We have had some wonderful success with our Natural Colored Merino flock, but this year we had gone as far as we could with the genetics we had available here at the farm... We just didn't want to end up with lambs named Bubba who were their own cousin, uncle, and grandpa so it was time to look for an outside ram.
The challenge is finding a quality, black Merino ram with a pedigree showing that he is truly a Merino... There are a lot of percentage Merinos out there with nice color, but we really wanted to stick with what we already had going for us. Not to mention that as soon as you cross another breed in there to get the black color (usually they use a Corriedale), your color heritability changes completely and you can no longer predict with much accuracy what color lambs you might expect out of your flock.
After much searching, poking, prodding and all of the usual "stressing out" that I put in to any decision, we have made arrangements to purchase a beautiful, smooth bodied, polled, Merino ram from Terry and Steve Mendenhall of Mendenhall Wool Ranch in Loma Rica, California.
Terry put up with all of my questions, and sent us a fleece sample (which is WONDERFUL) and she has agreed to bring the ram to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival in May. Wayne will be there helping our friends from Pitchfork Ranch show their sheep and they have generously offered to trailer the ram home after the show.
Introducing "Mendenhall 9146"...
We have at least one ewe who will "meet" this boy as soon as he arrives... maybe we'll be lucky enough to get fall lambs!?!??!
He is a lovely erm I mean handsome fellow!
ReplyDeleteHe does look really great! I'll be needing a new goat for the new blood in my goat herd too.
ReplyDeleteTeresa
The first thing that came to mind when you wrote 'natural color' was a line from Bosom Buddies in Mame... "if I kept my hair natural like yours, I'd be bald".
ReplyDeleteLooks beautiful !!
He is beautiful! Nicely done!
ReplyDelete