Lambs due in 9 days!

HEY.. I didn't offer free babysitting.. I offered free kidnapping!!
AND I will come and get them..

with me your out nothing!

No fair, now you look like the best option. (pouting and crossing arms) Claire might think she is out something though...like a baby. :)

They are nice. I love the moorit badgerface?... grey? I can't tell from the angle of the picture. I think moorit grey would be my favorite color/pattern.

Ah, better picture below. I don't *think* she is badgerface,but you would know better than I. She seems to be getting lighter color with age, and when she was sheared, the sort of caramel color of her fleece is gone underneath and she is just white. I don't know if that means that she has the Ag gene for sure, but I suspect....

She wouldn't be out anything.. she'd just be expanding her extended family by 80 something..

Seems I need to hold a lamb lottery! LOL!

She's a moorit grey! The sugar lips are a giveaway. Also, if she was badgerface, she would have a dark line of color going from her neck, down her chest, down her belly and up under her tail. I attached a pic of a black badgerface ewe we used to have so you can see the marking. Badgerfaces also have lighter coloring under their eyes and a lighter stripe up the center of the face.

Your ewe's face might change color through the seasons too. I had a black grey that morphed from dark face to light. I'll put up a pics of her too.

Auntie Claire....pllleeeeease may I have a puppy???

This was Quinn, our black grey, in her dark face mode. She looked like she was planning on being a ghost for Halloween!

And this was Quinn just a few weeks later, as her face was lightening up over all.

Thanks Karen! That's exciting to know. So I wonder what I would get out of her if she was bred to Thunder. He's moorit (solid-solid I think) and carrying spotting, and she's Moorit grey....so....(looking at Tongue River genetics page...) she is either grey-grey or solid-grey I think, so I could have either moorit solids or moorit greys, with or without spotting....I think.

I love the baderface - so expressive looking! Quinn is just beautiful! I can't wait to expand my flock into more colors and patterns.

Oh Fran, that pic is adorable!! Is that Orange?

If she's homozygous for grey, when bred to Thunder you would get all moorit greys that are heterozygous for grey. If she is heterozygous grey, you would get 50% moorit solid and 50% moorit grey. You would only get spotting if she happens to be carrying spotting, and both she and Thunder pass that on to the same lamb. If she's not carrying spotting, you won't get any spotted but some lambs may carry spotting.

Quinn is pretty. I wish I still had her but we sold her and her lamb when we were getting ready to move. She was a big girl with a nice build. Rose (the badgerface) was pretty but obnoxious, and she eventually went to freezer camp.

Oh right, I forgot that the spotting needed homozygosity. Of course, she is one of the 3 unregistered crew, but I don't mind breeding her for fleece purposes since she brings a new color to the flock.

Just so you gals know.. while I am begging here.. I am also learning.. very much.

It is amazing.. I really should have paid better attention in science.. but I was the class clown.. guess I really haven't gone to far in 30+ years have I?

No that is not Orange.. that is nosey Billy, the wether, I had just trimmed the dreds from his eyes, he couldn't see and he acted like he was given the gift of sight.

He probably acted that way because he WAS given the gift of sight! Kudos to you for giving it to him!!! Hooray!

Do I get a prize for arresting the spelling police?

THUD!!

(the spelling police have passed out as a result of their own shame...)

I will not misspell badger.
I will not misspell badger.
I will not misspell badger.
I will not misspell badger.
I will not misspell badger.
.
.
.
.

LOL!!
The first picture of Quinn looks like it has a sky mask on!! CUTE with a capital Q!!!
Wonderful pics everyone. I am having sheep envy. :/

LOL That was a prize Claire! LOL

Does that show that I had to read almost every post 3 or 4 times to absorb the genetic thing at all? (which still has me baffled) but I am enjoying this thread! The pics are great!!!

I believe the spelling police may plead "not guilty" on a technicality. To misspell "badger" would have required her to believe that "bader" was the correct spelling. Since there is no way on earth, barring a singular regional variation in pronunciation, that the August Officer of Spelling could believe that badger is pronounced "bader", I vote to let her go with a warning.

It was a typo.

And may she show similar mercy on all mere spelling mortals.

Oh Madame Vocabularian, you are too kind! My humblest apologies for the typo....it was a result of being much too excited about the birth of lambs....

Karen, is Oreo a badgerface? I always thought she was just spotted, but now I am wondering...

I did a new thread on Clover whose twin lambs arrived this morning.

It can be really hard to tell when a sheep has such extensive spotting if they are also badgerface, grey, or mouflon, because you don't know if the spotting might be covering up or mimicking parts of the other patterns. Badgerface would normally have the dark line of color going down the neck, the belly and up under the tail, but if the spotting covers that, you can't tell. To me it almost looks like she has the "sugar lips" so maybe she's a grey!

If you know what the parents were, that can help sometimes, or sometimes you just have to wait and see what kind of lambs pop out!

ok frans that peacock blue sheeps was way too funky weird for me. Although it would make very prettiful mittens so I'm probably going to be okie dokie about it once I get over the funky weirdness of its being.

I'll have to ask Lorraine about Oreo's parents. She is the one that had the two black spotted rams (the ones with the scary clown face patches!). That was from her and Thunder (moorit) and not really any sign of badgerface on them. I just thought those two matching light patches to the inside of her eyes were interesting.

LOL Dahlianut....you crack me up. Here's the wool I spun from Fran's peacock blue "sheep" (which is actually an angora goat)...

See told ya I would be okie dokie when it got to the mittens part. Sorry frans for calling your dear goat a sheep (blush) .

LOL, I couldn't figure out what the heck you all were talking about..
Billy is in the hoophouse that is covered right now with a blue tarp so their hay doesn't get wet... it does give him a nice glow though.

Galls, is there a registry you look up, just like the pygoras?

Just funnin you about the exposure on the pic frans ^_^

How is Kitkat doin? Poor thing looks like she was gonna explode.. :)

Still does!!! I give her a week or so. Her due date is May 2. She is still carrying the lambs very high.

Oh gosh... poor baby.. She doesn't look as upset about it as I do. LOL

I just cant imagine being THAT pregnant. shesh! It does not look like she can get up. :/
I know they can though. LOL

She has basically been eating nonstop for the past three days. I keep teasing her and asking her if she is really pregnant or just eating too much! LOL! Her udder is formed but not near as huge as the other girls' were when they lambed, so I think she has a few days left, and her babies are still really high, even this morning. They have to drop first. It got pretty warm here yesterday and she was panting and I felt so bad for her - pregnant is bad enough, but pregnant and overheated is awful.

She is still walking (errr....well, waddling) around though.

Well, she's eating for 4 LOL

We are not sure. Her former owner said she was that size last year and that she just delivered two very large twins. Ouch. I would love to see triplets, but who knows...

Do we need to put on a pot of boiling water yet?

Sigh....no.....she is holding out on me. Well, her due date IS May 2, so I should be patient I suppose. It's just that the other two ewes due date was April 27, and they both went about a week early, April 19 and 21. So I keep thinking KitKat might go a week early too, but she didn't, because that would have been on Saturday. She does not appear to have significantly "dropped" the babies in preparation for labor either, so I think she is really going to wait for her proper date. Her udder could stand to be a little bigger too, so we'll see.

In the meantime, Bramble and Sven are doing well, and Bramble is starting to put on more weight, which is good, considering how tiny she is.

Oh man! I am going to miss it then. I am heading to Boston for the weekend. I will check out the pics when I get back. :) I LOVE the name Sven.

Will you give us a new thread when Kitkat gets ready?

Look what a fellow DGr sent me.. LOL Where old phone cords go..These are all made out of phone cords!