2011 Lambing Results

Our scaled- back flock gave us a much more manageable crop of lambs this year. We ended up with ten lambs - 6 rams and 4 ewes. Only one set of twins, and quite a few ewes that did not lamb - both due to yearling ewes and yearling rams. A few high points with the lambs, but all In all not the results I had hoped for.

A brief recitation of our 2011 goals and results.
First, we did get the first two registrable full RBST (so-called "British") Soay lambs here at Woodland Creek. This group is actually testing my thinking on how extensive white spotting is inherited in Soay sheep. The ram, Saltmarsh Alston (RBST), has extensive white spotting.

Saltmarsh Alston

While none of the ewes he was mated with showed white spotting, I wanted to get some lambs carrying a copy of his white spotting (as well as producing our first RBST Soays here at WCF). Alston produced ewe lamb singles with our two RBST ewes, and a ram lamb with a 50% RBST ewe. Only one of the lambs had white spotting - and that only a tiny white wisp of white at her poll. Unfortunately this same ewe lamb later got her head stuck through the fence overnight and coyotes on the outside of the fence got her. (Ugh!).
It did demonstrate, however, that the dam carries a copy of white spotting gene, which had not yet shown up in any of her previous lambs. The dam is light phase, and so was the lamb, to my surprise, meaning that Alston also carries light phase (that is, he is BB/Bb).
Our second breeding group is the "Self-colored Light Phase", or SCLP group (the coat color that Kate Montgomery at Blue Mountain dubbed "chocolate"). Having one SCLP ram (Blue Mountain Express) and one SCLP ewe (Blue Mountain Cocoa) "assured" that we would have more SCLP lamb(s), however, for some reason Cocoa did not get pregnant. Both Express and Cocoa have produced offspring, so that's not the problem. It could be a size mis-match. Cocoa is quite large, and Express not.

Blue Mountain Express

He was also penned with "half-SCLP" ewes - ones that in prior years were produced by mating dark-self  with light-wild. This HAS to produce offspring that look dark-self, but genetically are A+/Aa and BB/Bb, which then should have exactly 25% odds of each of the 4 possible genotypes when mated with Express as an SCLP ram (Aa/Aa, Bb/Bb, SS/S?). Mated with Woodland Creek Molly, a half-SCLP, she produced a dark-self ram lamb, "Mikey". A very nice ram lamb, but just a solid black with no spotting. He will be retained as a "backup" ram since he has to be Aa/Aa, BB/Bb, that is a "3/4 SCLP". An interesting ram lamb phenotype was produced with the dam Skylonda Imagine. She almost certainly does NOT carry self-colored gene, so the lamb HAD to be wild pattern, but also had to be light phase. The ram lamb, Ish, has such a faint wild pattern marking as to almost appear to be self-colored (but he's not). He too has to be "3/4 SCLP" (A+/Aa, Bb/Bb) and will also be retained both as backup and to see how his coat colors develop.

Woodland Creek Ish (Express X Imagine)

The other yearling ewe lambs from last year that were intentionally "3/4 SCLP", each of whom would have a 50% chance of producing SCLP with Express, were not large enough / mature enough to get pregnant, so no SCLP Soays produced this year at Woodland Creek.
The third (and final) breeding group was our "Black and Whites", or "B&W". That is, adding white spotting to dark-self. This year we took a step back in extending white spotting and instead chose a ram with less white, but better conformation. I am convinced that by too narrowly using closely related parents I had achieved pretty poor conformation, so wanted to diversify and improve that this year. The B&W used ram was Woodland Creek Lightning, who has a poll, forehead, and neck splash of white.

Woodland Creek Lightning '10 (Yosemite X Nisqually)

Lightning produced 4 lambs with 3 B&W ewes (one set of twins). Since all parents were Aa/Aa, BB/BB?, Ss/Ss, all offspring are also B&W. We had one nicely marked ram lamb, Rowdy.

Woodland Creek Rowdy '11 (Lightning X Raven)

The twin B&W lambs, a ram and a ewe, were both moderately marked with somewhat unusual smaller, dispersed bits of white around the poll, forehead, and neck. This is actually the "pattern" of white shown by the dam, Teed's Cinnamon.

Domino - ram and Caldera - ewe '11 (Lightning X Cinnamon)

All these B&W lambs had about the extent of white spotting that I expected / hoped for, but the last B&W lamb contradicted my theories. This ram lamb, born to our most extensively white-spotted ewe Athena, had only the tiniest of a white wisp at his poll. I guess this shows that the extent of white spotting is not exactly predictable or quantitative (and probably that my theory needs refinement(s)).

Ansel '11 (Lightning x Athena)

I'll close this posting with an overview of our assortment of mature rams, showing the diversity of genotypes and phenotypes we have in our flock.

Woodland Creek Farm Ram Assortment

Virtually every combination of Soay coat pattern, color phase, and white spotting is present somewhere in this photo! (Well not every combo, as that would be 2^3 = 8...but you get the idea).

2011 Soay Lambs at Woodland Creek

While we already have some 2011 lambs already on the ground, the arrival yesterday was one of my favorites and long-time breeding goals - the "black-and-white" (B&W) Soay sheep. I have always liked white spotting on self-colored dark phase (solid black) Soays. After seeking and obtaining self-colored Soays with tiny white poll markings early in my Soay years, I have been increasing the extent of the white spotting in each succeeding generation. Here is yesterday's lamb (a ram) to Woodland Creek Raven '07, by first-time sire Woodland Creek Lightning '09 :

Woodland Creek Rowdy '10 - Raven's "Black-and-White" ram lamb

The bad thing about B&W Soays is that they are hard to photograph, especially new lambs as they are like black holes - the fresh, often wet black hair barely returns any light, and most digital cameras have algorithms that attempt to balance the overall photo to medium gray tones...but I digress. Here is the new lamb with his dam. You can see that she only has a small poll white spot (the white hair on her nose is age-white, not white spotting gene).

Raven '07 and Rowdy '11 - her B&W ram lamb

Here is the sire - you can see that he has less white than his first lamb, the ram above.

Woodland Creek Lightning '10

As for our other 2011 lambs, we did have another nice "3/4" Self-colored Light phase (SCLP) lamb. Like last year, Skylonda Imagine (a light-wild ewe) was bred to the SCLP ram Express. As before, the resulting lambs express the dominant wild pattern, but (I believe) because they also carry a copy of the self-colored gene recessive, the pattern is very "muted". That is to say, when the lambs are new and wet I almost always think they are self-colored light phase, as the wild pattern is so indistinct. Here is a photo of Imagine's 2011 ram lamb, Ish (click on photo to enlarge and see detail - note the uniformity of coloring on the top of the nose, at the chin, and on his legs).

Woodland Creek Ish '11 - Imagine X Express

I will be saving this ram lamb in reserve in case I need a fallback for producing more self-colored light phase Soays.

Lambing for final light-wild Skylonda Soay ewe at Woodland Creek

Saturday the last of the four light-wild Soay ewes from Skylonda finally lambed. As with the others, the sire was the self-light ram Express. Another ewe! That makes four ewes and only one ram. All will be what I call "3/4 SCLP" - that is, all are homozygous for light phase, and heterozygous for self-colored. As such each has a 50:50 chance, mated to a self-light ram, of producing more self-light Soays. This is as good of odds as there have been for a long time!

Skylonda Ginger and Dam Skylonda Geege

Only 3 or 4 more ewes to lamb this year. One for sure, the others may not be pregnant. With 17 live lambs on the ground, I don't need too many more this year!

Two new lambs and a stroke of luck

Two more light-phase Skylonda ewes lambed last week. Each had a single, one a ewe and one a ram. With Blue Mountain Express as sire (self-colored light phase) the lambs HAD to be light phase, and as neither ewe was likely to be carrying self-colored gene, the lambs were both light-wild pattern.

Skylonda Indigo '10 - ewe with dam Skylonda Imagine

Skylonda Escalante '10 - ram with Dam Skylonda Georgianna

My stroke of luck was this. I have the entire ewe and lamb flock accessing the far paddock way up our back hill - which I cannot see from the house and yard. After coming home from work I decided I had better traipse up there and check on one ewe that is close to lambing. After watching them all a while, I spot the lamb Indigo acting funny, then realize that in fact she is stuck. Stuck in the fork of a twin-trunk hawthorne sapling! She had apparently launched herself through the gap, and after getting her shoulders through, wedged just ahead of her hips, with her back feet an inch off the ground. Stuck for who knows how long. And these Skylonda lambs don't cry out much, nor did the dam seem concerned at all. I rescued her and she did not seem stiff or cold, so after a bit of massage she ran to mom and started suckling, so I guess no damage done. Here is the "lamb snare" hawthorne, with a "re-creation" of the stuck lamb using my gloves.

I would have never thought of this (never did, obviously) as a risk. Since I don't count heads every day, and had to work the next couple days, it is likely the lamb would have expired had I not, by chance, decided to go up and visit.
Naturally, the one trunk of the hawthorne was removed to eliminate the hazard. The ewes enjoyed getting their revenge on the "almost killer" hawthorne.

Ten to Fourteen...

Wow - Thursday noon to Saturday noon we had 5 more Soay lambs at Woodland Creek. Each one was something different, genetically. First, on Thursday afternoon one of our "half SCLP" ewes, (A+/Aa, BB/Bb), Chinook, had a little ram. As the odds would predict, it was a dark-wild, and as our luck has been going, a ram to boot.

Woodland Creek Trout- ram  Chinook X Sequoyah

Later that same day we had a "double-first". It was the first ewe that we received from the Skylonda flock dispersal, and also the first RBST Soay that has ever lambed at Woodland Creek. Oh yeah, since the sire was Blue Mountain Express, perhaps the only self-light Soay in North America, maybe a triple-first. At any rate, since there are no self-colored RBST in North America (unless more recent AI efforts have introduced it), the lamb had to be wild pattern, and 50:50 odds for light or dark (Since the dam USA0002 Gwen has to have a copy of the recessive light phase from her dam Celcius). Alas, the RAM was/is dark phase. Cute enough, not special in our flock.

Skylonda Muskrat '10 - ram

 Friday morning, another "Black & White" ewe, Cedarbrook Nisqually, lambed. Unfortunately, ANOTHER ram... but nicely marked.

Woodland Creek Lightning '10 ram

Lightning (guess why the name!) has a nice extension of white spotting compared to this dam Nisqually, but less than his sire Yosemite. Too many B&W rams now!
The real excitement, however, was saved for Saturday. Not only did I obtain my first RBST Soay from Jen Bailey at Skylonda when she dispersed her flock, but she also graced me with many light phase Soays. So the only light-phase RBST Soay that we have at Woodland Creek, USA0002 Fiona, rather suddenly swelled up and decided to lamb.
For my viewing pleasure, she did it mid-day on a Saturday, so I got to observe (and videotape!) the entire birth.
The best part is that she gave birth to twins. Not that uncommon with Soay, but pretty rare at Woodland Creek! We have only had one successful twin live birth here in 5 years and about 65 lambings.
Given that Fiona was light phase, and the sire Blue Mountain Express was also homozygous for recessive light phase, the lambs HAD to be light phase. Since there is no evidence of self-colored in the "legacy" RBST Soay in NA, the lambs had to be wild pattern. Sure enough, they were.

Skylonda Zillah '10 - ewe and Skylonda Trillium '10 - ewe

Dam USA0002 Fiona and Sire Blue Mountain Express

Express, the sire of lambs above.

Blue Mountain Express '08 - self-light NA Soay ram

We should have a breather now for a while before the last 8 or 10 ewes lamb.

Number 9, number 9, number 9...

Our ninth lamb of this year was already up and dry by daylight this morning. One of our "black and whites", and a good outcome at that. Here is little Woodland Creek Rascal, a ram lamb out of WC Raven and WC Yosemite, both B&Ws.

Woodland Creek Rascal '10 ram

He has almost the same extent of white spotting as his lamb-mates this year, Bandit and the unborn lamb of Thumper's. Very nice result. (Although we are getting a bit overloaded with B&W rams...)

Lambing update - Self-colored Light phase

We had our 6th lamb a few days ago - a "Black and White". Disappointly little white, given the parents (WC Yosemite and WC Anasazi). The ewe lamb (Ash) has only a "twink" of white (as Kate Montgomery called it).

Woodland Creek Ash '10 ewe

But today we had two more lambs-these from our line attempting to produce the very rare self-colored light phase (self-light for short) NA Soay. Given the non-existence of these in North America in previous years, I had been working toward creating some. One route to this is to breed self-dark (i.e., solid black) Soays with light-wild Soays. Given that the self-colored parent MUST contribute the recessive Aa, and the light phase parent MUST contribute a recessive Bb, the offspring MUST have at least one copy of each of these. In 2008 I did a number of these breedings, and produced 4 ewes and 2 rams of this genotype A+/Aa, BB/Bb. Of course they all look just like "regular" Soays - all dark-wild. But breedings of these genotypes have a small, but finite, probability of producing the elusive self-light.
Of course the odds are not that good. Below is a table showing the possibilities for mating two "half-SCLP" Soays.

 

You can see that when I bred my four "1/2 SCLP" ewes last fall to a "1/2 SCLP" ram, there was only a 1/16th, or 6% chance of a SCLP. Well, today two of those 4 ewes lambed, and for a moment I was convinced I had hit the jackpot with one. Check out Tahkenitch's ram lamb.

Tahkenitch's ram lamb '10

When I saw the uniformity of color on the legs, belly and under the tail i thought we had gotten very lucky. Closer inpection, though, revealed the telltale light spots around eyes, under chin, and inside ears. Alas, he is not self-colored. He does, of course, have white spotting as both his dam and sire (Sequoyah) do as well.

The second lamb was, as the odds would have suggested, also phenotypically a dark-wild pattern.

Molly's ram lamb '10

A nice enough lamb, but not what I was hoping for! Note that the trouble with breeding for SCLP in this manner is that the genotype of the lambs, for the great majority, will be unknown. Mostly one will get dark-wild lambs with unknown genes for the second allele at both agouti and brown locus, so they can't really be used to further the cause for SCLP. This particular breedign goal may be a hopeless endeavor given the flock size I can realisticall maintain. Given that I have (and can keep alive!) some actual SCLPs, I have a "sure" thing for next year, and very good odds with the SCLP ram as sire, so I will probably go that route.