Woodland Creek Farm Soay Sheep and Raven's Call Vineyard and Winery

Grapes all harvested, vineyard all pruned.

2009-11-02T20:30:00.000-08:00

It's been pretty frosty here overnight for the last couple days. I've been watching my pitiful Pinot blanc crop, and finally picked the surviving cluster.

Pinot blanc

This clump tested out at only 16 Brix - meaning there was very little sugar development in the last few weeks. I guess when the temperature is rarely above 50 degrees F there isn't much more development. Time to pick in mid-October - next year.

All of the vines have been now pruned. I forget the name of the method I'm using. It trains two lateral cordons off the upright stem at about 30 inches. A second high wire at about 5 feet will accept the upright growth next year from spurs on the cordons.

Overview of the Madeleine Angevine and Regents

Showing the training style.

About all that is left now for harvest are the kiwis. All in all a good year on the farm.

Fall harvest at Woodland Creek / Raven's Call

2009-10-21T17:34:00.000-07:00

Time to recap some of our fall harvest and button things up for the winter.
The Regent grapes were harvested on 09-Oct-09. I had about 35 lbs from the 32 plants in the vineyard. Brix tested at 19 - not bad for Puget Sound AVA. I still chaptalized the must to 25 Brix - went a bit overboard.

Regent Grapes

Birds were starting to feast on them.

The 2009 Regent harvest

The same day the Syrah from the prior week was ready to press. Some additional modifications to the home-built press now have it working quite well. Time to rebuild it in oak.

Pressing the Yakima Valley Syrah

The 100 lbs of Syrah yielded about 7 gallons of wine into the secondary fermenters.
The Yakima Viognier has been racked to a secondary fermenter (6 gallons), and the Madeleine Angevine as well (3 gallons). I currently have 6 varieties under airlock right now.
As for other crops - our two chestnut trees both produced well this year. The trees are each about 12 years old now - having been planted before we built our house here. One is a seedling from nuts from the tree in the backyard of our prior residence, the other is a seedling from a heritage tree - the "Carson Chestnut" located in the interchange at Highway 167 and Meridian just north of the Puyallup River bridge north of Puyallup. Quite a magnificent tree.
At any rate, this year I detected clear difference in the bur sizes, nut sizes, and ripening time between the two trees. I did some on-line research and decided that the earlier one, with larger nuts, from the Carson Chestnut, must be a Spanish chestnut, Castanea sativa. (I just did a google search and this site http://www.halcyon.com/tmend/heritageplants.htm asserts that the Carson Chestnut, planted before 1861, is C. sativa). The other tree has to be Chinese Chestnut, C. mollisima. I also have a couple American chestnuts C. dentata, one of which finally produced nuts inside the usually empty burs. Boy, are those nuts tiny. Here is the entire crop.

The darker ones (darker only because they ripened sooner) in the back on on the left are Spanish chestnuts. The lighter tray in the front right are the Chinese. And the few tiny ones on the bowl are the American. Despite their tiny size, the American chestnuts are by far the tastiest. We probably had 35 to 40 pounds of chestnuts - time to find some recipes.

Harvest time at Raven's Call Vineyard

2009-09-27T17:47:00.000-07:00

Wow - hard to believe so much time has gone by since last posting. But today's work was a good trigger for a new post. We decided, given the weather forecast (cold and rainy for the next 4 or 5 days) that we had better go ahead and pick the Madeleine Angevine grapes. They have been looking good and individual grapes measuring in the 16 to 19 Brix (% sugar - target would be 22 to 25, but hard to do in Puget Sound).

Row of Madeleine Angevine Mid-Sep-09.

Two year vines.

Mad Ang

Row of Regent - two year plants in foreground. Mad Ang in background.

Regent grapes.
It is very hard for me to estimate grape crop yields (yet, as this is only the second year on the plants!). We bought 100 pounds of Viognier (white) and Syrah (red) yesterday from a fellow who brought over 5,000 pounds from Yakima. We processed those on Saturday.

35 pounds of Viognier grapes

Viognier grape cluster with vintage crusher in background.

Syrah grapes from Yakima

At any rate, while my home-built press did a fair job of pressing the white grapes, in the end Michelle extracted quite a bit more juice from the pressings by using her Roma extractor.

Pressing Viognier

Final extraction from Viognier using Roma extractor.
In the end we produced about 8 gallons of juice from the Viognier. The Syrah, a red, is of course not pressed yet but is fermented on the skins. The must for the Syrah is about 12 gallons in the primary fermenter.

But back to the local harvest. I decided to pick the Mad Ang, since everything related to the crush, including the garage floor, was covered in a sticky film from the Saturday crush. Here is our first significant harvest at Raven's Call.

First harvest at Raven's Call - Madeleine Angevine - 27-Sep-09

Decent cluster of Mad Ang.

Total 2009 Mad Ang harvest. 37 pounds of grapes.

Hard to tell, but there is about 12 inches of grapes in the tub.

In the end we had about 3 gallons of pressed Mad Ang juice. All three musts are fermenting merrily now!

Raven's Call Vineyard Update

2009-07-13T06:25:00.000-07:00

Yes, I re-named the vineyard this winter. It is now "Raven's Call". I expended a fair bit of effort this past winter digging up every other row of grapes I planted last summer, as I determined that the 3-foot spacing between rows was not going to be practical. Not enough room between to maintain.

This required extending rows, and adding more rows, which required clearing space already planted to small trees. Then I built trellis's using my own hand-split cedar posts. The style I'm going to try trains two permanent cordons from each plant onto a main wire at about 30 inches, and each year's new growth will then reach for (hopefully) the upper wire at about 60 inches. Here are the results as of early July.

The Madeleine Angevine grapes are doing the best by far. About 80% have grapes - about 3 to 5 clusters per plant.

The berries seem a bit small to me, given the good block of warm weather we've had, but I may be way off.

But the Regent are not too far behind, as far as foliage. But only about 20% of them have fruit.
The Pinot Blanc and Pinot Noir are way behind, but at least they are looking much better than last year. They didn't even warrant building the first 30-inch trellis wire yet.

I purchased cuttings of three more varieties this spring: Muller-Thurgau, Siegerrebe, and Pinot Gris. I had about 90% success on 35 cuttings each so have about 30 each, so another 100 or so plants to plant out. But first I have to clear out more space for them... it's always something.

2009 Soay sheep lambing season at Woodland Creek Farm

2009-07-11T06:04:00.000-07:00

Wow - too much going on in the last 6 months to post to the blog!

Our 2009 lambing season here at Woodland Creek is done now. After last year's more-than-20 Soay lambs, and carrying WAY too many sheep through the winter on purchased hay, we significantly downsized the flock and intentionally did not breed quite a few of the ewes. Couple that with a couple too-immature rams that didn't get the job done, and some targeted but immature yearling ewes and we only had 7 lambs this year. But a nice set.

Our final lamb of the year, born 03-Jul-09, was a very pleasant surprise. First, the dam, Woodland Creek Sienna, was not impregnated as planned by my chosen ram (as were none of his target ewes - he's gone now.)

So I did not intend to breed her at all, but in transferring ewes she slipped by me and got in with another group of ewes already bred to a different ram (but the ram had been removed). THEN, the ram in the adjacent breeding group knocked the gate open and "merged" with the supposedly already-bred ewes. Although I didn't witness it, it is now obvious that the escaped ram had an ulterior motive... So here is the surprise. Sienna is a dark reddish-brown mouflon. She lambed while we were out of town, and we returned to the scene portrayed below.

Woodland Creek Sienna and her 2009 ewe lamb, Moenkopi

Obviously, Sienna had a light phase lamb (and happily, it's a ewe). I quickly referenced the pedigrees to see how this could have happened. The sire, Woodland Creek Chico, is light phase, so no surprise there - he HAD to contribute a Bb (light phase brown) gene. But I had no idea that Sienna was carrying a "hidden" copy of the light phase. Looking back, I note her sire was Blue Mountain Juniper. Some may know that Juniper, also dark phase, was identified as carrying one copy of the (recessive, thus "hidden", not expressed) Bb gene when he sired the sort-of-famous Red Deer, who was light phase, thus homozygous Bb/Bb, thus HAD to get a copy of Bb from Juniper. (I have owned Juniper since shortly after he sired that crop of lambs at Blue Mountain).

So the light phase lamb Moenkopi proves that Sienna received one copy of the light phase gene from Juniper (well, sort of "proves" - there is a tiniest of chance that her dam, Maddie, had a light phase gene, although from pedigrees it seems highly improbable).

The interesting thing, (interesting to me, anyway) is that the light phase that Juniper carries came from the RBST ram Triumph. Some feel that the light phase in the NA Soays came from outside the Soay breed, and is somehow "different" from the honest-to-goodness light phase from RBST Soays. Moenkopi then will have one copy of Bb from each, so it will be interesting to see if her phenotype is discernably different from my NA Soay light phase.

Our "Black and White" Soay breeding group produced 4 B&W lambs. Some may know we are trying to extend the extent of coverage of the recessive white spotting onto the solid black coat pattern of the recessive self-colored agouti. We had one very good extent of white spotting in the ram lamb Lakotah, sired by our matriarch B&W ewe Blue Mountain Thumper.

Woodland Creek Lakotah - ram. Thumper X Chilcoot.

Lakotah has a nice white cap, and a wide blaze, a nice throat "bib", and a "necklace". Very similar, but a bit more extensive, than his sister from last year, Athena (same dam and sire).

W.C. Athena-e '08, W.C. Lakotah-r '09 and dam to both B.M. Thumper '00.

We had another nice B&W ewe lamb out of W.C. Raven, a ewe out of the Teed line of Soays.

Woodland Creek Aspen-e '09. Raven X Chilcoot

We also had 2 other B&W rams, but both only had minor white spots, so not too exciting. Our best B&W ram from last year, Yosemite '08, did not mature sufficiently to sire our '09 lambs, so we used the same ram as the prior year, Chilcoot. Yosemite is finally maturing some this summer, so he appears to be in the lineup for this fall.

W.C. Yosemite-r '08. Cinnamon X Chilcoot.

We also had some lambs born into our hoped-for-but-long-odds self-colored light phase group, but no hits on the double homozygous recessive jackpot.

Enough for now.

Saturday, 7-Apr-07 – Another Orphan Soay Sheep Lamb

2007-04-10T21:50:00.000-07:00

Still no lambs from Woodland Creek Farm .Soay Sheep ewes. Jack, the orphan lamb, is eating just fine. We introduced him to his new flock companions, putting him in with the ewe flock. There was a lot of curious sniffing, and Jack tried futilely to find an available milk spigot by checking under every ewes hind leg, but alas, none was to be found in working order yet (remember, no lambs yet at Woodland Creek Farm).

So Happy Jack feeds well all day Saturday, and he runs with the ewes, even crossing the (now nearly dry) Woodland Creek several times. One ewe, Kaya, has taken an interest in looking after him, even though she is not showing any signs yet of impending birth of her own lamb. Obviously, she cannot respond to his attempts to feed him, but she crosses and re-crossed the creekbed repeatedly to urge him safely across. Odd to me, as most of the ewes simply ignore him. Kaya is only a 2-year-old, and was honestly only a mediocre mother in her inagural lambing last year. Perhaps she is getting the hang of it.
So after bottle feeding Jack for his bedtime feeding about 10PM, I come back to find my cell phone ringing, and it is the nearby Soay breeder of the orphaned Jack again. With obvious consternation, she describes that she may have gotten mixed up in the confusion of dark of night and 4 nearly-identical lambs with 2 ewes, swirling around while trying to evade capture - and after observing the remaining 3 lambs all day Saturday, she now fears she captured and brought the wrong lamb. So we discuss our options, and to make a long story short(er), she brings a second orphan lamb over late on Saturday night! Since we now fear that the scent of the lamb replacer has now passed through the first lamb and he will be rejected by his mother, we decide not to risk hauling him back and maybe having to "re-orphan" him... so now we have 2 orphan Soay lambs. The second lamb eats greedily from a bottle and is put to bed on a full stomach, so we are confident he too is in good shape.

Sunday, 8-Apr-07. OMG - Another orphan Soay lamb.

2007-04-11T04:51:00.000-07:00

Both the new Soay orphan ram lambs, Jack and the newly-named Champ, are feeding well and both go out with the ewe flock for the day. Both look very strong, and although there was some sign of scours developing, we tried the canned goat's milk diet starting mid-Saturday, and that seems to be 'firming them up'. Kaity, our daughter, is quite smitten with the tiny new lambs.

My plan for the day was to visit yet another long-time Soay sheep breeder who lives up north on Camano Island - Tracy Teed. Tracy has a very interesting Soay sheep flock. In many ways she has duplicated, in isolation from other flocks, the "regeneration" of a Soay phenotype when starting with a very small starting base of Soays and utilizing some unavoidable (and unfortunately fairly un-traceable) mixing of other breeds. This is essentially the history of the so-called "North American" Soay group in the Pacific Northwest. (This history can be best read on Kathie Miller's Southern Oregon Soays website.)

At any rate, the current Teed flock arose from only 7 Soays that were carefully chosen (by phenotype) in 1999 from a 11-year "open-flock breeding" that began in 1988 with Soays from Bev Driscoll down in Oregon. Bev got her stock from Dean Lewis (also in Oregon), who brought the first Soay ram into the Pacific NW US in about 1985. I have worked with Tracy to document the flock development, including historical photos, and someday hope to get that information organized enough to post.

So Tracy's flock has grown exponentially since the 7-Soay start in 1999. There have been no outside additions to the flock, and it was always run as a fully open-breeding flock - whatever ram(s) were most persistent were successful at breeding. A few rams were removed fromt the flock over the years, but largely they were left alone. When I first visited in 2005, I was amazed at the phenotypic diversity, which clearly showed presence of considerable genetic diversity for coat color genes. Of course the bulk of the flock was typical dark phase wild (or mouflon) pattern, there was also about 5% self-colored blacks (dark phase), and also perhaps 10% exhibited white spotting. I acquired 5 Teed Soays in that first visit, and intended to re-visit and check out new lambs each year.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, and Tracy tells me she is planning a major flock reduction. I figure I better get up there and check them out before missing out on ones I might like to add to my breeding program. Anyone familiar with my Soay interests will know that one line I am cultivating is self-colored blacks. So not only do I find two very fine-looking self-colored black ewes at Tracy's, she shows me her pen of bottle-fed orphan lambs and I decide to also take an unusual white-faced ewe lamb as well. Here are the 3 new Teed Soay sheep we added to our flock. (Click photo to enlarge).

The ewe on the left, polled, has been named Tlingit. The ewe in the center (one I spied, and coveted, in 2005, and now finally own!) is named Cariboo. She has (for a self-colored black Soay) an unusual very light coloration to her horns. Finally, on the right, unfortunately looking away from the camera in this photo, is white-faced orphan ewe lamb, Sadie.

So here we are, in only 40 hours going from never having a bottle lamb to having 3 going at once.

We have spotted, in the last few weeks around here, one or more bald eagles flying very low, seeming to check out neighboring farms lambs. I am very concerned for our tiny Soay lambs safety. While out checking on the new orphan lambs on Sunday, I was startled when I suddenly realized that a pile of dried leaves I was passing had something alive in it's midst. Here a photo of a pretty effectively camouflaged day-old Soay lamb (Champ). (Click photo to enlarge).

First lamb of 2007 born at Woodland Creek!

2007-04-12T08:36:00.000-07:00

I thought this day was never going to come. All my Soay sheep breeder colleagues have seemingly been having lambs for months. Finally, this morning when I went out at 6:30 to feed the 3 orphan lambs we collected over this last weekend, out stepped Happy Valley Maddie - a smooth, hairy coated dark 'mahogany' NA Soay, and at her heels... a self-colored (that is, solid) black lamb! What a surprise.
Most know that I am breeding for blacks, however Maddie was not considered a contender. Although way back in her pedigree is she has Butu, out of Westwood Zeus, whom I consider to be certainly the origin of much of the s-c black in the PNW NA Soays, I know of know evidence for several preceding generations that they actually passed on hidden s-c black. I must say though, that my speculative hypothesis - that very dark wild pattern NA Soays have a high likelihood of carrying one copy of the recessive s-c agouti gene - is borne out by this birth. (Also supported by Atlas, Basalt, Bella, Fedan, and others).
At any rate - here they are: (Click on photo to enlarge).

The little guy's name immediately popped into my head - Cherokee. (Yes, I know there has been or is a prior Soay in the PNW named Cherokee, but this is MY Cherokee). Woodland Creek Cherokee's sire is the self-colored black ram Deer Park Hjemstad's Thor. You can look up all pedigrees on the OFP if you are interested in such things.

I put Maddie and Cherokee off in a little fresh pasture by themselves, but then let the 3 orphan lambs join them. Who knows, maybe Maddie will adopt one of them. Judging by the size of Maddie's udder (that is, huge) she could easily feed another lamb. Cherokee is eating fine and playing already.

Here are the 3 "weekend orphans" meeting their new playmate.

What a day! Now at last I have a Farmall Cub Tractor

2007-04-12T16:58:00.000-07:00

I have wanted for many years to own a International Farmall Cub tractor. I have watched eBay auctions, local ads, farm ads, and it always seemed that the good deals were in Ohio or New York or somewhere back East. It is way too expensive to go that far for a little tractor. There have been a few locally, and in each case there were many mechanical problems, parts missing, cracked radiator bases, welded blocks, etc. etc. So today as I leave our property to run an errand, there, about 1,000 yards down our street, is a Farmall Cub parked at the road with a For Sale sign on it.
After returning from my errands and go inspect the tractor. It is in very good shape. So now I own it. Runs fine - I drove it home! Here it is: (click photo to enlarge).

By the serial number it is a 1948 Cub. It has a faded, worn sticker showing that it was perhaps sold but at least serviced right here in Puyallup, Washington. Nice to have a "local".

Don't try this at home.

2007-04-15T17:22:00.000-07:00

Well, after offering up advice on a sheep discussion group at how to readily capture our wild, leaping Soay sheep, I run into, (literally) trouble myself. I was giving yearling Soay sheep rams their annual vaccinations, worming, and hoof trimming. This involves first capturing, then 'man-handling' the sheep into submission. Soay sheep are not very large, particularly not yearling rams, so it is a 'one-man job'. Normally. I had successfully captured, treated, and moved a couple older rams already, and was turning my attention to the third of the rams, a yearling. I chased them all back behind the shed into a dead-end alleyway, then I get ready to capture the one I want by grabbing him by the horns as he rushes by me.
The only thing is that certain Soay sheep love to leap. This one, Woodland Creek Chico, eluded me on the first pass by leaping about 4 feet high (at least it seemed that high) and as he sailed by me, he kicked his back legs and I thought to myself that his hoof came pretty close to my eyes. Probably should be wearing safety glasses (which I usually do, as the ewe horns can stab you right in the eye as you are handling them). But of course I don't want to walk all the way back to the garage to get safety glasses. So I round them up again, and again try to nab little Chico.
(here is the mug shot of the perp)

This time, as he sails by in the air about 4 feet high, somehow his devilish little horns come smack into contact with the bridge of my nose. I go down to my knees like a shot, blood pouring out of my nose. I cannot believe I just did this. It was such a shocking blow that I am sure my nose is broken. I am so mad that I am going to look like such an idiot to get my nose broken by a little 60-lb sheep. I had just previously called my wife on the cell phone to have her bring me the vaccine from the refrigerator (you know - dirty sheep boots and can't go in the house) so I knew she was in the shower and wouldn't answer the phone. I have a handkerchief staunching the blood flow, but tipping my head back I can feel blood running down my throat (sorry if this grosses anyone out - it sure did me!). I can't go in the house with sheep-crap boots, but finally I get them off and go in and holler for my wife. She calls our son, who is a EMT / Firefighter, and he says DON't tip your head back - you'll swallow blood and throw up...
So anyway, to make a long story short, my nose wasn't broken. The bleeding stopped. There is a pretty good chunk out of the outside of my too. And no, I won't be posting any photos of the results to my nose.
Now I recommend using the giant salmon landing net that I have used on previous occasions.

Bottle Soay Sheep lambs - status update

2007-04-20T05:41:00.000-07:00

The orphaned bottle lambs we took on two weeks ago are thriving. It was a blessing in disguise to get 3 at once, as they have become great chums. We did not have any of our own flock lambs at that time, and without their mothers around to hang out with, I think a single bottle baby would have been very lonely. We keep all 3 bottle lambs in with the ewe flock, and to my relief all 3 are remaining pretty skittish EXCEPT at feeding time. Once they are done, they are off like a shot and cannot be caught (unless you corner them with the infamous salmon net, of course). I don't want the problematic tame bottle-baby ram issue when the two ram lambs grow up.
Here is a photo of the three of them a couple days ago. They are, left to right, Champ -r, Sadie - e, and Jack - r. (Click photo to enlarge)

We have now had two lambs born at Woodland Creek Farm so far this year. They are very late this year for some reason (well, the reason is obvious - they were bred late. I mean the reason for that is unclear...) Here is our first-born 2007 lamb, Woodland Creek Cherokee '07 - r.

Here's a photo of Cherokee standing. He is heterozygous for white spotting (a 'carrier'), but therefore does not exhibit any white.

Our second lamb was from a 'wild' or 'mouflon' pattern ewe, but with a self-colored black sire (Thor) the lamb has to be heterozgous for agouti self-colored (that is, she is a 'carrier'). Here is Woodland Creek Arikara. Dam is Massena's Rosita, sire is Deer Park Hjemstad's Thor.

Very nice to have enough lambs to play with each other on the scrap hay pile.

Oops! I did it again...

2007-04-23T06:51:00.000-07:00

I guess this bottle lamb thing is contagious. Yesterday I picked up yet another bottle Soay sheep lamb - our fourth one for this year. I discovered from a fellow Soay sheep breeder that a lamb had in her flock had been orphaned when the dam died trying to deliver a second, stillborn, breach lamb. This is not just any ewe, but the venerable old Blue Mountain Velvet. Some of you may know that she was a self-colored black ewe and had the distinction of being one of only about 4 or 5 Soays in North America ever known to have triplets - and one of only 3 where all 3 survived.
More importantly, this little ram lamb is marked just the way I like them - homozygous for both self-colored black and white spotting genes. Here is what the little guy (Blue Mountain Orca) looks like. He is with his buddy the bottle lamb Jack: (click photo to enlarge)

Now the only real problem is feeding 4 bottle lambs at once. Everybody is pushing and shoving and near death of starvation, so there is no waiting patiently. I taped two of the milk bottles together with duct tape, making a 'double-barrel' feeding bottle. That way, with one bottle between my knees, the double-barrel in my right hand, and a single in my left, all 4 lambs fed successfully at once this morning!

Phenotype of Soay sheep carriers of agouti self-color gene

2007-04-25T04:57:00.000-07:00

We had another Soay sheep lamb born at Woodland Creek Farm on Monday morning (23-Apr-07). Massena's Rosalina gave birth to a nice little ewe, Yaquina. The sire was Deer Park Hjemstad's Thor, a self-colored black NA Soay ram. Therefore, the ewe lamb has to carry one copy of the self-color allele at the agouti gene locus (controls coat pattern - self-colored (solid coat pattern) or wild (aka 'mouflon') pattern are the two choices found in Soay sheep). Here is a photo of day-old Yaquina.

While it is somewhat hard to tell in a photo of her standing by herself, she is quite dark and to me supports my strengthening hypothesis that there is a correlation between very dark coat colors and s-c agouti carriers. I have assembled a photo folder in my Picasa album showing those NA Soays that lead me to believe there is more than a circumstantial correlation. If you visit our web site and click on the Gallery button, then the Picasa album, you will find the folder.

http://woodlandcreekfarm.com

Now don't misunderstand me - I'm not yet claiming I have proof that ALL NA Soay carriers of s-c agouti will be very dark, nor that all very dark NA Soays are carriers, but IF I had one that was very dark and it were possible that they were a carrier (one parent a known carrier, for example), I would say that it is a decent bet that the dark Soay carried it.
To me this may well explain the observation of many that the Blue Mountain stock is well-known for producing many "mahogany" NA Soays. Since the majority of the NA Soays with self-colored agouti alleles arose from stock from Blue Mountain, it is logical (and known) that many of these "mahogany" Soays carry the s-c agouti allele. This would also mean that if the phenotype of a heterozygote at agouti locus has a distinctly darker coat than homozygous wild agouti pattern, the wild allele is not fully dominant over the recessive self-colored allele.
Of course this is somewhat of a no-risk contention, because given a dark phenotype, one can never prove for certain that a Soay DOES NOT have a copy of the s-c allele, no matter how many lambs they produce.

More Evidence for phenotype hypothesis

2007-04-30T21:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I received a phone call from a Soay sheep client from last year. He purchased Massena's Bonita - a self-colored black horned ewe, and Bad Goat Bog Fedan - dark mouflon pattern ram. They produced twin ram lambs about a month ago, and the results add additional support to my contention that "carriers" of the self-colored agouti allele (heterozygous for the recessive allele) tend to be very dark mouflon pattern. Here is a photo of the dam and sire and the twin lambs. (The client also has the two blackbelly crosses shown in the photo - don't be thinking they are oddly marked Soay sheep!). (Click to enlarge photo.)

To be clear, since the dam is self-colored black, she had to give one copy to each twin, so they are heterozygous for the self-colored agouti gene. The twin ram lambs are not only dark, but like their sire they have a very strong load of the reddish-brown pheomelanin pigment. These are going to be quite nice looking rams. You may note that the ram on the left also has white spotting exhibited. Although you can't see it in this photo, the sire Fedan has a white poll spot and a white spot on the side of his neck. But for the ram lamb to exhibit white, he has to be homozygous, thus had to get a copy from his dam Bonita. I had no clue from Bonita's prior 4 lambs (all of whom I own) that she carried white spotting. You may note that Fedan was a ram I included in my Picasa album as a suspect for carrying self-colored black, so I halfway expected black lambs from his breeding with Bonita. (This outcome of course does not prove he doesn't carry black.)

My conviction about the phenotype of very dark mouflon Soay sheep being heterozygous for self-colored is growing stronger.

June Soay lamb at Woodland Creek Farm

2007-06-30T06:01:00.000-07:00

Normally Soay sheep are done lambing by the last of May, at the latest. But we had a lamb arrive on this last Wednesday (the 27th of June). I knew our new lamb was coming - in fact, we still have quite a few lambs to come. In our main breeding group – that of self-colored (“s-c”) blacks – this ewe that lambed Wednesday is our first s-c black ewe to lamb this year. That leaves 10 more s-c black ewes to go, and 3 heterozygous “carriers” of s-c black, each of which has a 50% odds of delivering s-c black. How did this happen?

Late last summer and into early fall, it was very dry here and the pasture stopped growing completely. I saw many local tall grass pastures in this area being mowed and just left lying (they were mowed for fire control or appearances). I started stopping in places and offering to pick up the hay, intending to store it for winter to offset some of my high hay costs. Instead I ended up feeding most of it in the summer and fall. The problem, I eventually figured out, is that although they were eating the hay (which was not usually picked up promptly after cutting and curing), it apparently was not sufficiently nutritious for them to really thrive. In particular the 2006 lambs did not mature well. Since of course I wanted to utilized the genetics of my newly-produced 2007 ram lambs when I made up my 5 or 6 breeding groups in winter of 2006, only one of those had a mature ram. All the rest had rams that, it turns out, did not mature enough to successfully breed until January or February or even March! (In the most extreme case, I am pretty certain I have a lamb due on September 9th - do the math…)
The same delayed maturity thing also affected the yearling ewe lambs, and I am pretty certain that none of them (7 or 8 of them) are not pregnant at all this year. So I learned my lesson. After I figured out the nutrition problem late in 2006 and got them back on good Eastern Washington grass hay (expensive!), they have matured nicely with no lasting effects, however I sure messed up my breeding season!
So I figure I still have 7 or 8 mature ewes that are pregnant.
I was envious of everyone else reporting all their spring lambs earlier this year (we had 5 in the spring from the mature ram), but now I can still look forward to more lambs to come all summer! (Guess I have to look on the bright side, right?).

The good news about the genotype and phenotype of this first summer lamb is that the lamb hit the mark exactly as far as what was expected from the underlying genetics as I am beginning to understand them. First, both parents were from my “Black and White” (B&W) group – that is – self-colored blacks that also are homozygous recessive for the white spotting gene, thus are “solid black” bodies with pure white, irregular patches. Since both self-colored at the agouti locus and having white spots are recessive traits, if both parents are homozygous for the recessive genes, each HAS to pass on one copy of the recessive allele, and thus ALL offspring have to also be B&W.

What is not well quantified is HOW MUCH white spotting the offspring is likely to have. I have studied this in the near-famous flock of Sue Furness in Wales, where she has over 10 years or so been able to breed some Soays with almost 100% white spotting – that is – they look like white sheep with only. From that data, and my own observations on my flock (for which about 80 or 90% are either heterozygous or homozygous for white spotting). It’s a long story, probably un-interesting to most, but in a nutshell, the white spotting is likely to show up in certain body locations in a certain order, and the extent of spotting increasing with each generation where both parents have similar extents. In a sense the predicted extent of white is additive to the parents extent. Like many Soay subjects, I have a partially prepared document describing all this in gory detail. Someday I will finish it sufficiently to post it.
Here are a couple photos of the dam, the lamb, and the sire.

Teed's Aja '05 and Woodland Creek Raven -e '07

Woodland Creek Pepper - r '06 (Raven's sire)

The new lamb (oh – here is the next good news – it was a EWE lamb! That contrasts against last year where every B&W lamb that I produced was a ram! I have 5 B&W rams! Anybody want one?). The other interesting part, from a genetics point of view, is that dam (Aja) is truly polled. If the ewe lamb (named Raven) ends up polled, she will be a combination of many of the far less common genotype / phenotypes in Soay in North America.

1948 Farmall Cub - first test with Cub-22 mower

2007-07-02T21:49:00.000-07:00

Well, I have cleaned, restored, and replaced all parts critical to getting the Cub up and running pretty well. I have also restored the Cub-22 sickle-bar mower I obtained, and this is how it all looks:

Here is a short movie demonstrating the mower (on short grass - just to get the idea).

July Soay Lamb - Another Black and White

2007-07-21T07:28:00.000-07:00

Our late lambing season for 2007 continues. We had our second "Black and White" Soay lamb of 2007 on 5-Jul-07. This lamb (genetically, self-colored agouti, Aa/Aa, Dark phase at Brown (that is, black), BB/B?, with white spotting, Ss/Ss) had to be a Black & White since both self-colored and white spotting are recessive, and both parents were homozygous for these traits, hence the lamb had to be also.
The dam, Teed's Cinnamon, is a "3-spot" Black and White. She has a poll spot, a forehead spot, and a spot on the side of her neck. The sire is Woodland Creek Pepper, a 1-spot Black and White. He has a nice white poll spot (see blog entry below for his photo - he is also the sire of our prior Black & White 2007 lamb.
This lamb was a ram, and he has been named Woodland Creek Shoshone. Here he is at about 2 days old, with his dam Cinnamon.

At first, when I saw Shoshone from a distance, I was very surprised to not see more white showing. In fact, it didn't appear that he exhibited any white at all, which should not be, given the parents genetics. Upon close inspection, Shoshone does have white spotting, however, it is restricted to a total of 5 white hairs on the top of his head. One begins to wonder how few hairs reliably designate the presence of white spotting gene.

The other thing that is somewhat unusual, from our lambing experience, was the developed state of Shoshone's horns. Even from a distance, immediately after his birth, I could surmise he was a ram because his horn buds were already very evident (see the photo above - where he is one day old). It will be interesting to see whether this "precocious" horn development translates into any particularly notable features in the adult ram.

Putting up hay with Farmall Cub and Cub-22 mower

2007-07-21T07:50:00.000-07:00

Now that I had the Cub and the sickle mower in apparently working condition, on the 4th of July I undertook mowing a 3-acre field of very tall grass. This field is several miles from our place, and is actually a vacant field next to (and owned by) a bank. Each year prior they paid someone to mow and leave the hay. This year I volunteered to mow it in order to cure it properly and carry it away (loose - I have no baler).
First I had to borrow a flatbed utility trailer from friendly and helpful neighbors up the road. I did get the Cub loaded successfully.

The trip up the hill to the field was un-eventful, and the mower worked very well for me, although it was slow going given the height of the grass (often it was as tall as the Cub - maybe 5 feet tall).

In all it took about 5 hours to knock down all the grass, and only 2 or 3 times did I find surprises in the grass (stumps, deep ruts, big rocks, etc.) but no damage to equipment in any encounter. I did have several mechanical failures on the mower, but each was field-repaired to keep it running. I was very pleased with the way the mower laid down the tall grass and rarely clogged.
Here's the overview at the end of the day.

The hay dried completely over the next day, but when I went to rake and pick it up, I discovered that I had waited too long to cut it - most of the field the grass was so coarse, with so little green, that I was certain the sheep would not eat it. I ended up harvesting perhaps 1/3 of what I had cut - but my committment to the bank was to cut as much as I could anyway, as their objective was simply to clean up the appearance and reduce fire risk.
Here's the nice little stack of hay I harvested from that plot.

At 10 feet wide by 15 feet long by average 8 feet high the pile is 1,200 cubic feet. I estimate the packing density to be about half what it would for a bale of hay. If a typical small bale is about 10 cubic feet, then I harvested about 60 bales equivalent, so not bad for a couple days work. That will save me a fair bit on hay costs this winter!

Late July Soay lamb - another Black and White

2007-07-31T05:58:00.000-07:00

Our late-season lambing continues with another Soay lamb born yesterday. This one was not a sure thing for coat pattern, as the dam (Blue Mountain Bunny) is heterozygous for self-colored agouti gene, and since it is recessive she does not show it, but instead shows the more typical brown wild (or mouflon) pattern. Since the sire was a self-colored black (Woodland Creek Pepper), she had a 50% chance of having an S-C black, and just like last year, she came through for us and had another S-C black.
But the best part is the white spotting. Many know that one of our flock breeding goals is to extend the degree of white spotting on a self-colored black Soay. As my developing theory on the extent of white spotting would predict, this new ram lamb (now named Chilcoot) does indeed have more white than either of it's parents.
Here is a photo of the dam, Bunny, and ram lamb,
Woodland Creek Chilcoot - r '07.

Here is a photo of the sire, Woodland Creek Pepper '06.

The only unfortunate part, for our breeding program, is that it is a ram lamb. (We now have 6 Black and White rams... way more than we need!).
While white spotting is fairly common in Soays in North American, white spotting on top of self-colored blacks is not very common. Of all the self-colored black Soays with white spotting I have known about ever produced in North America, this ram has the second-largest extent of white spotting I've ever seen. Note how the pattern of extension of white spotting in successive generations follows the (roughly) predicted pattern - first a poll "wisp" (like Chilkoot's grand-sire Kvasir has), then a poll spot (like Chilkoot's sire Pepper has), then usually a poll and forehead spot (like Bunny's '06 ram lamb Obsidian has), then these merge into a "crown" (like this lamb Chilkoot has), and then I predict next generation a blaze (note that this lamb has a tiny white spot on his nose - almost made a blaze), and eventually a white tail tip, and / or white "socks" on one or more feet, and so on.
To be clear here, the white spotting extent does not change on any lamb once it is born - I mean above that the extent of white spotting changes with each generation of offspring - not on any lamb once it is born.

The greatest extent of white spotting that I've ever seen documented on a self-colored black Soay in North America was Blue Mountain Thunder - e '01. She is the lamb in center of photo below, courtesy Kate Montgomery. Note that Thunder had a white tail tip too - the next place I expect white spotting to show up as I continue to "add white".

Note how similar the white markings are on my new lamb and Thunder, above. Thunder's dam was Blue Mountain Thumper (who lives here at Woodland Creek now). Thumper is also the dam of Pepper '06, the sire of my new ram lamb. And guess what - she is also the dam of Bunny '02 - the dam of my new ram lamb. Of course this didn't all happen by chance - it has taken years of seaching out and obtaining the stock to replicate the pattern shown in Thunder. (Thunder met an unfortunate early end at Blackhorse farm before she was registered or ever had offspring.)

Spring 2008 Soay Lambs are arriving.

2008-03-15T05:27:00.000-07:00

Yeah! My favorite time of year for raising Soay sheep. The lambs have started to arrive, and the results of the breeding for coat color genetics are starting to be revealed. Our first two ewes to lamb were both born to self-colored black ewes, each dam with hidden white (from their sire who was Ss/Ss). These two ewes happen to be twins, and oddly, lambed on the very same day. The sire was a wild pattern light phase ram with white spotting, so A+/A? Bb/Bb Ss/Ss.

Here is the sire, Woodland Creek Chico '06. (Click any photo for larger version).

Given the dam and sire coat color genetics, the lambs will be heterozygous at both the agouti and brown loci, and 50% odds at the white locus, that is, A+/Aa, BB/Bb, and 50% odds Ss/Ss and 50% SS/Ss. The phenotype of the lambs will thus be wild pattern dark phase, and may or may not have a white spot. The results are....

First Lamb of 2008 at Woodland Creek Farm: Sequoyah, a ram lamb, born to Woodland Creek Pearl.

He is indeed wild dark pattern, and does have a wisp of white at the poll. Later the same day his "close relative" Madeline, a ewe, was born to Pearl's twin sister, Olivia.

Madeline too is wild dark pattern, but does not have white spot showing.
Thus, the expected genetics and even the statistical odds were borne out precisely, even down to the gender odds. We have two dark wild coats, as they should have been, and "50% showing white spotting", and one ram and one ewe - 50%.
An even more interesting aspect of these two lambs to me is the actual coat colors, particularly the pheomelanic areas (belly, under tail and chin, etc). As I have posted previously, I have a developing conviction that with NA Soay sheep that are heterzygotes at agouti locus (that is, A+/Aa, as there are only two known alleles for Soay sheep at agouti)the coat pattern will be very dark, and the pheomelanic areas that called "copper" or darker. It is essentially the so-called "mahogany" phenotype. (See below in this post for some examples).
Of these two new lambs (although lamb coat colors will usually change somewhat in the firt year, even beyond simple sun-bleaching), Madeline in particular has a very dark pheomelanic areas. They are so dark that when she was freshly born and still wet, I thought for a while that she was actually self-colored, which would have been a BIG surprise as I do not think the sire carries self-color allele (but I can never be sure he doesn't - can't prove a negative, as they say).
The photo of Madeline below shows many of the areas where one would normally expect signals of the wild agouti pattern - kneecaps, under chin, around eyes, belly, inside ears, and except for lighter area between her hind legs, there is almost no pattern discerable (but live, on close examination, there is no question - she is wild pattern.)

So where is this particular breeding line headed? To those who know (or care about) the coat color genetics it will be obvious that breeding homozygous recessives at Brown locus with homozygous recessives at the agouti locus is the first step in getting parents that are heterozygotes at both, and thus have a possibility of producing in their offspring the very rare genotype that is homozygous recessive at both agouti and brown, and those will thus be the exceptionally rare self-colored light phase Soays, of which only two are ever known to have been produced in North America (both at Blue Mountain Soays last year - one ram, Hershey and one ewe, Snickers). Now that those two are available as parents (particularly the ram, who can cover a host of "already genetically prepared" ewes that are already either Aa/Aa, BB/Bb, or A+/Aa, Bb/Bb), I fully expect that more will show up this year, as several Soay sheep breeders are known to be seeking this phenotype. At Woodland Creek our main goal is not so much to simply have one or more of this phenotype, but instead to have sought out parents with the potential and bred them over several generations, testing our understanding of the underlying genetics, and to finally succeed in proving (if only to myself!) that I "get it".

More Soay sheep lambs.

2008-03-21T21:35:00.000-07:00

There have been 3 more Soay lambs born at Woodland Creek Farm in the last week. Two of those are the same coat color genotype as our first two lambs. That is, a wild-pattern, light phase ram with white spotting is the sire (in fact, the same sire as the first two lambs, Chico). Both dams of lambs 4 and 5 are self-colored blacks, and neither shows white spotting, although one for sure carries white (SS/Ss) whereas the other likely has no white, probably SS/SS. Both lambs have a very similar phenotype to the first two lambs - a fairly dark, red-brown coat with very dark pheomelanic areas.

Here is lamb #4 for this year, Woodland Creek Khyber, a ram, and his dam Deer Park Hjemstads Kaya.

Lamb #5 is Woodland Creek Chinook, a very dark lamb, and her dam Carmen.

...and yet more Soay sheep lambs at Woodland Creek

2008-03-23T07:28:00.000-07:00

Two more lambs born yesterday, both ewe lambs. One is particularly interesting to me, genetically. She is also the "self-colored light phase carrier" phenotype as with some of our other lambs this year, but instead of a self-colored dark phase dam and a wild pattern light phase ram, this lamb is the reverse parent coat colors. The dam, Frosty, is a wild pattern light phase with white spotting. The sire, WC Pepper, is a self-colored dark phase with white spotting. So the lamb phenotype is wild pattern, dark phase, with white spotting, but she is carrying "hidden" light phase and self-colored, so is A+/Aa, BB/Bb, Ss/Ss.

Here is Tahkenitch '08, e, DOB 22-Mar-08, and her dam Frosty.

Note that this ewe lamb has that same "clean" reddish-brown coat that seems to be typical for the "self-light carriers". All 5 so far share this similarity. I realize that to to those not too discerning about Soay sheep coat color variations (which is almost everybody...) these all look like brown sheep. Oh well.

Here is a shot of our first two 2008 lambs, Sequoyah and Madeline, lying in the sun at about 3 weeks of age.

If you want to see all of our "self-light carriers" we have a separate Picasa album set up here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/marrstree/SelfLightCarriers

Soay sheep lambs #8 and #9 for 2008 at Woodland Creek Farm - White spotting, light phase, and polled ewes.

2008-03-27T05:51:00.000-07:00

Two more Soay sheep lambs hit the ground on Tuesday. (No offense little lambie, but) one of them is a plain old common wild dark pattern with no white spotting - genetically very uninteresting. (Not sure how that breeding combination occurred in our flock!)

The other lamb is more interesting to me. It is from our "white spotting extent" phenotype breeding group. All these sheep have white spotting and I am testing the patterns of how the extent of coverage and locations of white spotting are changed with each generation. Most simply stated, the hypothesis, (as I have documented more completely here):

http://woodlandcreekfarm.com/Phenotypic%20Expession%20of%20the%20White%20Spotting%20Allele%20in%20Soay%20Sheep.pdf

is that the extent of white on the lamb is roughly a summation of white extent of the parents (not all that surprising, is it?).

Here is little ram Woodland Creek Laramie - DOB 25-Mar-08, and his dam Esperanza.

There is a second objective in our breeding program--and that is to test the hypothesis that light phase at Brown locus, in NA Soay population in the Pacific Northwest, has been traditionally very heavy in the pheomelanin component and this "masks" the light phase. I have been selecting those who show less and less "brassy red" in their coat, and this has been lightening the overall phenotype, bringing them (to my eye) more in line with the classic light phase coats shown by the NA RBST Soays in the PNW (aka "British" Soays).
As examples of this progression, I was convinced that Esperanza was light phase despite her fairly dark phenotype, and one of her twin lambs in 2006, Chico, was particularly light coated and a "flat" brown, rather than "coppery reddish" overtone (which his twin brother Kitsap DOES have). The sire (Teed's Montana) was, I was convinced, also light phase, but with a shocking coppery-red element - note the top of his cape / mane below (shines reflectively in the sunlight).
Here is Montana '05:

When Montana was bred to Esperanza, in 2006 she produced the twin lambs Chico '06 and Kitsap '06:

Chico'06 grew up to be a very nice light color (shown fall of 2007):

In a related line, Esperanza's mother Maria (almost identical phenotype to Experanza, had a light ewe in 2005, Frosty. Frosty, bred to Chico in 2006, gave a VERY light ewe lamb Saratoga. Here is Frosty '05 and Saratoga '07:

Compare the resulting coat colors when in a single image (fall 2007) you can see Esperanza, and Saratoga after some sun-lightening of her mature coat, and in addition Esperanza's 2007 lamb Molly, who in contrast has a self-colored dark sire, so shows a dark coat phenotype.
Unfortunately, Saratoga, (when mated to Chico this last fall) recently aborted her lamb at what looks like about 100 days or so. It was a tiny, very light ram lamb. Too bad.

I guess one other thing to point out in this "line" of Soays - not only are they the rarer light phase, and the relatively less common white spotting, they ALSO are polled ewes. Maria and Esperanza were both truly polled, Frosty, Saratoga, and Molly are all button scurred (so look polled from a distance.) That's a lot of homozygous recessive traits in one line! Now if I can just get self-colored too... just imagine a self-colored, light phase, white spotted, polled ewe... that's almost certainly never been done before in North America with Soays, and maybe never anywhere in the world! I'm probably a couple years from that.

Lastly, with digital photos where the camera tries to auto-expose, and often has a difficult time with very light or very dark animals mostly fill the frame, one can get mis-representative color renditions. One way to get relative coat color differences it to get several patterns in the same photo. Here is one from inside a shed yesterday, but showing a range of our flock coat colors.

In this photo you can see, from lower left to right, the VERY light new ram lamb Laramie, his fairly light, flat brown, low pheomelanin dam Esperanza, the hind end of the VERY heavy red-brown pheomelanin classic "doberman" phenotype from Blue Mountain, in Happy Valley Maddie, then a self-colored black Woodland Creek Olivia, and finally her '08 ewe lamb Madeline, sired by the light phase wild pattern Chico, shown above. Just look at the range of coat colors one can get. (Yes, I realize that when the majority of folks look at the flock they say "Aren't they all just brown?).

Our Best Black and White Soay Sheep Yet

2008-06-22T21:40:00.000-07:00

My "black and white" Soay sheep development got a big boost this morning. ("Black and White" means homozygous recessive for self-colored dark phase - solid black coat, but also homozygous recessive for white spotting, thus white spots on an otherwise solid black Soay). All my B&W Soays ewes are late lambing this year as my chosen B&W ram, Woodland Creek Chilcoot '07 (below) was born late (July 30) last year so was not mature enough to breed his chosen ewes until about mid-January of 2008.

Woodland Creek Chilcoot '07

(Blue Mountain Bunny X Woodland Creek Pepper).

Note that my hypothesis about how extensive white spotting will be in each generation, (developed from study of a Soay flock in Wales with extensive white spotting) is that it will be roughly additive of the parents white extent. For example, Chilcoot's sire was Woodland Creek Pepper '06 (see below) who has a nice white poll spot.

Woodland Creek Pepper '06

(Blue Mountain Thumper X Sound Soays Kvasir).

Both of Pepper's parents are self-colored blacks with just wisps of white at their poll.

So on to the good news. The good old grand dame of my Black and Whites, Blue Mountain Thumper (who heretofore had produced the most extensively white-spotted black Soay in North America - Thunder) was found out in a corner of the shed on 22-Jun-08 dutifully caring for my best effort yet - a beautifully white-spotted black ewe lamb (now named Athena). See below. Athena has - to the best of my knowledge - the most extensive white spotting of any self-colored black Soay every produced in North America, stealing the "crown", so to speak, from her 2001 half-sister Thunder. (Thunder died her first fall before ever lambing).

Woodland Creek Athena '08

(Blue Mountain Thumper '00 X Woodland Creek Chilcoot '07)

Athena has white in just the areas that I would have predicted. As the extent of white builds in successive generations, it (typically, not always) starts as a poll wisp, then a poll spot, then poll and forehead spots, then a blaze, then often a "necklace" or wisps at the neckline. Black is retained around the eyes (yeah, like a Panda), tip of nose, ears.

The other feature of the white, as I have seen before but is particularly noticeable with Athena's contrasting colors and extent of white, is the length of white hairs compared to black. The white hairs, at any given point, are easily twice as long as adjacent black hairs. On others I see this relative length difference diminsh somewhat as the sheep ages -- by their first fall the white is somewhat longer but not twice as long.

We still have more B&W ewes left to lamb here at Woodland Creek, so I can hardly wait to see what comes next!

Great Finale to the 2008 lambing season

2008-06-29T21:50:00.000-07:00

Our 2008 Soay sheep lambing season went out on a high note. Our last pregnant Black and White ewe, Teed's Cinnamon, was VERY pregnant--she was "udderly huge", so to speak. I was sure for the last 3 weeks that she was close to lambing. Finally Saturday evening I saw her off by herself. I watched her until 10 pm but no action (although clearly she was close). This morning (Sunday) at 5 AM I found her with her handywork. See Woodland Creek Yosemite - ram, below.

Woodland Creek Yosemite '08 - ram

Teed's Cinnamon X Woodland Creek Chilcoot

Yes, after our recently born Athena - this little ram is has the second-most white I've seen in a self-colored black Soay in North America. Cinnamon was our most white-spotted ewe. She has a poll spot, a forehead spot, and a small neck spot. So it was expected that she would give a good white-spotted lamb. (However last year her ram lamb Shoshone only had a few white hairs at his poll, so it doesn't always work precisely).

At any rate, after checking out the little ram Yosemite, I went to find out where he was born, and low and behold, there was a second lamb -but unfortunately it had never made it out of the birth sac. I could see it was another black and white, so I cleaned it up and photographed him (he was a little ram). He was a beautiful little guy too. I named him Sam, for the records.

Woodland Creek Sam - stillborn twin ram

Sam would have been the 3rd most extensively white-spotted self-black Soay (although admittedly only slightly more white than Thunder '01, good old Blue Mountain Thumper's very first lamb.

So more of the good news is that I needed a good B&W ram for this fall to keep spreading the white. Even better, this ram is out of a Tracy Teed ewe, so this brings some new blood to what had previously been a bit overloaded to the Thumper line.