In the Beginning...

Hello!  Welcome to the blog for Ugly Dog's Farm...


In the Beginning...

My name is Rich and I grew up in the northern suburbs of Detroit.  I have always had an interest in animals although my experience growing up was limited to a pet parakeet and a pet rabbit.  However, my uncle rescued some BLM donkeys when I was a kid and I have fond memories of following them around with a camera and some wild carrot.  My uncle also had peacocks, guinea fowl, and at least one barn cat.

In my college years I went to a co-op school where all students worked in industry every other three months.  At one of my jobs, I became good friends with a woman who owned and showed horses.  I started visiting her family on weekends and we would build fences, paint barns, build horse shelters, ride horses, go to horse shows, accidently start pasture fires, etc.  Through this friendship, a love of horses grew and eventually when opportunity knocked, I bought my first horse.


Mind you, at this time, I still lived at home and my mother was sure that I was "putting the cart before the horse" so to speak...  I assured her time and again that I did not own a cart.  Clearly though, it was time to find a place of my own where I could "have my horse and ride it too".  I was very lucky to find a really nice place situated on a 4500 acre equestrian park with many miles of beautiful horse trails.  Horses are like potato chips - you can't have just one, and they are constantly making more...

In 2002, I met Wayne who also had horses as well as dogs - truth be told, there are few animals he has not owned at one time.  We quickly decided to join forces and consolidate our farms - we have trail ridden our horses all over the midwest. 

Our farm name came from one of our beloved dogs...  Cy is a Belgian Malinois who we named "Coyote Ugly" after the beautiful girls in the movie of the same name.  She is affectionately refered to as "The Ugly Dog" and naming the farm in her honor was a no brainer.

In 2006 Wayne and I were introduced to a local sheep farmer and when she mentioned she was in the middle of lambing time, I could not help but to invade her farm and see the babies.  I had never been interested by sheep until that time...  I had thought of sheep as long coated goats, and I am not overly fond of goats.  Honestly, we were so intrigued by the sheep and the antics of the lambs that we immediately bought 2 suffolk ewe lambs.  We built a shed for them and a good size paddock.  We quickly found out that, like horses, sheep were also like potato chips...  and we craved MORE!


We were lucky to have exposure to a number of different sheep breeds and fell in love with the look and personality of the Border Cheviot.  Further research revealed that they were known to be good mothers, quite prolific, mild flavored, and easy keeping.  We were hooked - and still are!

Our search for breeding stock yeilded 6 aged ewes from a few farms here in Michigan, and a 5 month old ram lamb from the Simeral farm in southern Ohio.  One of the aged ewes turned out to be VERY aged and had a stroke and had to be put down in mid-winter.  The other 5 ewes (4 of which appeared to be old maiden ewes) blessed us with a 200% lambing rate our first year.


Our 2nd lambing season was just as successful and our 7 ewes (5 cheviot and 2 suffolks) yeilded 14 healthy lambs - we sure thought we were the world's most excellent shepherds...


It was at this time that our friend, who raises Merinos, bought a new ram from California that ended up winning Supreme Champion Ram at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.  While this friend got some awesome lambs out of this ram, she was pretty suprised to get a few BLACK merinos!  Anybody who breeds sheep knows that genetics can do some crazy things and while these sheep were pretty spectacular, our friend had no interest in breeding Natural Colored "Fine Wools".  This turned out to be to our GREAT benefit.


We added a few of these black Merinos to our flock and have had amazing success with breeding, showing, and promoting our farm.  Along the way, we also were given a purebred white Merino ewe lamb at a day old...   She is a story all her own and I will let you read about that here:  Annie's Story


We had so much fun with our "Old Style" Border Cheviots, and our Natural Colored Merinos, that in 2008 we decided to look for another rare breed to add to our operation.  Research and web-surfing let us to Clun Forest Sheep.  In the summer of 2009 we brought home four Clun Forest ewes and an aged ram from Michele Stute of Little Prairie Cluns in East Troy, WI.


And finally, this fall we decided to sell our three suffolk ewes which were our start in the sheep business.  They have been awesome mothers and produced some amazing and fast growing lambs for us...  It was time to focus solely on our purebred flocks and to let the Suffolk girls go help another relatively new shepherd gain confidence and grow some awesome lambs.  The ewes are in with our Cheviot ram right now and will go to their new home within the next month.

So that is brief history of the farm...   a starting place to help frame the stories to be posted in the future...  There are many details I will add over time - I hope to make this blog somewhat entertaining, somewhat educational, and somewhat accurate!!!


Rich