambing produced four ewes and one ram (now a wether). And since I can't breed him back to his daughters I needed to find another semi unrelated ram. Semi I say because with Soay sheep and the lack of numbers in the gene pool, there isn't much to choose from if you want a high percentage of British or pure British. Later this summer I added three more older ewes. So I now have the six adult ewes and four ewe lambs.

Recently I was able to get a really nice ram of similar but distant lineage from eastern Washington. And he was a big boy compared to Ramsay. He was also from a line of Soay there are well known for their good structure and type, as was Ramsay. Comet is what you would call a self colored black. He is stocky and bigger than Ramsay. He is also a dominant ram. Upon his arrival I had him in relatively nice size pen. But later heard the pounding of what I thought was him hitting the walls. What it was was him smashing down the gate to get with the ewes. So much for separating everyone into two flocks. That would have to come later.

Comet was NOT impressed by Ramsay and had his number quickly. Comet proceeded to knock him silly as well as chase him around the pasture and away from what he now considered HIS ewes. Ramsay had already bred the Katahdin ewes so I know that everything else will be Comet's progeny as he will not allow Ramsay anywhere near them. Poor Ramsay. Next year he'll have his own flock of Comet girls to play with anyway.

It will be interesting to see what the girls produce. On ewe in particular had been breed to a different lineage twice and didn't do well. Out of four lambs, only one survived. But in looking at the other rams that she had been bred to, their pedigrees were similar to Ramsay and Comet. In fact one was a half brother to Comet. She consistently produced twins and those twins produced too. So, I'm thinking that the genetics of her and either Ramsay or Comet should be good. Time will tell.