Lots of ewe lambs, and one baby boy

7 Mar

We’ve had four sets of twins and one single so far, and just one ram in the bunch! Four are black, four solid white and one badger face/black & brown. So so terribly cute! They were loving the warm weekend weather, lots of sunbathing snoozing.

Interestingly, our black Navajo Churro ram, Payton, has thrown four of six black lambs, with one white and one badger (black & brown). We recently purchased a white ram, Wo-Chi, so maybe we’ll end up with a flock of furry Holstein-looking sheep!

E. Friesian/Churro crosses - twin ewes four & five

Purebred Churros - ewe lambs six & seven!

Purebred Churros - ewe #8 and ram #1!

2 Responses to “Lots of ewe lambs, and one baby boy”

  1. Shepherd's Glen September 28, 2012 at 8:06 am #

    Do you plan to milk the E. Friesian/Churro crosses? Do you have experience milking that combination already? Where is your homestead located? We are looking at possibly crossing a churro ram with friesian/lacaune ewes in hopes of producing a good milking sheep suitable for more arid conditions. We are located in north Texas and have had a couple of years of significant drought.

    • Anna September 28, 2012 at 9:33 am #

      We’re located in southern Wisconsin – I bought a few E. Friesians a couple years ago with the intent to milk and start a farmstead creamery, but decided to invest my time and energy into just making cheese and buy my sheep milk from other farmers. I sold most of my E. Friesians last fall. We still have one ewe who is sired by a Churro and out of an E. Friesian cross, and we also still have a high percentage E. Friesian ram that I’m looking to sell. I might try to milk her this spring, we’ll see if I have the time. She has a decent size bag, but not as large as her dam, and is certainly hardy. She easily keeps her condition without grain, where we did have to grain her mother to keep her weight up. She’s getting bred to the E. Friesian ram again, so I’m hoping for a ewe lamb(s) this year. Last year she had a single ram lamb, her first lambing. There’s a sheep dairy farmer named Larry Meisegeier here in Wisconsin who has tried milking Churros before. His experience is that they dry up quickly once the lambs have been taken off of them, but you might try looking him up and asking him for more details about his experience.

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