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Monday 3 August 2015
Saturday 6 June 2015
2015 Classic Preparations
In a little over 2 weeks we will be heading out to Manitoba for the 2015 All Canada Classic Show and Sale. This will be our second Classic and we are excited to be attending again. After a quick glance at the Classic Catalogue it looks like it will be a great event with lots of high quality animals entered.
We will be taking 7 animals along with us: 1 yearling ram, 2 yearling ewes, 2 ram lambs and 2 ewe lambs. The flock was just sheared a week ago (May 30) so our entries will be sporting quite short fleeces, meaning what you see is what you get. Along with the information advertised in the Classic Catalogue, extended pedigrees and more can be found by selecting the animal you are interested in on our CLRC webpage. Also feel free to contact us, preferably by e-mail since we are not always by our phones and sometimes it takes us awhile to respond to messages on our voice mail, if you have any questions or would like to see pictures of an animal attending the show, their dam/sire or other relatives.
Looking forward to seeing everyone at the show and sale and safe travels to everyone making the trip from all across Canada!
We will be taking 7 animals along with us: 1 yearling ram, 2 yearling ewes, 2 ram lambs and 2 ewe lambs. The flock was just sheared a week ago (May 30) so our entries will be sporting quite short fleeces, meaning what you see is what you get. Along with the information advertised in the Classic Catalogue, extended pedigrees and more can be found by selecting the animal you are interested in on our CLRC webpage. Also feel free to contact us, preferably by e-mail since we are not always by our phones and sometimes it takes us awhile to respond to messages on our voice mail, if you have any questions or would like to see pictures of an animal attending the show, their dam/sire or other relatives.
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| PRAIRIE WINDS 8B Entered in the Hampshire Yearling Ram class at the 2015 Classic. |
Wednesday 15 October 2014
October Update
It has been awhile since the last post, but lots of exciting things have been happening.
We also participated in the grade ewe, market lamb and coloured sheep classes.
Thank-you to the judge and all the volunteers who worked hard to make the sheep show and the fair a success this year!
On August 16 we filled the trailer up with purebred and commercial stock for the Priddis & Millarville Fair. It was a nice day for the fair and once again there was a good turnout for both competitors and spectators. It was great to get to visit with all of our friends there and talk sheep. We competed with our purebred Hampshire ewes and one ram lamb and were very successful, taking home the award for the Champion Purebred Ewe with our mature ewe Prairie Winds 17Z.
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| Champion Purebred Ewe: Prairie Winds 17Z |
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| The grade ewe lamb class. |
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| The coloured sheep class. |
We are happy to report that the alpacas have settled in nicely and are doing a good job keeping the ewes safe while out on pasture. They are quite interested in what is going on when we bring their sheep in to work with them (shearing, vaccinating). The one bad habit that we have noticed is that they like to stand in the water trough, especially on hot days, since it is low enough that they can step into it. This means we have to dump and clean it out more often than we used to.
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We also purchased a new Hampshire ram lamb from Clint Wiens in September. We gave him 10 ewes to breed this year and are excited to get some new quality genetics into the flock. The rest of the ewes are also out with rams. The other sire we will be using on on Purebred ewes is Prairie Winds 6Y and for our commercial ewes we are using 2 black Suffolk x rams. Lambing will start earlier this year for us compared to last year as we are planning to take lambs to the 2015 All Canada Classic in Winnipeg. We are working on getting the barn cleaned out and putting up some new fences for when we move the ewes back home.
Hope everyone had a good summer and good luck going into lambing season!
Monday 14 July 2014
July Update
It's been a long time since the last blog post, so here is a little update and some pictures.
Lambing started and ended with purebred Hampshire ewes this year. Our first lamb was born February 9 and our last lamb was born May 15 (next year we are hoping lambing season won't stretch out this far). The sires we used this year were Bell Hank 21Z, Prairie Winds 6Y and our black Suffolk cross ram. The majority of our ewes chose to lamb in March when we got some extremely cold weather here in Alberta and this didn't make lambing easy. Even though the weather made it a tough year we are very happy with how this year's lamb crop turned out.
We had to wait longer than usual before moving the ewes out onto pasture because of the late winter. We sold our first batch of 25 lambs and a few cull ewes on June 3. They made two pretty nice pens of feeder lambs averaging 79 and 89 lbs. per animal.
About a week ago we made a new acquisition of two alpacas to be used as guardian animals for the flock when they are out on summer pasture as we had a couple of lambs go missing. They are currently in a 'trial phase' with 20 ewes to see how they will work out.
We are looking forward to participating in the Priddis and Millarville Fair again this year coming up in August and are also hoping to head back out to Regina this year to show at Agribition in November (weather permitting of course).
We are looking forward to participating in the Priddis and Millarville Fair again this year coming up in August and are also hoping to head back out to Regina this year to show at Agribition in November (weather permitting of course).
Monday 3 March 2014
Saturday 28 December 2013
Alberta Winters
Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and best wishes for the new year!
We have been getting our fair share of snow here this month. This morning it took over three hours to clean out the driveway with the tractor and we had to shovel out the ram shelter and the path through a drift to the water trough for the ewes. The snow piles and drifts from earlier in the month grew again with the snow and wind we got last night. We are thankful that we are not lambing in this weather but we did get an early Christmas surprise when one of the cows calved a couple of days before Christmas. Both mom and baby are doing good.
We are expecting lambing to start for most of the flock in late February/ early March. The rams we used this year were Bell Hank 21Z, Prairie Winds 6Y and our commercial black Suffolk ram.
Here are some pictures of the farm yard with the snow
We have been getting our fair share of snow here this month. This morning it took over three hours to clean out the driveway with the tractor and we had to shovel out the ram shelter and the path through a drift to the water trough for the ewes. The snow piles and drifts from earlier in the month grew again with the snow and wind we got last night. We are thankful that we are not lambing in this weather but we did get an early Christmas surprise when one of the cows calved a couple of days before Christmas. Both mom and baby are doing good.
We are expecting lambing to start for most of the flock in late February/ early March. The rams we used this year were Bell Hank 21Z, Prairie Winds 6Y and our commercial black Suffolk ram.
Here are some pictures of the farm yard with the snow
Sunday 22 September 2013
Canadian Sheep Breeder's Scholarship
This year I was chosen as one of the recipients of the Canadian Sheep Breeder's Scholarship. I feel honoured to be chosen and would like to congratulate my fellow recipient Emily Mastine! A short profile of the scholarship recipients can be found on the Canadian Sheep Breeders' Association Website. I encourage anyone who is eligible to apply next year, I know from experience that scholarships can really have an impact when paying for school. Thank-you to the CSBA for supporting my educational pursuits, I will put the money to good use!
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