About 6 weeks or so ago, we sold one of our mature ewes, Holly, and one of her ewe lambs to some wonderful friends of ours just 10 miles or so away. They were starting their own little spinner’s flock of lawnmowing sheep and we are so happy. Since they had just acquired two young ewes from another breeder and they were a little on the scared and bewildered side, we all agreed it would be good for them to have a mature step-mom to help model off and to feel a little more like a ‘herd’. We let Holly’s other ewe lamb go along for a few weeks because she and her sister were still nursing and a little younger than I’d like to separate them at.
What a cute little darling! This is Cinnamon… she is one of the pair of young ewes they bought from another breeder in the area. I love her fleece coloring! It’s so soft and just lovely looking…
When Beulah left, she was pretty much all black with a white spot on her head! She had a faint bit of a collar of light around her chin, but super faint. Now, oh my gosh! her coat is fadig some, almost looking a bit more brown with a lighter undercoat and that white spot is now cream. And look at her fluffy collar ring! And those little girl horns! Haha… crazy what six weeks can do to ya!
Little Angel, the white eweling with the dark eyes and nose, she has girl horns too! Shetlands, being a primitive breed are usually free of horns on the females, but hey, sometimes, you just get little horns. I guess you can have them removed, or trimmed back, but hey, it’s not going to interfere with anything and I think its fine.
Beulah’s mom, Holly, is a Black Welsh mountain sheep. Her Daddy was Gideon, our Shetland ram. It will be curious to see how she grows and matures. I’m quite sure she will be showing more Shetland tendencies than her sister Pearl, who looks just like Mommy. She definately has the ears more like Mom, though! And the lovely bellowing baaaaaaa that Holly is very famous for!
I’m so glad to see them all in such fine shape and so friendly and relaxed. I knew they would be a good mix for Bob and Terry. Sometimes when you start a little herd with all young animals, they are just nincompoops for awhile, because they don’t have someone to show them the ropes. Holly was a great choice, she was the first lamb of our herd mom, Noel, and so she learned from the best. But yet, she was always in the shadow of her dominant mom, so by letting her get her own herd of youngins to protect, she could rise to her own instead of always being the ‘baby’. And she is only two, so she won’t be that much older than the little ones…
Terry says that Holly is not super friendly to the other two ewes, but that she is also watchful and they tend to stay together. I think that’s perfect. Some of our ewes here are downright mean to other lambs that are not their own. But Holly is a sweet, mellow girl, and I figured that she would step into the role as den mother to the little motherless darlings in no time.
I love that they have a divider in their huge lovely pasture from dog kennel panels. I kid you not, these are some of the best things in the world! I have four of them right now and I am sure on the lookout for more at garage sales and such. They are so handy… rigid, moveable, easy to work with. They say theirs could hold back dinosaurs! I’m thinking they could probably raise a few yak with those!
And they even used a smaller kennel to make a little three sided shelter for them for shade and rain. Shetlands are pretty hardy breeds, but still, they like to seek shelter from the sun when it gets hot and they don’t like to stand in downpours. Plus, it makes a great place for their minerals. Cinnamon and Angel like it! It’s a play fort for the little girls.
Here’s the last family group shot of Holly and her daughters, Pearl and Beulah. See how Pearl, in the middle, has retained her dark black coat, where Beulah’s is fading out? Now, Holly’s fades a bit in the sun, but it’s black to the core. As it gets longer, it gets a little brownish tinge to it. But as you wash and card it out, it becomes all black. Weird.
Well, we went over to pick her up and to have a visit at Bob and Terry’s lovely homestead. They have a few more acres than we do, I think five and then some wooded area to the back as well. (If I remember correctly!) But gosh, their place is soooo nice! I love it! I wish we had taken more pictures, but we were having such a good time visiting! Jessy shot the above with her ipod because she ALWAYS has her ipod with her. They have a beautiful garden and fruit trees… and just a nice set up. Their house is so darling inside, all the wonderful things they have done and some that they are still working on. Oh, you just have to see their beautiful Amish made wood cooking stove! It’s amazing… and it mostly heats their whole house in the winter! Just way cool.
She did take a snapshot of their chicken house! I love it! It’s one of those children’s play houses. I would so love to get a few of these for the goats and our hens! I think they are so cute and work really well. Just add a little roost inside and they are pretty darn indestructible. And you can easily tip and clean them! And they have a phone in there and a play kitchen!! haha….
Their hens have a big covered run with their little house, and also a garden yard as well! Inside their little garden run they get to have goodies from the garden and clippings and anything else that they get. Such pretty birds… all golden lace Wyandottes! Pretty birds!!! I love what they did with the picket on the outside of their fencing… I’m pretty sure I might want to try doing that! I do have some cute white plastic fence that would look adorable out on the lil’ coop’s run! Hmmm…..
Well, we got Beulah home, in the back of Blue of course, and she was pretty upset at leaving Mom and Sissy… Poor thing, she bleated and baa-ed all evening. Wandering about, pretty much lost. Our other little ewe that we kept, Emma, she was so excited at her best friend’s return that she was dancing about and nuzzling her and wanting Beulah to come and play, but Beulah was beside herself in misery. Grandma Noel kept sniffing her and seemed very puzzled. I’m pretty sure she had the scent of Holly, her daughter, but yet, was not quite right. Still Noel was trying to hang with her, and just sort of watch over her a bit.
Beulah would not calm down and join the flock. She just kept bawling all evening long. It was terrible. Everyone else went to the barn to go to sleep but Beulah just hung out by the screen porch door, bawling until it sounded like if she was a human kid, she’d either be puking or fall into an exhausted stupor of numbed sleep. I had been checking on her often, worried I might be taking her back to Terry’s in the morning. So at 2 am, in my jammies, I’m out to check on our little first born. I brought a little pail with some sweet feed in it, and she came over to me, hesitantly, yet alone and scared. Our yard is dark and I imagine a little two and half month old lamb, no matter how much she insists she’s a big girl, is still a little baby at heart. We had a little chin rubbie session and a bit of a talk and she ate her treat and stopped bawling for a few minutes. I picked her up and walked her back to the paddock. Grandma Noel was standing at the gate, watching me. She’s the herd queen and always alert, even in the evening when everyone else is in the barn, snoozing. I plopped her granddaughter down at her feet and gave Noel the rest of the feed treat. Then I shut up the gate and locked everyone in.
Noel sniffed and nuzzled Beulah for a moment, but then Beulah went over to the fence and began bawling again. It was heart wrenching. We had nothing of this sort of drama from the mommas when they were separated from most of their lambs a few days before. I was just about to think that I was going to have to bring her inside into a dog crate and call Terry in the morning, when a strange thing happened. Noel walked over and stood shoulder to her little granddaughter and turned to stare out into the darkness and baa along with her. It was like she didn’t know quite what to do, but that somehow sharing the burden and just hanging with her, was all that she could figure out to do. And Beulah just looked at her and seemed to sigh a bit, stand a little closer and they kept up alternating baas for another hour or so. Then finally it stopped. When I peeked out, I saw the pair, out in the darkness of the yard, setting together in silence. Sleeping, I suppose. But finally quiet. I guess Noel just seemed to know that Beulah needed a little more time to work it all out.
Come morning, Beulah and Emma were playing with Travis. They all came running when it was chow time and there was no more of the heart wrenching drama of the evening before. Noel was close by, checking on her new charge, her replacement daughter. The flock was content again. There would be no upset call to Terry about a sad lamb. Everyone was fine in the morning.
Guess there’s a lesson in that. Everyone needs their own space to deal with changes. Sometimes they don’t want it to get better right away, but that just having someone there to share that dark time with you makes all the difference.
Never thought I would learn this from a flock of sheep on a little three acre homestead.
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